One former Seattle Post-Intelligencer journalist not in our "Virtual P-I" feed is Bill Virgin, the newspaper's longtime business columnist. Like many former P-I staffers, Bill is continuing his coverage. He's just not doing it as a blog, or even as a news site.
The veteran journalist is launching subscription-based newsletters devoted to Washington state manufacturing and Pacific Northwest railroading. He has started an umbrella business dubbed Northwest Newsletter Group, which could eventually include more newsletters by him or others. He’s also exploring the possibility of syndicating a regular business column to newspapers around the state.
“Washington Manufacturing Alert” debuted this week, with a lead story on the M&A market in the manufacturing industry. That newsletter is set for release every two weeks, available for $140 a year for email delivery and $160 via traditional mail. The railroading newsletter is set to launch in early May – exploring everything from model railroading to tourist lines to working railroads.
In the interest of full disclosure, I should point out that I'm far from unbiased on this topic, having sat next to Bill in the P-I newsroom for five years and benefited countless times from his insights. But many of his longtime readers have been wondering where he ended up, so it's great to be able to report that he's still on the beat.
Bill is considering supplementary Web sites with sample content, and he's open to advertising, but he’s not counting on it. He said he’s still “very skeptical of the online advertising model” as a primary source of revenue for news sites. He quickly added that he considers technology news sites the exception, but I suspect he was just being polite, considering who he was talking with.
Reach him at bill.virgin@yahoo.com.
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