More About the US Daily Newspaper "Death Watch"

Face facts folks: Diligent bloggers dig in endlessly for free (almost); and newspapers around the country are suddenly appreciating (and incorporating) their hard and diligent work

By Curmudgeon

Since, broadly speaking, an urban daily newspaper [endangered species we are told] is the topic of this cummunity blogsite, I thought a link to this interesting story in today's NY Times might not be out of place.

When the Hearst-owned Seattle Post-Intelligencer died some months ago, predictions were that The Seattle Times [the city's only remaining daily and one of the few family-owned dailies left in the US] was on death watch too. Now, however, the Seattle Times is, for the moment at least, "operating in the black."

And the P-I hangs on as a minimally staffed website --- 20 journalists --- covering a limited number of stories. For the rest, the on-line P-I relies "on more than 200 unpaid bloggers who write on things as diverse as their neighborhoods, cooking and marathon running." How's it doing? "Better than expected" says the Times.

Interesting story.