Post Post-Intelligencer

Still, if newspapers are dying, they're also experimenting. Technology, innovative publishers, and the evolution of readers raised on the Internet will decide how long the daily newspaper lives on. But the shift has already begun to electronic editions.

Taylor, the Crosscut co-founder (he's since left the online news entity), says that if Hearst goes to an online-only edition here, "It should be local, first and foremost." Newsvine's Davidson seconds that. "It's time to give up on the idea that people are going to turn to the Seattle Times or the Seattle P-I for their national news diet," he says. "That's what msnbc.com and a host of other sites are for."

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Slideshow: A Paper's Uncertain Future

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• Steven Swartz
• Frank Blethen
• Hector Castro
• Art Thiel
• Newspapers

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"My sense," says Horsey, "is that Hearst is exploring this as an opportunity to jump into the new world of news. Seattlepi.com has been really successful, and a good base to try to create an online publication that really works."

Connelly eagerly awaits that. "I hope Hearst gives it a chance, and makes it the paper of the future."

Which still leaves today.

"I just talked to Jim and Lou Whittaker," Art Thiel says of the twin mountaineering legends who were about to attend their 80th birthday party at the Space Needle the other day. "There's two lives well-lived. The P-I situation is always on your mind, and it comes up in conversations. But I kind of thought, 'I'm not going to piss and moan about this situation, not to these guys.' Scary, losing your job? No, scary is staring into a crevasse with your rope-mates dangling below you and all your lives hanging in the balance."

"Whatever happens, it's all going to be different," he continues. "I'm not saying it's going to be better; I can't be sure. But there's the freshness of a new gig, new people, new ways of looking at things. It's kind of cool in that sense."

And there will be that going-out-of-business party.

"Maybe at the Ballard Elks," Thiel says. "The damage deposit could run into the millions."

randerson@seattleweekly.com

Editor's Note: Rick Anderson wrote a news column for the P-I from 1971 to 1977, and for the Times from 1977 to 1990.