Seattle Newspaper Stops the Presses to Go All-Digital

On March 17, 2009, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper (SPI) became the largest American newspaper to shift from a printed product into a web-only news source. The decision came after Hearst Corporation, which owns SPI and put it up for sale in January after sustained financial losses, reported that it had failed to find a buyer for the newspaper. The sector is being watched closely to see if this approach will be followed in an industry in which both advertising revenue and circulation has fallen, as readers migrate to free news available online. Some of the effects of these challenges have become clear. Earlier this year, Denver also lost one of its two daily newspapers, the Rocky Mountain News, while the corporations that own four other newspapers, including the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, and the Philadelphia Inquirer, have all sought bankruptcy protection. While a shift in the SPI business model will ensure its continued presence in the Seattle news market in the short run, the question remains whether SPI can be profitable in a medium in which others have fallen short. For more information, visit: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/17/business/media/17paper.html?_r=2; http://money.cnn.com/2009/03/16/news/companies/Seattle_PI/; and http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29745635/#storyContinued To sample SPI's online newspaper, visit: http://www.seattlepi.com/ Summary by: Nicholas Wong