Friday, January 09, 2009

Post-Post Intelligencer

Could this be the end of a giant Hearst news organization? Could this be a sign of things to come? This would be truly historic if it was true. William Hearst, who began his career by injecting his family fortune into the New York Journal in order to compete with self-made millionaire Joseph Pulitzer and the New York World, is not-too-kindly remembered as the man who made the Spanish-American war "his war."

So enraptured was Hearst with sensationalizing the war for his own profit, that he personally traveled to Cuba to help cover the fighting. During one battle, he was known to have ignored his assistant who was wounded as he excitedly wrote his version of the conflict.

What does this have to do with the possibility, as reported in Seattle media, that the Seattle Post-Intelligencer may stop its presses? Only that Hearst established the P-I as first significant paper in Seattle. Hearst's legacy, being started with an inherited fortune, is finally starting to crumble a century later.

For a view of Hearst's other legacy (his castle), take a peek at this site.

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Blogger Robert Marshall Murphy said...

It's time for newspapers to change or die. We can all go to Google News and Google Maps for free and with greater alacrity than we can buy a newspaper. If they want to survive, they need to become more local than any chain can every be. The idiots who run these things are clueless, as the MN Star-Trib episode demoting Lilecks showed.

Did you notice, Mark, that they said if they can't sell the P-I, they'll still leave it in online form only?

6:57 AM, January 10, 2009  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yes, I heard there was a possibility they would try online. It seems pointless if you ask me. You are right about the localization being important.

In the PI's case, I'm not sure. It sounds a bit like they did a pretty good job of covering some areas that didn't typically get covered. However, the general rule still probably hold since it was just a matter of time before the efficiency-minded Hearst decided to give it the axe (due to the Times' presence in the market).

10:08 AM, January 12, 2009  

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