Hearst’s Seattle
Post-Intelligencer, one of the nation’s oldest continuously published
newspapers, issued its last print edition on March 17 and began focusing its
new, low-budget resources on a website version, taking only about 20 of the
paper’s 175 staffers with it. David
Horsey, the P-I’s two-time
Pulitzer-winning editorial cartoonist is not one of the lucky twenty. His is a
different kind of luck: Horsey is employed by Hearst, not the P-I, and his cartoons will continue to
appear online as a service to the 15 other newspapers in the chain.
“I'm in an
unusual situation, unlike Ed Stein,
whose job ended [when Denver's
Rocky Mountain News closed],” Horsey
told Mike Cavna at the latter’s Washington
Post blog, ComicRiffs. “For the last few years, I've been employed directly
by Hearst Newspapers instead of the Seattle P-I. It looks like I will be providing
my work to all of the Hearst newspapers, though I'll be based here at the [P-I] Web site. Hearst has 15 daily
newspapers [at present, counting the San
Francisco Chronicle]. My work will primarily go to Web sites and will be
available for print versions. ... One fortunate thing for me is that Hearst had
this idea to create channels within the Web site, and that pulled me out of the
editorial page and created DavidHorsey.com. And I've been doing a lot more
writing as well as cartoons. That created me as a separate entity that can be
plugged into any Web site. I'm not sure logistically how that will happen now — I
think I'll be linked to [the Hearst newspapers in] Houston, Albany, Laredo,San Francisco. I think
Hearst finally decided that it's time to [push] online newspapers. ... I've
been quite fortunate and the timing has been right. Part of it goes back to my
first job as a reporter — now it's the other way around. [Writing columns] has
helped me expand online. They're looking at me as a ‘multimedia commentator’
rather than as ‘just’ a cartoonist.”
More about
Horsey’s stellar career in the Great Northwest can be unearthed at the usual
place, www.RCHarvey.com, Opus 240.
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