Crosscut's Bill Richards has the story on Hearst's signal of disinterest: "Hearst Corp. said today that it won’t make a final $1 million payment to the Times’ majority owners, the Blethen family, for the right to bid first for the Blethens’ 50.5 percent stake in the company." Hearst also said that if they turn P-I into a pixel-only publication, they would do so outside the warm bosom of the JOA. But they haven't decided yet. "What's the big rush? Stop pestering us!" Meanwhile, the Seattle Times is in "survival mode," reports the Stranger--they're asking the unions for 12 percent payroll cuts. This is grim news indeed for Stranger staffers who were hoping to sell out and snag a cushy MSM job one day. more ›

The Seattle Weekly government in exile launched its website today and has promised to continue posting to it until the people rise up and give them their paper back. Anyone pining for the city's other weekly and its lovable cast of characters circa the Bronze Age through about a year ago should head over to Crosscut immediately. We'll see you back here when you've had your fill. more ›

In Seattlest's little egg of grey matter, every news item is connected to another, bigger, news item. We can't help ourselves. So when we see that the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild is going to settle with the Seattle Times for pay raises of $0.00 for the next two years, we have to connect it to something else, and in this case that something else is the Joint Operating Agreement that binds the Seattle Times and the P-I (did we say "Sculpture Park" in the headline? We meant "JOA"). In our mind the Seattle Times has been throwing fights for as long as we can remember in order to sustain the losses necessary to end the JOA and look all the more wretched in front of a Joint Operating Agreement arbitrator. That they appear to be pretty adamant in this contract situation is a sign that that campaign is over, and we'll find out sometime next year whether it succeeded or failed. Alternately, the newspaper guild is taking a dive so as to not allow the Seattle Times to continue hammering the P-I and the arbitrator with their poor little newspaper routine. more ›

Knight Ridder, minority owner of the Seattle Times, got picked up by an outfit called McClatchy Co. this week which is unfortunate because McClatchy, while having a generally good reputation as far as journalism goes, also owns the Tacoma News Tribune and the Times and the News Tribune compete for readers who happen to live somewhere between the two cities. We realize that you may be comatose after reading that last sentence, if in fact you haven't moved on to reading something else by now. We can probably say anything right here and no one would be conscious enough to register what their eyes are telling them. Seattlest is wearing news print thong underwear and high heels as we write this and we're about to apply a second coat of gloss to our lips. Additionally, we have a thing for independent reporters. Not a sexual thing, despite the thong, but a thing. more ›

In yesterday's Sunday edition Eric Pryne dropped his first article on the Joint Operating Agreement between the Seattle Times and the (more youthful and urban, apparently) P-I since he took over the beat from the independent contractor Bill Richards. more ›

Well, it was nice having the Post Intelligencer around for as long as we did. We're very much in favor of two-paper towns (two dailies, two weeklies, whatever) because we like to think that they keep each other honest. The P-I has been trending a bit to the left lately (is that true?) and it would have been great to see two major papers on opposite ends of the political spectrum in Seattle, but alas... Our media consolidation radar is pinging like crazy after we read today that the Seattle Times will not be renewing the contract of the outside freelancer who was covering the Joint Operating Agreement between the Times and the P-I. more ›

-The contract that gives reporter Bill Richards free reign to report on the Joint Operating Agreement between the Seattle Times and the Post Intelligencer is set to expire at the end of December, Editor and Publisher reports. Richards claims he has not been informed whether he'll be renewed. more ›