Following up on our Slog discussion yesterday about the so-called Packers Model for “saving” the P-I (start here and follow the links backward), Sandeep Kaushik points toward an idea that he thinks has a better chance of working.
It’s an idea that I’ve heard rumblings about, too, but one that he beat me to confirming:
Several higher-ups at the P-I are in the “formative stages” of creating a non-profit news entity, primarily focused on investigative journalism covering the Western states, which would be funded by foundations and other major donors.
The model for such a site is Pro Publica, which bills itself as “an independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest.” Pro Publica, which began publishing last June, is led by Paul Steiger, a former managing editor of the Wall Street Journal, and is largely funded by grants from several major foundations. The site produces investigative reports for its own web site, and those pieces are also shopped around to print newspapers and magazines…
The effort, if it gets off the ground, would provide a landing place for most of the P-I’s investigative reporters, such as double-Pulitzer Prize winners Eric Nalder and Andy Schneider, and could include high-profile P-I columnists like Joel Connelly. McCumber cautioned that it was too early to tell who might write for such a venture, but added that the site, if it moves forward, will likely include both narrative and investigative voices, including some not currently on the P-I staff.
This fits with the broader picture that I’m seeing. The discussion shouldn’t be so much about “saving” the P-I or not saving the P-I. Fact is, the P-I as people know and remember it is done. For good. Completely finished.
The discussion should instead be rooted in what is actually about to happen, which is the carving up of the carcass of a fallen dinosaur.
Hearst is likely to take the brand name, the web address, and a few smart and cheap staffers (and maybe some more expensive staffers with recognizable names, too) and launch a new, experimental incarnation of the P-I‘s web site. Certain other P-I staffers, led by Kery Murakami, seem likely to take their experience and abilities and try to make a run at some sort of community-funded online journalism enterprise, perhaps based on the Packers Model. And still other
P-I staffers—the heavyweights on the investigative team plus certain journalistic stars—are working on launching yet another online-only venture based on the Pro Publica model.
Broadly speaking: the young and the web savvy will go one way, the mid-career and Pulitzer-less will go another way, the journalistic stars will go a third way, many others will simply go into new careers or extended unemployment, and in the end, nothing will be left but a spinning globe above the bones of a rented office space with an exceptionally nice view.
Die, P-I! Die! Die already for the love of God!
and out of the ashes a phoenix will be born. The newly christened Union-Record
Gross … why did I click on Comments?
Nice post though, Eli.
The Union-Record is dead. Go Big Red.
I don’t understand. If Pro Publica and crosscut.com already exist but are struggling, how is this going to work? What is it exactly that are they going to do differently??
Not to be too much of a killjoy, but somehow I imagine there are going to be a number of casualties in the professional journalism world before someone figures out the right business/non-profit model to work on.
I would be wonderful to see the P-I become the nation’s first old- to new-media success story, but I’m not holding my breath.
the P-I is dead! Long live the P-I!
Where is the money – ads.
What kind of ads – well, other services bled off cars and houses.
Where else is the money – stuff people buy.
Why buy a paper – for the comics and cartoons and horoscopes, plus local news and pics.
The Hearst corporation has badly blown it, again. The death of the P-I was sadly inevitable. It had been on corporate life support for years.
But in trying to keep a Web presence in Seattle, Hearst allowed the demise of the dead tree edition of the PI to be the focus and ran away from the proud traditions of journalism. Instead of trumpeting that the PI would continue to live on the Web, and that the globe would still be spinning over an albeit smaller newsroom, Hearst instead devalued the one asset the new Web PI had – its brand name.
How is it that a media corporation cannot understand basic marketing and business principles?