Another one bites the dust

Judas Priest, a guy can’t log onto Al Gore’s Intertubes any more without seeing a newspaper sinking into the tar pits. This time it’s the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, which parent company The Hearst Corp. says is headed for a sale, web-only operation or closure in 60 days. To add insult to injury, the P-I was beaten on the story by a TV station.

The newspaper business can be a very small world. P-I managing editor David McCumber and I briefly worked together at The Arizona Daily Star, where he oversaw a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation into the University of Arizona football program and I was a copy editor (and not a very good one). He later worked with Hunter S. Thompson while at the San Francisco Examiner, if memory serves, editing “Songs of the Doomed: More Notes on the Death of the American Dream.” And P-I editorial cartoonist David Horsey used to flog me in the annual SPJ awards when I worked for the Corvallis Gazette-Times as a slightly improved copy editor and occasional editorial cartoonist.

The G-T published my first cycling cartoon, way back in 1982. Interestingly, it was not a cyclist-friendly cartoon. I spent a lot of time strolling the Marys and Willamette river trails in various states of consciousness and considered the omnipresent speeding bike weenies to be a pain in the butt.

Twenty-seven years and three newspaper jobs later, they are the source of my beer and skittles. Here’s hoping McCumber, Horsey and the rest of the P-I staff prove equally fortunate and land on their feet in some other, better place where they can continue to practice their craft.