When I read today on Monica Guzman's Twitter feed that writers for other publications were being let into the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's doomed newsroom, I decided to ignore managing editor David McCumber's refusal to let The Stranger chronicle the paper's last day. McCumber's reasoning had been that he wasn't saying yes to anyone, and that he didn't want to put the staff through the ordeal of being watched at such a moment. But when a reporter took me up a side stairwell and slipped me into the P-I newsroom, I found a writer from TIME Magazine already milling about, P-I staffers sipping beers and jokingly discussing the best locations for dumpster-diving, and no one who seemed all that stressed out. There was sadness, certainly, but also a strong feeling of release. The last deadline, ever, was just about to pass.

I'd forgotten how close the P-I newsroom is to Puget Sound. It's close enough that, looking west from the center of the room, you don't see any land—just water, islands, freighters going by. The effect is of being on a ship, and today, of course, the effect was also of being on a sinking ship. More precisely, a ship that had already sunk (in shallow, friendly waters, perhaps, but with the mechanism of the crew's livelihood damaged beyond repair).

Some desks had been abandoned long ago, part of the newspaper's years of downsizing. In one of the areas that remained populated, page designers ("Of which none will be kept," a guide said) sat surrounded by green Christmas lights. Nearby, a gray bin with a slot cut in the top and a combination lock keeping anyone from getting inside—the shred pile. Beneath a central table, about a dozen boxes of Pagliacci Pizza, which had been delivered courtesy of the Houston Chronicle upon the news of the P-I's print demise (and quickly devoured). A whirring laser printer, a wall of "Employee of the Month" plaques, a pile of Society of Professional Journalists awards, and all around the clatter of cleanup.

This was sometime after 4 p.m., and a small rally was assembling outside the P-I offices on Elliott Avenue. "Will you be going to the rally?" someone asked a scowling copy editor who was chewing on a toothpick as he worked on a story. "Yeah, I'll be rallying my ass off," the copy editor shot back. I took that as a no. A staffer walked by wearing a P-I baseball hat. Others sat in their P-I commemorative t-shirts. There didn't seem to be high hopes for the rally, which was being organized by Hal Bernton, a reporter at the Seattle Times. After all, what's to rally about? The air was far more funereal than fired up.

But the rally, as it turned out, was quite sweet and welcome. "The whole idea that this could be the last day is very hard to process," Bernton (above) said, speaking into a tiny, faltering megaphone—a metaphor for the shrinking reach of print journalism if ever there was one. He was followed by McCumber, who thanked the P-I staffers for the honor of working with them, and by David Horsey (below), who tried to capture the moment. "We're in a new world—all of us," he said. "Who knows where we go... I hope everyone of us finds a way to keep doing what we do because it's so important."

Bruce Ramsey of the Times editorial page was there. "None of us at the Times are happy about this," he said. Times columnist Danny Westneat was there, too. "Reporting is what matters," he said. "The reason this is such a sad day is that we no longer have 150 reporters anymore who are working and telling the stories in this city." About a dozen of his colleagues—and maybe a few more—had come down to salute their former rivals, even those who would be continuing their work through Hearst's online-only P-I. "I hope you make it," Westneat said to them. "I hope somebody figures out how to make money off that whizbang thing they call the internet."

Photos by Eli Sanders

Seattle Post-Intelligencer staffers are describing what this city will have lost when, after tomorrow, the newspaper's print edition ceases to exist. Here's P-I reporter Mike Lewis:

We do know this: What's been lost, quite literally, are 150 jobs and the daily delivery of a newspaper that's been published locally since the Civil War. What's been lost are many of the people who are not online but are avid consumers of news. What's been lost are not just those who subscribe, but the people who pick up the discarded paper in a coffee shop, those who read the hard copy because even in an age of advanced news technology, the surprises within the landscape of an unfolding newspaper still can beat click journalism in the same way that an Atlas—inadvertently, inefficiently—still says more about your place in world than Mapquest.

But the honest fact is that a newspaper isn't only the sum of what it has done but also what it will do. A full measure of stories—from Tuesday onward—haven't been written yet. Now they won't be. In the end, we won't ever know what we've lost. I guess that's both a great and terrible thing.

Illustration by Andrew Saeger.

Led by reporter Hal Bernton, some Seattle Times journalists, Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild members, and "area journalism students" will be holding a thank-you rally at 5 p.m. this evening at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer headquarters on Elliott Avenue. Why?

Apart from P-I workers themselves, perhaps no other group of people will miss the P-I as much as their Times colleagues.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer staffers are describing what this city will have lost when, after tomorrow, the newspaper's print edition ceases to exist. Here's P-I columnist Joel Connelly, who is currently down in Arizona watching the Mariners' spring training and will be filing his first dispatch for the new, online-only P-I sometime this afternoon:

The last few months have been a gas: Sounding off on Nickels' awful snow removal response; delving into 11th hour Bush administration moves to eviscerate environmental laws; pissing off Stranger news editor with column defending pharmacists' rights of conscience.

Still . . .

A day after Steve Schwarz put Sam Simeon North up for sale, I took family's elderly standard poodle and headed for bluff at Ebey's Landing on Whidbey Island.

From the bluff, you can see four wilderness areas created with support from the P-I; a corner of North Cascades National Park, which we backed; plus a national recreation area and a national wildlife refuge, both of which were P-I causes.

The bluff sits in the middle of Ebey's Landing National Historical Reserve—on a stretch of land once earmarked for summer homes—and looks down on a tidal lake once marked for draining.

The view looks out on the Strait of Juan de Fuca, site of other P-I causes, from keeping supertankers off the Sound to revealing that Victoria dumps millions of gallons of raw sewage into an international waterway each and every day.

The message?

I've been positioned to help protect and preserve the gorgeous corner of the world where I grew up. I've been able to give back. The P-I has been a consistent, eloquent voice to protect God's—yes, Dan—great out-of-doors.

Illustration by Andrew Saeger.

In case you were wondering.

You ask: Really, Seattle Times? You're going to do that whether I ask you to or not?

Yes, your subscription will be transferred to The Seattle Times without interruption in your service.

(On the case earlier in the day: Mr. Kaushik.)

Slog commenter DarrenO talks back to Seattle Times publisher Frank Blethen and his statement from this morning:

The "Joint Operating Agreement" killed newspapers? Sorry Frankie, but the JOA is the only thing that prolonged their life.

The Seattle Times will be out of business by the end of this year. Nobody seriously doubts that. And the JOA won't be the thing that killed the Seattle Times. And the Internet won't be the thing that killed the Seattle Times. Not Google. Not corporate media ownership. Not death taxes on inheritance.

No Frank.

It's you.

You.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer staffers are describing what this city will have lost when, after tomorrow, the newspaper's print edition ceases to exist. Here's P-I business reporter Andrea James, 27, who has been with the paper since 2006 and will join the new online-only P-I covering business and Microsoft:

More than a hundred thousand subscribers start their day with the P-I's print edition—they lose a morning friend and guest. They lose an alternative voice to the larger Seattle Times. The region loses scores of warm-bodied reporters and photographers digging, asking questions and trying to make sense of this crazy world. It reminds me of that scene in Star Wars Episode IV, when the Death Star destroys the planet Alderaan, and the Jedis sense the disruption in The Force. I know I'm a dork, but my mind keeps going back to that.

I'm excited that seattlepi.com is sticking around, and that I'll get to be a part of it. I'll be covering business and Microsoft, and working my butt off in hopes of creating something that will grow big enough to hire more journalists back. That won't happen right away, but we've got to try.

Illustration by Andrew Saeger.