When firing employees sometimes rivalry is created. Seattle P-I is facing this circumstance since they have gone web only and had to fire many employees. More than a dozen of their former employees have joined together to create a website called SeattlePostGlobe.org. This is a Seattle-focused site that will report politics and sports scores. They also have several media partners.
The Seattle Weekly is helping find advertising for the Post-Globe and the local TV station is providing them with office space and cash. As of right now, the Post-Globe writers are working for free.
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer (aka Seattle PI) is printing their last issue tomorrow and going online exclusively. The newspaper company will go from a staff of about 20 people rather than the 165 that they had. It will become like a Huffington Post style paper where they link to other news stories and provide some commentary.
The Seattle PI has hired some government officials to write columns and blogs. There will also be a large number of unpaid content on the site. It won’t compete as much against The Seattle Times, another local newspaper anymore. Hearst, the parent company of Seattle PI hopes that they will be able to capitalize from the traffic that the website already has. The PI already beats The Seattle Times in online traffic.
According to Hearst, the Seattle PI lost $14 million last year. “We clearly believe we are in a period of innovation and experimentation, and that’s what this new SeattlePI.com represents,” stated Steven R. Swartz, Hearst’s President of the newspaper division. “We think we’ll learn a lot, and we think the Seattle market, being so digitally focused, is a great place to try this.”
Some of the new columnists include former Seattle mayor Norm Rice and his wife Constance, congressman Jim McDermott, and Maria Goodloe-Johnson.
Todd Bishop and John Cook are both well known journalists. Both were working at Seattlepi.com up until recently when they both quit and joined the Puget Sound Business Journal. John will be covering startups, entrepreneurship, and VC deals. Todd will continue to cover all things Microsoft related. Eric Engleman of the Puget Sound Business Journal will be assisting with Cook and Bishop’s new site.
They haven’t come up with a name yet, but they aim to become the “leading tech news source” in the Pacific Northwest. John and Todd both have Twitter accounts where they are giving updates about their new venture. This is a big loss for seattlepi.com as Bishop was doing a great job on covering Microsoft and other Seattle-based startup companies for them.
“Todd Bishop has left the Seattle P-I,” wrote Business Editor Margaret Santjer. “While we are making a transition on the Microsoft beat, you will see
interim guest posts on this blog.” It’ll be hard to replace Bishop, but it’s a good thing that Seattle is chock-full of tech geeks.
