As a former print reporter who has a lot of friends at the paper, it’s a sad day for people who’ve lost their jobs at arguably one of the worst times to be out of work in the past few decades. For what it’s worth, it’s also the end of a freelance gig for Doree, who’s written features for the paper’s Friday family page for the past several years.
Here’s to hoping the 20 people remaining to staff Seattlepi.com can find a way to keep post-newspaper journalism vibrant and maybe hire back some of the 150 employees who didn’t make the online team. Someone has to figure it out as this could only be a step in Seattle becoming a no-newspaper town, given the financial straits The Seattle Times is in.
While many “traditional” news companies are looking at hyper-local sites like ours to gain insights into a sustainable new business model, it’d be nice to have the backstop of someone fulfilling that traditional role of comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable, to paraphrase the quote.
So it is on that note that we say goodbye, Seattle P-I, and good luck, seattlepi.com.
