Seattle newspaper going Internet-only

SEATTLE, March 16 (UPI) -- Seattle joins most other U.S. cities Tuesday when it becomes a one-daily-newspaper town.

The final edition of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper will mark the end of the city's oldest business, a journalistic enterprise that started out 146 years ago.

"Tonight we'll be putting the paper to bed for the last time," Editor and Publisher Roger Oglesby told his staff Monday morning. "But the bloodline will live on."

However, while its parent company, Hearst Corp., said it will no longer print the newspaper that had 117,600 weekday readers, it will maintain seattlepi.com. That will make it the largest U.S. daily newspaper to go solely digital.

Steven Swartz, president of Hearst Newspapers, said in a news release the Web site "isn't a newspaper online -- it's an effort to craft a new type of digital business with a robust, community news and information Web site at its core."

Hearst had put the Post-Intelligencer, which lost $14 million last year, up for sale Jan. 9, saying it would shut it down if no buyer was found within 60 days.

Those who prefer reading a daily newspaper to get their local news can still get The Seattle Times.