It’s now a regular exercise where we report the demise of another respected, long-standing, print media outfit and while news that the Hearst Corporation-owned The Seattle Post-Intelligencer will likely to turn into a Web-only enterprise does not fall into that exercise, it’s another indication of a wildly-changing news industry.
It’s also another reminder of how disappearing and changes in news coverage could affect local government — if scrutiny fades, if the watchdogs aren’t getting paid, how will we know if our town governors are doing what we elected them to do? Note that this blog falls under the “sustainability” column, because, of course, newspapers are not always acknowledged as vital components of sustainable communities.
And this quote, from Post-Intelligencer reporter Jon Naito, basically sums up the probable future of print-turned-online media:
“We knew it was going to be a small team…It looks like the site’s going to be blog-heavy and link-heavy, with a couple breaking-news reporters.
These days, that’s a business model.
