Seattle area

So, a little birdie told me the King County Journal is shutting down.
And with the Seattle PI likely to close doors in the next year or so, what does this mean for Seattle?
I can't imagine my hometown having only one paper and I don't think an area as big as the Seattle area should only have one paper.
Thoughts?




Edit: Had the title of the thread hyphenated and can't decide if it should be, so I un-hyphenated it.

 

Re: Seattle-area

Tacoma News Tribune?

 

Re: Seattle-area

Good paper, but as I recall growing up there it wasn't delivered on the Eastside. Tacoma is pretty far south, plus when I was growing up the only reason you went there was to get shot.
Maybe it will take over that market now, but I just can't think that there will only be the Seattle Times covering Seattle, north of Lake Washington, Bellevue, Issaquah and that area, Kirkland, Redmond, Renton and everywhere else in the greater Seattle area.

 

Re: Seattle-area

So Black Media is definitely shutting them down? AP story didn't have anything on that, though I doubt they'd annouce it at the same time they were buying it.

 

Re: Seattle-area

It wouldn't be too surprising.

What could be interesting is that the Journal bought a new press about four years ago. Maybe Hearst buys the presses and prints the P-I on its own.

 

Re: Seattle-area

I am not sure. I didn't see the AP story, I am just going on what a little birdie from Seattle told me.

 

Re: Seattle-area

SEATTLE (AP) -- The King County Journal Newspapers are being sold to Black Press Ltd., which publishes the Honolulu Star-Bulletin and owns more than 100 community publications in western Canada and the United States, both sides announced Wednesday.

Peter Horvitz, president of Horvitz Newspapers Inc., which owns the King County papers, and David Black, president of Canada's Black Press Ltd., jointly announced the purchase agreement in a faxed statement.

The sale is expected to close Nov. 30. No terms were announced.

Black Press representatives will visit the newspapers Monday to meet employees, the statement said.

King County Journal Newspapers publishes the daily King County Journal, the weekly Mercer Island Reporter and Snoqualmie Valley Record and the monthly Snoqualmie Valley Living. It also publishes nine community newspapers produced twice a month, including the Auburn Reporter, Bellevue Reporter, Bothell Reporter, Covington Reporter, Kenmore Reporter, Kent Reporter, Maple Valley Reporter, Redmond Reporter and Renton Reporter.

The company employs 328 people, the King County Journal reported in its story on the sale.

Horvitz declined to discuss Black's plans for the papers in comments to the King County Journal, saying that decision was up to the new owners.

Horvitz thanked the employees "for 12 wonderful years together" adding, "I'm saddened by having to make the decision to sell ... (but) it's a decision that's in the best interests of everyone," the Journal reported.

The King County Journal's weekday circulation now stands at approximately 39,000 copies, down from 47,000 in 2003 when the paper was created through a merger of the daily Eastside Journal and South County Journal papers, the newspaper said. A $20 million printing plant for King County Journal Newspapers opened in 2003 in suburban Kent and is also used to print publications for commercial customers.

Black Press's Sound Publishing group publishes community newspapers on Washington's Kitsap Peninsula, Whidbey Island, San Juan Islands, Vashon-Maury Island and in Federal Way.

Horvitz Newspapers also owns the daily Peninsula Daily News in Port Angeles and The Daily Times in Maryville, Tenn. Those papers are not included in the sale.

The Akron, Ohio, Beacon Journal was purchased earlier this year by Black Press Ltd.'s Sound Publishing subsidiary.

The Beacon Journal has cut 85 jobs overall and four vice president positions, Publisher Edward R. Moss said earlier this month.

Additional details on the King County purchase agreement were not immediately available. An Associated Press phone message left for Horvitz and an e-mail to Black at his Victoria, B.C., headquarters were not immediately returned after business hours Wednesday evening

 

Re: Seattle-area

One theory I had heard recently went that maybe it would be good if the King County Journal was sold because then it could invest better in the communities it served, but then I was told tonight that it is folding.
So now I don't know what to believe.
Very interesting AP story, of course the buying company could of just fed a line of bullshit to the AP or my source could of sold a line of bullshit to me.

 

um, except the employees

 

It's delivered to some stores up in Seattle/the Eastside, but you can't get home delivery. Plus they don't really cover anything (with staff) north of Federal Way (if you know the area).

 

Welcome to Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, St. Louis .......

 

Isn't Everett getting down there a bit, too?