Another paper says goodbye

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer announced yesterday that it will stop printing newspapers and will publish news only on the internet. The Post-Inelligencer first published its paper in 1863.

This paper chronicled Seattle's evolution from frontier town to major metropolitan city for 146 years. It has been read at the breakfast table for the last time. The morning coffee will never be spilt on it again.

Starting today, readers of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer will scroll instead of turn.

This move is in response to declining ad revenue, an uncertain future for daily papers and internet growth. The paper has been for sale since January, and has been losing money for several years. It appears the current recession was the final nail in the coffin.

"We've had fewer sacred cows and more gore-able oxen than any newspaper in the Northwest," said Post-Intelligencer columnist Joel Connelly in describing his fellow writers of the paper.

The paper is the second major daily to close shop this year, the first being Denver's The Rocky Mountain News. This Saturday, The Tuscon Citizen is set to shut down. The Hearst Corp., owner of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and hundreds of smaller papers around the country, said it will close or sell the San Francisco Chronicle if it is unable to cut costs. Where the Post-Intelligencer differs, is that it will continue an online version where The Rocky Mountain News and others closed up shop completely.

Papers rely on advertising for 90 percent of their revenue (give or take). But advertisers are flocking to the much cheaper internet. The internet doesn't have to buy costly ink and paper. It doesn't have to print and ship 100,000 papers every day. Editors just have to copy, paste and post. Internet versions of papers get fewer readers, but the reduced cost makes the internet a far better advertising medium.

Newspaper corporations have been trying to figure out how to make money off the internet for 15 years. Ideas on subscriptions, ad space and everything in between have been tried with little success. The daily paper was always the focus and moneymaker, and the internet was a bonus. Newspapers are unable to charge print advertising prices for web advertising for competitive reasons.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is going to act as a guinea pig for every other newspaper in the world.

It is by far the largest daily paper to move to a solely online edition. What it does over the next few years and how it succeeds and fails will be the most closely watched and studied aspect of journalism for decades.

The death of the newspaper is a major fear among the older generation of journalists. A story is considered superior in print vs. internet, even though the words are identical.

This idea is based out of how the two are read. People read the newspaper as they wake up in the morning. They sit in their robes and sip coffee as they casually stroll through this present left each morning on the front porch. They discuss interesting stories with whoever is in the room as the sun slowly brightens up each word more and more.

The internet is none of these things. It is new, cold and unfriendly. It is read in isolation at a desk in uncomfortable clothing. There is no sun, only pixels.

Editors around the world are dying for a solution to save the newspaper. Perhaps the Seattle Post-Intelligencer will provide the answer.