Farewell, Dear P-I

Our newspaper, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer will print its last paper edition tomorrow after 146 years of publication. I can’t express how sad this makes me feel. This paper has been the voice and historical record of a community for longer than any of us has been alive.

The P-I will continue online. For a paper with less than 120,000 print subscribers it ranks in the top 30 online newspaper venues in the country. They will be enhancing the online presence of course. Can they make it profitable? Only time will tell.

I am sad for all the people who lost their jobs. Where are those people going to find newspaper jobs these days? Only 20 of 180 newsroom staff members were retained to work on the web version. They hired 20 new sales staff for the web.

It is true that the P-I is not Seattle’s only major newspaper. The Seattle Times remains ... for now. Our subscription will be automatically switched over to the Times on Wednesday. But of course the Times is not the P-I.

Tomorrow’s last P-I will be a very special commemorative issue. They are promising 20 to 24 pages of photos and stories on the P-I’s 146-year history. We live in a large apartment complex and the paper comes to our door out in the hallway. Walter is planning to get up extra early to bring in our paper tomorrow so no one steals it before we can get to it. We will be saving that issue.