SEATTLE – Some former Seattle Post-Intelligencer writers and photographers have launched an online newspaper, nearly a month after their publication closed.
The Web site, seattlepostglobe.org, went live Tuesday afternoon, featuring pictures and stories about the Seattle Mariners’ home opener and the race for city attorney.
The nonprofit venture by the former P-I staffers has partnered with the Seattle Weekly, which is owned by Village Voice Media, and with public television station KCTS.
Kery Murakami, one of the organizers of the new venture, said the Seattle Weekly will take care of selling advertising for the Web site, while KCTS serves as the fiscal sponsor. The station is also providing office space.
Articles written by seattlepostglobe.org staffers will also appear in the Seattle Weekly’s blog, Murakami said.
In March, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer printed its last edition after 146 years. More than 130 staffers lost their jobs. A skeleton crew of 20 stayed on to work at seattlepi.com. It’s the first major U.S. daily paper to switch from print to digital, a step that the P-I’s parent company, Hearst Corp., took after it failed to find a buyer for the newspaper.
Murakami said that the new Web site has not raised enough money to pay its writers, and that volunteers built the site. He hopes to collect enough revenue to pay writers soon. The Web site is asking for donations from the public.
“The main reason why we are doing this, we felt that the work we were doing at the P-I was important and there’s a real need for it,” Murakami said.
The Web site announced that it will have one reporter covering City Hall, and feature stories and commentary from other Seattle Post-Intelligencer veterans on general news and sports.