THE SEATTLE PRESS is on the block again. Almost exactly three years after taking over the every-other-week North End community newspaper, owners Tom Herriman and Gretchen Donart have suspended publication.
“We’re not planning to publish again: The paper’s for sale, the staff has been laid off, and we appear to be at the end of the road,” says Herriman. After steady growth in 1999 and 2000, the paper’s revenues dropped this year, he says. “It’s just not something that we can survive.”
Fittingly, the last issue of this incarnation of the paper was the June 13 Fremont Fair edition. The Press started in 1977 as The Fremont Forum, became The North Seattle Press in 1986, and switched to its current moniker in 1994. Over the past decade, the paper was known for its coverage of neighborhood politics and its editorial support of pro-neighborhood candidates for city office. (Full disclosure: I worked at the Press for seven years.) Veteran union activists Herriman and Donart added coverage of union activities (and full-color photography) when they took over the paper in mid-1998.
Who might be interested in taking over the Press? Not the two chains that operate North End community newspapers. Pacific Publishing just combined its two North End papers into a single weekly, and president Tom Haley says he has no interest in acquiring the Press. Roger Hollings, general manager for Robinson Newspapers, owners of the Ballard News-Tribune, also says his company won’t make a bid.
Former Press editor Wallis Bolz was rumored to be a possible buyer (she already owns a stake in the business) but says she doesn’t have the time. “In order to buy and run The Seattle Press, you have to work 60 hours a week,” she says. A switch to weekly publication would also be a wise move, she adds.
One possible purchaser: Susan Brehme Park of the Lake City-based monthly Jet City Maven, the only other independent North End community newspaper. The Maven would at least be the sentimental favorite to acquire the paper: Park’s husband and business partner, Clayton, edited both the Forum and the Press in the late 1980s.
James Bush
