The future of journalism: the Seattle P-I experiment.

About a year ago, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer made a splash by announcing it was shuttering its print edition. But they’ve continued to publish online, and today they say they that they’re “on track with [their] revenues,” pulling in about four million readers a month, roughly the same as they did a year ago.

Here’s how they say they do it:

1. They don’t try to produce their own version of everything. If they don’t feel they can bring “incredible added value” to a story they write up a brief and link offsite. –GREAT
2. They use outside content, from Hearst publication, TV guide, Film.com, and local media companies. –FINE
3. They rely on their readers to produce content, publishing around 200 reader blogs, including 15 neighborhood blogs, 10 fashion blogs, 13 food and wine blogs,  8 movie blogs, 7 real-estate blogs, 5 aerospace(!)  blogs, and 13 sports blogs. –GOOD
4. They don’t produce a lot of unique, professional content. Their entire editorial staff is just 20 people, less than you used to find in a small-town newspaper. –HMMMMM

A lot of the changes reflect the new competition faced by newspapers. Where most enjoyed an essential monopoly over their readership, papers now have to compete with publications all over the world and, increasingly, from media outlets like this one, in which (essentially) unpaid writers contribute their opinions, analysis and, occasionally, reporting.  Who’s going to read your foreign coverage when they can click over to The New York Times, the Guardian, Der Spiegel, or Global Voices. And the same goes for movies, books, cooking, fashion, national politics, most of the opinion pages, etc.

But I do wonder how much quality reporting they can produce with so small a staff. I’ve got no doubt they’re doing a good job of covering the day-to-day happenings. But do they have the resources for the type of heavy investigative lifting it takes to keep their city honest? The Seattle P-I says it has found to stay afloat as a business, and that’s good news. Here’s hoping they manage to stay relevant as a newspaper.

via Sree Sreenivasan.