After two years the grand experiment of trying to produce a non-profit online newspaper in Seattle has come to a screeching halt with the demise of the Seattle PostGlobe.

The site which was to serve as a place for former Seattle Post-Intellingencer staffers to continue writing after the newspaper ceased printing in 2009.  At first the site did attract several well known former P-I writers but many of them soon left after either finding new jobs or deciding that working for free wasn’t so rewarding after all.

Sally Deneen, PostGlobe co-founder explained it thusly:

Donations have fallen off. Ads have generated no meaningful revenue — ever. We began with no startup money. We obtained no grants. All of which actually provided unusual freedom. But as a volunteer-run site, we’ve run out of helping hands as unemployed journalists have left for jobs. (Which is a good thing!)

Even non-profits need some money to survive and without an aggressive fundraising campaign the site was probably doomed to fail from the beginning.

 

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