Another sad day in our industry, but the closure of the print operation at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer hits close to home.
Like a lot of you, I grew up reading the P-I in the morning and The Bremerton Sun in the afternoon. Yes, The Sun used to be a P.M. paper, and it used to be called The Bremerton Sun.
I remember reading Royal Brougham’s column as a teenager, and years later, I remember watching an aging Royal spill scalding coffee all over the back of P-I photographer Grant Haller in the tiny media room at the Seattle Coliseum. Haller screamed in pain, while Royal just shuffled away, oblivious to what he’d just done.
I remember asking John Owen, the columnist and later sports editor of the P-I, for advice during the early years of my career.
I broke into this business about the same time as Art Thiel, who was working at the old Bellevue Journal-American at the time and covering the Sonics. Thiel, who was hired by Owen, has become, in my opinion, one of the premier sports columnists in our country.
If you haven’t read Thiel’s farewell column, I highly recommend it.
And, while you’re at it, check out Jim Moore’s good-bye column, too. The Go 2 Guy, one of the really good guys in our business, and Thiel gave the P-I a one-two punch that made the days of a lot of loyal readers.
This, indeed, is a sad, sad day. I know the final edition of that paper is sitting in a box up at the top of the hill, but I don’t want to go get it. It’s just another sign of where our industry is heading, and I’m in no hurry to get there, wherever that is.
I, too, grew up in a two-a-day newspaper household and find today’s news very sad. Twitters and tweets and headlines that change every half hour can’t comapre with the depth of good newspaper reporting.
And besides, what are we going to line our birdcages with?