What it looks like when a newsroom dies

by mtippett | January 12, 2009 at 03:03 pm

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Like many people in the news business, I was stunned to hear about how quickly things will likely unravel at the Seattle P-I. As a paper that has been publishing for over 100 years the news of it's unlikely sale must have been even more shocking for those in the newsroom. Here are cartoonist David Horsey's thoughts.

there was also no longer any reason to keep losing money by keeping the P-I afloat. On Friday, this all became terribly clear when the P-I was put up for sale with the expectation there would be no buyers. Barring some utterly unlikely turn of events, the Post-Intelligencer will cease publication in 60 days. I hope the Times will survive. But, given the state of the newspaper business, it is entirely possible there will soon be several cities without daily newspapers and Seattle could be one of them.
...I'll be writing more about this possible metamorphosis of the veneralbe P-I brand. For now, though, I want to simply mark this moment.

And if you want to know exactly what it looks like when a newsroom dies, the staff was addressed in what became a videotaped meeting to learn the details. The video is quite extraordinary and already takes on the quality of an historical moment.