March 17, 2009

There is no joy in Mudville


The last issue of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer landed on my doorstep today.

It's a sad day for those 170 journalists' comrades, for Seattle, for a free and diverse press. Hearst, long a symbol of American newspapering, chose to forget its legacy and treat its employees like dirt.

It is not a graceful departure.

But after the announcement earlier in the winter that the P-I would close "no earlier than March 18 and no later than April 1," after the shredders arrived in the newsroom, after the tours of the giant P-I globe, the staffers stuck it out.

They put out a newspaper every day.

Until today.

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