Which, if true—and if the KING 5 story is true—suggests that this is not some sort of coordinated effort in which, say, Hearst would put the P-I up for sale on the understanding that Seattle Times publisher Frank Blethen would later sell the Times to Hearst.

So, if true—and again that's still a big if—and if I'm understanding all of this correctly, and if I'm remembering JOA intricacies correctly, then this to me suggests more of a gamble on Hearst's part. Maybe a high-odds-of-winning gamble. But still a gamble.

Nobody is buying newspapers just now—but Hearst, reportedly, is going to go through the motions of attempting to sell the PI. King 5:

...a source close to the deal tells KING 5 that the paper's owner, Hearst Corporation, will announce as soon as tomorrow that it's putting the P-I up for sale. Under the joint operating agreement between the P-I and The Seattle Times, the P-I must be offered for sale for at least 30 days before it can cease operation....

We're told Hearst does not expect another buyer to step forward and that Seattle will likely become a one newspaper town within the next few months.

Rumors have been rife that the incredible shrinking Seattle Times was the likelier of our two dailies to go under—is it possible that both Seattle's dailies could go under? Or is there a deal in the works?

Says a friend who follows the newspaper industry: "The thing to remember is that in other cities, Hearst put its paper up for sale, closed it or sold it cheap, and then turned around and bought the other paper." Hearst did this in, he says, "San Francisco and San Antonio and maybe Houston." So Hearst closing down the PI could be its first move toward acquiring the ailing Seattle Times. It seems highly unlikely that the owners of the financially strapped Seattle Times could come up with the money to purchase and shutter the PI.

The PI is the older of Seattle's two daily papers.

Here's a bit more about Hearst from a 2003 PI story about the Seattle Times' efforts to end the Joint Operating Agreement (JOA) that kept Seattle a two-daily town:

The company, a media conglomerate owned by descendants of late newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, owns such magazines as Esquire and Cosmopolitan and has stakes in successful cable-TV operations such as ESPN and The History Channel, in addition to newspapers, broadcast stations and other businesses.

It also has a record as a survivor in two-newspaper markets. In three other cities—San Antonio, Houston and San Francisco—Hearst ultimately outlasted its competitors.

And the Seattle Times in 2006 on Hearst's MO:

And if Hearst buys The Times, it could shutter the P-I.

There's precedent—in San Antonio and San Francisco, where Hearst owned the smaller of each town's two dailies. In each case, it bought the larger paper from its competitor and closed its own publication or made it a nonfactor competitively.

Frank Blethen "stunned," according to a report that just went up on the Seattle Times' website—a report which emphasizes the fact that KING 5's story has a single, unnamed source. No one from the PI or Hearst has confirmed the report. So... uh... maybe the PI isn't for sale. Maybe the PI has accepted the Commerce Secretary position in the Obama administration.

So far nothing on the PI's website—home to a million and one community bloggers, and the "Big Blog," which only asks, never tells.

The Seattle Times story now includes reactions from inside the PI's newsroom...

At least four sources in the P-I newsroom said the rumor reported by KING-TV was a surprise to them, that they hadn't received any memo or email or announcement from management indicating the P-I was up for sale. Across the newsroom, small groups huddled to discuss the rumor, not in anger, but with visible surprise and a touch of panic.

"We don't know anything," said Daniel Lathrop, a P-I reporter.

...but as of 6:10 PM, there's still not a word about KING 5's story on any of the PI's homepage or on any of the paper's numerous blogs.

UPDATE: The story is up in the PI's homepage now (6:15 PM)...

...and the news seems to have stunned the management at the PI.

The P-I's managing editor said he knows of no plans to sell the paper. At about 5:15 p.m., soon after the report was aired, managing editor David McCumber told the newsroom's staffers, "If this is going on—and I don't know that it is—it's going on at a level that's far above me, and nobody has seen fit to clue me in. I think it's a bunch of rumor. You look at the state of this business—it wouldn't surprise me if something was going on, but I have no knowledge of what that something is."

...

KING 5 reporter Linda Byron said in an interview that she would not reveal her source but that she is "confident" about the information. She repeated that the source is "close to the deal."