Slogging It Out In Seattle

This blog began the same April day that former staffers of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer announced that they would begin their own online nonprofit news site, Seattle PostGlobe. But it appears that high hopes have given way to the grim reality of long hours and limited resources.

In a reader blog on the seattlepi.com site, local freelancer Linda Thomas posted an interview with Kery Murakami, the former PI reporter who launched the PostGlobe. Thomas writes:

In addition to being a reporter for the site, Murakami has to be an editor, site designer, IT specialist, grant writer, business partnerships director, and receptionist. That's not what he imagined when he decided - as a third grader - to become a journalist. That early realization came after he watched All the President's Men with his mom.

"Looking back on my years as a newspaper reporter, that seems like such an idyllic life," he says.

Now he's been spending 15 hours a day, 7 days a week trying to make the PostGlobe viable. Many of the journalists who initially said they'd volunteer and write for the site "have disappeared," he says, acknowledging that they have their own challenges to deal with following the sudden end of the P-I as a newspaper.

Murakami admits, he's thought about quitting, but he won't.

Hopefully, the PostGlobe's second month will be better.