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Closure of King County Journal

12.28.06

PRESS RELEASE

The King County Journal will cease publication on January 21.

The Journal is Washington’s fifth largest daily newspaper. It has had a long history serving the metropolitan east side and was originally two papers - the Eastside Journal and South County Journal. Those two newspapers, which were created when the Bellvue Journal-American and Valley Daily Record were merged, had circulations that topped 60,000 a decade ago. The King County Journal now has 39,000 copies daily.

The decision to close the Journal was made one month after the purchase from Horvitz Newspapers by King County Publications Ltd., a subsidiary of Sound Publishing, Inc. The closure announcement was made by Don Kendall, general manager of King County Publications. Kendall said the decision to close the daily newspaper was “the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to do.”

The group has nine non-daily newspapers. The two weekly newspapers at Snoqualmie and Mercer Island will continue operations as normal. The seven Reporter newspapers, currently published twice-monthly, will convert to weekly or twice weekly newspapers on January 24. Six Reporter titles will publish twice-weekly and one will begin weekly publication.

About 40 full-time employees, mostly in the newsroom, will be laid off as a result of the closure. The group currently has a staff of 330.