I just read a quick news update from Wired indicating that the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, a newspaper whose history spans 146 years- will no longer be circulated. This news came after a report that the Hearst Corporation was unable to find someone willing to buy the company. Wired chalks the development up to a free-fall in advertising dollars for print media. The paper will transform into an online-only entity, something akin to a local newspaper 2.0, with blogs, photogalleries, and other similar content.   

     The Hearst Company, who owns UGO, recently bought one of my favorite websites- 1Up, and killed off my favorite childhood magazine, Electronic Gaming Monthly. UGO saved the website (albeit with a much smaller staff) but could not make the magazine viable, despite a circulation of over 650,000 issues.

     While the news of a long-standing local fixture as the Seattle Post-Intelligencer isn't terribly shocking as we have seen a huge decrease in the circulation of newspapers in recent years, the big shocker may soon strike. Hearst, the company who owns the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, also owns the San Francisco Chronicle. With local Philadelphia papers The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Daily News filing for bankruptcy, it may be a matter of time before other long-standing local fixtures close.

     While these developments are certainly upsetting to anyone working in the journalism or affiliated businesses, perhaps some good can come from this. While newspapers have traditionally served to bring relatively homogenized information to people, perhaps this new-found diversity with websites and web blogs may serve to bring us a more nuanced and well-rounded take on world events. While we may have to look hard to find all the news one would traditionally find in a paper within a diaspora of various blogs, it may also make the process of finding new information sources more fun. Who's with me?

   The development reminds me of the "Blogs in Plain English" video by Lee LeFever.