Our take on the Seattle P-I

Hearst announced today that it's putting the Seattle Post-Intelligencer up for sale. If no buyer is found in 60 days, the newspaper will either cease operations or move entirely online. Whatever happens, it looks like a lot of good journalists will be losing jobs.

It's a sad day for us here at TechFlash. As many of you know, Todd and I spent a good portion of our careers at the P-I. We still have many friends in the newsroom and plenty of good memories of the place. (Ask us some time about the party at Buckley's tavern.)

The story of the P-I is one that is becoming all too familiar as the media landscape rapidly transforms. It's a story driven primarily by younger readers who are more comfortable consuming news on a variety of high-tech gadgets than they are in printed form. Craigslist also has something to do with it.

But what's surprising to us -- and to some of our reporter friends who work under the globe -- is that Hearst decided to make the move when it did. After all, The Seattle Times -- which is in a complex joint operating agreement with the P-I -- is sitting on unstable ground.

The view of many P-I staffers over the years -- one shared by us -- is that Hearst was simply playing a waiting game as it positioned itself to buy The Times. The newspaper giant had done much the same thing in San Francisco and, with its deep pockets, it could weather an economic downtown better than the debt-ridden Times.

"I'm blown away by the news. It had seemed to me that the Times was in far more precarious situation than the P-I. Hard to know what is going on," one former P-I reporter said via email last night.

That was the logic, at least. And that's why so many P-I staffers are shocked by today's news.

"Awful. Angry. Depressed. Stunned," were the four words P-I reporter Mike Lewis used when asked to describe how he was feeling after the news was announced internally today following a report by KING 5 last night.

The P-I has been around in various forms since 1863, making it one of the oldest businesses in the city. It has survived dozens of ups and downs over the years.

Could this be its final dance? It's too early to say. The bigger questions are whether Hearst is doing some behind-the-scenes dealing, and whether the P-I could sustain itself as an online-only operation.

Obviously, we're big believers in the power of online media. We know it is still an experiment in many ways, but given the rocky state of the daily newspaper business, we've always asked ourselves: "What's to lose?"

Anyway, we don't think the last chapter has been written in this story. The timing is truly bizarre. What the P-I needs now is a white knight to emerge from the Seattle tech community. A savior. Someone with gobs of money who doesn't mind losing some of it.

What's Paul Allen doing these days?

UPDATED: Here's Greg Lamm's report on the situation at the P-I, which includes comments from environmental reporter Robert McClure and Newspaper Guild officer Liz Brown. “It’s entirely possible that Hearst may be just tired of losing money in Seattle,” Brown said.

UPDATED: Peter Kafka of All Things Digital says that the P-I can't make it as an online only venture, pointing to its 2.5 million unique visitors per month.

UPDATED: Steve Swartz, president of Hearst's newspaper division, delivers the unpleasant news to staffers of the P-I as managing editor David McCumber looks on. "This is a very painful decision for us," Swartz says.