What willl folks in Seattle read with their morning lattes

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer prints its final edition tomorrow and, beginning Wednesday, may become a Web only newspaper. So Seattle joins the list of one newspaper towns, a list which Tucson, Ariz., will join by the end of the week and San Francisco may join before too long. But now comes word that the larger paper in Seattle, the family owned Seattle Times, may be in even worst financial shape than the Hearst-owned P-I. According to the report: "Of all the big cities that have lost or are in danger of losing newspapers -- Denver and San Francisco, among others -- none is as likely as Seattle to find itself without a printed daily newspaper."

What happened in Seattle? "Rowland Thompson, a newspaper industry lobbyist here, traces the city's journalistic woes to a strike staged by workers at both newspapers in 2000," the report says. "The seven-week strike cost the newspapers dearly -- just when the Internet bubble had burst. The Times and Hearst also spent much of this decade in an expensive legal fight as the Times sought to end the joint operating agreement. Finally, in a 2007 settlement, the Times paid Hearst a net $24 million to perpetuate the agreement, even though the Times had described it as financially untenable. Between the strike and the legal fight, the papers weren't able to regain their footing before the current recession set in, Thompson said."

Meanwhile, the Washington Post, which owns a daily newspaper in Everett, just north of Seattle, announced today that it will no longer feature a separate business news section Monday through Saturday, folding that content into the main news section. The Post joins the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and other papers that have decided it's too costly to have separate business news sections of the paper during the week.