Bye-bye, P-I: Final edition of 146-year-old Seattle newspaper hits streets today

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer began publishing in 1863 as The Seattle Gazette, and has been cited as the oldest continuing business in the city. The final print edition of the paper was published today; going forward, the P-I will be an on-line operation only. Some are looking at this as another sign of of the journalism's sad, perhaps inevitable decline in the age of the internet. Others—like those who've absorbed the intriguing ideas that Clay Shirky and Steven Berlin Johnson have proposed in recent articles—see these as exciting times, and the P-I on-line-only experiment as a necessary step in journalism's next stage. Either way, those who love the newspaper business—be it physical or virtual—should note that this occasion is momentous. And, yes, more than a little sad.