In just a few minutes, the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild will convene a meeting for Seattle Post-Intelligencer employees who want to discuss "starting an online news site that can replace the P-I" after the newspaper's print edition likely closes in March.
Tonight's planning session is not to be confused with the Hearst Corporation's own planning for an online-only P-I. Until Hearst lays its online cards on the table, employee brainstorming sessions like the one tonight are officially just the crafting of a contingency plan—a potential way for laid-off P-I staffers to keep their paper alive online in the event that Hearst closes down the paper and the present online edition.
But all indications are that Hearst will launch an online-only P-I when the print edition folds, and if Hearst does this, it's a safe bet that a lot of tonight's contingency planners will not be a part of Hearst's online effort (which could require as few as 20 of the P-I's current staff of 170). Which means tonight's contingency plan could quickly morph into tomorrow's plan for a competitor.
How might this employee project, whether it becomes a future P-I competitor or the sole remaining remnant of the paper, be funded? One model under consideration is the so-called Packers Model—as in the Green Bay Packers, "the only non-profit, community-owned major league professional sports team in the United States." (A model that, I just realized, Jonathan Golob first floated here on Slog on January 9th, the same day that Hearst announced it would likely be shuttering the P-I's print edition.)
You can probably guess where the P-I employees are going with this. The idea is still embryonic, but it could involve asking members of the community—which, for the P-I's distribution area, is a huge community—to essentially purchase shares in a publicly-owned P-I. (Or, asking them to donate money to a non-profit-run P-I. Or, to something that's not technically the P-I, because Hearst decides to go ahead with its online-only plans, but is still run by many former P-I employees.)
So, help a bunch of future unemployed journalists out: Would you help fund, Packers-style, a community owned Seattle Post-Intelligencer?
Well? Would you?
