It Was in the P-I

The Justice Department is trying to determine what difference it would make to Seattle if the joint operating agreement (JOA) between the city's two daily newspapers were allowed to die. It is not clear whether its findings will weigh on the outcome of efforts by the locally controlled Seattle Times to terminate its two-decade agreement with Hearst's Seattle Post-Intelligencer. But based on the questions the government lawyers have been asking around town, the past success of the Seattle JOA could be the key to its future.

It can be argued that Seattle is no better able to support two dailies than any other city that has seen all but one newspaper fall to economic reality. But each newspaper that died took some piece of the soul of the city it served to the grave. It's too early to mourn the P-I, but it's not too early to reflect on what Seattle loses if it goes.

The question being asked by Justice's antitrust division is: Has the JOA worked? Ask Times Publisher Frank Blethen. He has repeatedly called the Seattle arrangement "one of the most successful JOAs in history." Of course, he was referring to only the first 20 years of a deal that was supposed to last another 80.

The Seattle agreement is one of a couple dozen like it across the country, forged under provisions of the Newspaper Preservation Act. Congress passed the measure in 1970 in response to pressure from some of the nation's most powerful media companies. Hearst was one of the leaders of that effort. The law is essentially an exemption from federal antitrust laws, allowing newspapers to save money by merging their noneditorial functions while continuing to compete in the news arena. The justification was the overriding public interest in maintaining two separate editorial voices in a community.

THE TIMES IS SEEKING to exercise an escape clause in its agreement with Hearst declaring three consecutive years of red ink, from 2000 to 2002. Hearst has challenged the Times' claim of losses in 2000, saying that the strike of employees at both papers constituted an extraordinary loss that should make it an exception under provisions of the contract. Hearst has also asserted, in filings in King County Superior Court, that the P-I could not continue to publish if the JOA were to be terminated. Blethen says that should the JOA continue, it could eventually bleed the Times financially and put its family ownership in jeopardy.

But for now, it is the fate of the P-I that is in doubt, and that makes both crucial and timely this question: What is Seattle without the P-I?

Some would argue that there are enough competing voices around to pick up the slackalternative weeklies, radio, television, bloggers, neighborhood weeklies, telephone poles. But the truth is that metropolitan daily newspapers like the P-I and the Times are the lead agenda-setters for a community. They are the news factories that produce most of the original content the public gets in its daily diet of information from all sources. Yes, more people get their news from television, but TV is more of a processor of material that has already been printed. Take down one of the news factories, and the input to the public information system is diminished.

The Value of the P-I
It's hard to find anybody who will say that the loss of the P-I would be good riddance. Even Don C. Brunell, a lobbyist for the Association of Washington Business, a group that often finds itself at odds with P-I editorial positions, wants to keep it around. He is a big fan of the paper's two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist, David Horsey. Brunell reads several newspapers every day. "I think diversity of opinion is important whether one agrees with the editorial or commentary" or not, he says. "I would miss that as much as Horsey."

Environmentalists would be especially stricken should the P-I cease publishing. While most concede that the Times does a decent job on environmental subjects, they believe that the P-I has been most consistent and persistent in its coverage. Solveig Torvik, when a member of the P-I editorial board, closely watched developments at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation and regularly reminded readers that there is lots of very bad stuff buried out there. Former environmental writer Rob Taylor unleashed a damning series on dairy runoff in the early 1990s. "Those problems were widely known for decades," says Tom Geiger, outreach director for the Washington Environmental Council. "When Rob gave it front-page coverage, it shifted the debate and made the government act. It brought the dairy industry to the table."

Geiger also considered former P-I investigative reporter Andrew Schneider's reporting on the health problems caused by an asbestos mine's waste in Libby, Mont., to be first-rate. Schneider and reporter Robert McClure also teamed up for a project looking at the impact of the archaic mining laws on the environment.

McClure, Lise Olsen, and Lisa Stiffler produced a monumental series on the health of Puget Sound, published last year. For Kathy Fletcher, director of People for Puget Sound, the loss of the P-I due to termination of the JOA would be tragic. "The P-I's coverage of the state of Puget Sound was marvelous," she says. "It was a front-page series, and there has been great follow-up by the reporters. Their work greatly increased the public awareness of problems with the Sound." Fletcher was quick to say that the Times has done a good job, too, over the years. But for now, Fletcher, Geiger, and other environmental activists feel the P-I is more attentive to their issues.