As Cities Go From Two Papers to One, Talk of Zero
For Papers, a Downsizing Trickle Becomes a Flood
The history of The Seattle Post-Intelligencer stretches back more than two decades before Washington became a state, but after 146 years of publishing, the paper is expected to print its last issue next week, perhaps surviving only in a much smaller online version.
And it is not alone. The Rocky Mountain News shut down two weeks ago, and The Tucson Citizen is expected to fold next week.
At least Denver, Seattle and Tucson still have daily ...
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It distresses me to see the demise of newspapers. I cannot imagine the Bay Area without the San Francisco Chronicle. Up where I live, the Times-Standard, a daily that has 22,000 subscribers and a member of the MediaNews Group family, faced competition that folded. While I was the T-S's city editor we enjoyed the competition with the other paper, The Eureka Reporter. In a sense we are glad they failed. But in a much larger sense I miss them and I mourn for the young staff that had nowhere to go when the Reporter died. I also enjoyed being one of the few communities in the nation that was a two-newspaper town. I think more attention should be given to the corporations that own newspapers and what their roles have been in their demise. I would also like to see a companion piece that looks at the demise of United Press International, where I worked for 27 years, and the Associated Press, which is facing its own problems. The wire services depend on newspapers and radio and television clients.