Updated Wednesday, March 18, 2009, 04:42 am EST
Home page of the new seattlepi.com: from print to pixels “seattlepi.com assumes venerable legacy”
Pages from the commemorative/souvenir edition, the last in print for the Seattle P-I. Noticeable headline: “Last deadline cuts like a knife”
1930s and 1940s: Chronicling the Great Depression and the War
Farewell page reminds readers of the P-I’s strong legacy of public service: “Years of investigative work gave voice to the powerless”
I turn my attention to today’s edition of the P-I, which stopped printing yesterday, and read it online. Joel Connelly’s catches my attention immediately, since he asks a question that many will be asking today and for weeks to come: Can Seattle’s oldest newspaper be successfully transformed into a child of the information age?
Here is an excerpt:
If the stars align properly and with a quality product, Seattle will show the way to a new model for journalism of the written word.
This vital corner of America is the right place to give it a go. We’ve felt layoffs, but still develop technologies that the world wants. We read more books per capita, and see more flicks, than anyplace else in the country.Thousands of Seattlites will miss their morning “fish wrapper.” But as other newspapers saw fewer web “hits” after the November election, the P-I website has climbed close to the three million mark.
It is not only Seattlites who will be reading their newspaper online. A lot of us in this business will follow it as well in the weeks and months to come. It will be fascinating to see how journalists adapt to the “online only” formula of telling stories. What will they miss? More importantly, what will they learn that the rest of us can also profit from: from styles of writing to visual and multimedia enhancements for stories. We eagerly await the result of this laboratory. We wish seattlepi.com tons of luck.
For complete Connelly column:
http://www.seattlepi.com/connelly/403914_joel18.html
A newspaper’s own obituary
As part of its final edition, the Seattle Post-Intellingcer published a commemorative edition, telling its own history, with highlights for every decade since its founding in 1863.
Last front page of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Recent front pages of the P-I
My 79-year-old mother remarked to me recently when I visited her in Miami: It seems that I attend two funerals a month for friends or people I know. It is not fun.
As Kelly Frankeny , a Garcia Media Creative Director, sent me the sad news of the closing today of the Seattle Post-Intellingencer, I could understand my mom a little bit. We are presiding over the death of too many newspapers, while we watch others sit in a sort of hospice, waiting for the end.
For Kelly, this was a particularly painful moment, as she was involved in a redesign of the P-I:
Today was the last edition of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (I redesigned this paper in 1999-2000). Sad day. Here is their front page and some links to stories. Nice that they used their icon, the giant globe that spins on the top of their building, for the front of the commemorative section. They say, they are still keeping it on the building in which they will still publish a website. Interesting. By the way, this is the newspaper in which we placed the globe (for the first time) in the flag and everyone in all of the redesign focus groups (loyal readers and occasional readers) swore it was always there!! Funny.. They used it since 2000 in their flag. From what I can see around Feb. 9 of this year, they moved the globe down to their promo box. The P-I staff was a great group of very talented word and visual journalists and my heart goes out to those who have lost their jobs.
I join you in expressing the same feelings. The P-I was one of those newspapers where good visuals, attractively designed pages, and excellent applications of the WED (Writing/Editing/Design) concept were part of its daily operation.
A few weeks ago, when the Rocky Mountain News published its last edition, the front page headline read: Goodbye, Colorado.
The P-I’s final headline, a message to its readers: You”ve meant the world to us.
Newspapers that are going strong
In a way, I am lucky to have spent the past few weeks on the road, witnessing and lamenting the death of two newspapers while sitting in the newsrooms of newspapers where the printed product thrives: in Kenya (The Nation), in Paris (L’Equipe) and now in Dubai, Gulf News. There is no talk at all about these newspapers disappearing, and I am thankful for that.
However, and perhaps it is the fact that I had just received the news about the closing of the Seattle P-I, but when one of my meetings required that I pass through the gigantic printing press here at the Gulf News of Dubai, it was the first time that I passed the marvelous machine that is a newspaper printing maching, and saw it as an artifact of the past. Too big. Too cumbersome. The giant rolls of paper lying by the side, waiting to get bathed in ink. The sound of paper passing through the cylinders.
A defining moment for me in the press room
It was a 40-second moment that was defining for me. I took one good look at that shiny press of the Gulf News, still vibrant and ready to churn out thousands of pages daily. But I felt that I was looking at history. Yet, as always happens, the smell of paper and ink in that press room made me remember why I am in this business. To think that there will be future generations of storytellers who will never sample it.
However, not one to lament for too long (if at all), I try to push myself to think positively and, whenever possible, to celebrate. After the brief sad moment between me and the printing press, I told myself: Hey, snap out of it. You trained to be a storyteller. There is no better time to tell stories, regardless of the platform. Look, you write a daily blog, in which you are reporter, editor, designer. Go write a blog about your experience here.
So I did.
The following links take you to articles related to the closing of the Seattle P-I
For complete New York Times article
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/17/business/media/17paper.html?_r=1&ref=media
Seattle Paper Shifts Entirely to the Web (NYT)
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer will produce its last printed edition on Tuesday and become an Internet-only news source. The new P-I site will resemble a local Huffington Post more than a traditional newspaper, with a news staff of about 20 people.
FT: The death of a modern newspaper is a real-time, multimedia event.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d00f013a-1261-11de-b816-0000779fd2ac.html
WSJ: For Hearst, the online-only P-I provides a laboratory to test new ideas for its 16-paper chain, which includes the Houston Chronicle and the San Francisco Chronicle.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123722313512843963.html
Slate: Jack Shafer considers what sort of news site the surviving SeattlePI.com might become.
http://www.slate.com/id/2213883/
E&P: The Web-only operation will stay in its current headquarters on the Seattle waterfront with the signature globe spinning overhead.
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003951979
Mario Garcia Jr. discusses online navigation
Go here:
Is top navigation still necessary on news sites?
http://garciainteractive.com/blog/view/37/
:
To read TheRodrigoFino blog, in Spanish, go:
https://garciamedia.com/latinamerica/blog/
TheMarioBlog posting #218