Newspapers: To be or not to be?

I am dedicating this week's blog posting to The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, my hometown newspaper, which is threatened with closure as I write this blog. Well, to be honest, Port Townsend is technically my hometown, and its paper is The Leader. But the Seattle P-I was the paper my family read on Sundays and our link to the nearest metropolis. Although I now work in public radio, my inroad to journalism was newspapers -- and the P-I played a major role in shaping my world view. 

Founded in 1863, The P-I is essential to the fabric of Seattle. If you've lived there, when you think of the P-I, you can't help but think of the giant revolving globe, atop the shiny P-I building, sandwiched between Elliott Avenue and the waterfront. The globe is a landmark and touchstone. The 18.5 ton revolving sculpture with the slogan, 'It's in the P-I' across the equator came to symbolize a connection to the greater world for me and I'm sure for other Seattleites. Now that connection, as I have always known it, is threatened. The P-I is up for sale and the Hearst Corporation says they'll shutter the paper if a buyer is not found in the next few weeks.

My father was a working-class guy. He didn't graduate from high school and he wasn't a big reader. But everyday after long hours of work at the local naval base, he would come home, brew cup of Red Rose tea and read the paper. On Sundays this was an all-morning affair. There was always a newspaper to be found. And when our minds were full of the day's stories the newsprint made good fire starter for the only source of heat in our rural island home, a wood stove. 

That fire starter could soon be a thing of the past, but I hope the P-I won't There is a chance that the paper could go completely online and abandon its print edition. I know that whatever happens with the P-I, it will not be easy, and it could get messy -- especially for the nearly 200 employees of the newspaper. But perhaps the P-I will be one of the first newspapers to abandon their print edition and forge onto the new media frontier?

It's not just my sentimentality that makes me pine for some version of the P-I to stick around. As I paid my dues in newsrooms throughout Seattle, pulling stories for rewrites at KUOW, KPLU, NWCN and at KING5 TV, I quickly realized the paper was a cornerstone on which the city's newscasts were built. Whether or not the P-I can transform itself is yet to be seen. And the big question is, if it's not in the P-I ... then were will it be?