Seattlepi.com hires writer to fill major loss
With the loss of Monica Guzman, Seattle's "sexiest blogger," seattlepi.com has made a hire that could indicate support for the web site from its corporate parent, the Hearst Corp.
Seattlepi.com has hired a new writer to replace Monica Guzman, the prominent reporter who led the web site's Big Blog.
Amy Rolph, a business reporter for The Daily Herald in Everett, will join the online site's staff in mid-July. Among other duties for the Everett paper, Rolph, who had been a reporter for the old Post-Intelligencer, currently writes for The Storefront, the Herald's small business blog.
The hire could indicate Hearst’s willingness to keep Seattlepi.com going. A recent story in Crosscut by Bill Richards questioned the future viability of the site. As reported by Richards, Seattlepi.com’s reporting staff numbers just 17 and the site is not profitable.
But the addition of Rolph could suggest continued interest by its owner, the Hearst Corp., in maintaining its Seattle presence. Rolph fills an absence left by 27-year-old Guzman, who joined the start-up Intersect in June. Guzman developed and ran Seattlepi.com’s quirky, gossipy Big Blog, and developed a name for herself around town as a social media guru. Recently, Guzman won Seattle Weekly's award for the town's "Sexiest Blogger."
Since Guzman's departure, 24-year-old Hearst fellow and Seattlepi.com staff member Humberto Martinez has been in charge of Big Blog duties. As a Hearst fellow, Martinez spends eight months at three different company newspapers. His fellowship at Seattlepi.com comes to an end in late summer, and Martinez isn't aware yet if he'll be asked to stay on the staff or not. "I'm not holding my breath or assuming permanence," Martinez said in an e-mail.
Martinez said he believes Rolph will be taking over the Big Blog, but he can't speak for certain on that subject just yet. Other Seattlepi.com staff members deferred to executive producer Michelle Nicolosi, who is currently on vacation and not responding to email.
Rolph said that she;d rather not discuss details of her new gig with Seattlepi.com until she finishes up at The Herald. She is slated to start at the P-I on July 12.
Prior to joining The Herald, Rolph covered breaking news, politics, and higher education for the Post-Intelligencer until it ceased print publication in 2009. As an undergraduate at the University of Washington, she edited The Daily, the campus newspaper. On her web site, www.amyrolph.com, Rolph says she is currently working toward her Master of Communication in Digital Media at the UW.
A version of this article appeared earlier on the Washington News Council's web site.
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Comments:
Posted Wed, Jun 23, 8:07 a.m. Inappropriate
In other circumstances, hiring a replacement for the Big Blog slot might be a positive sign for the future of Seattlepi.com. Unfortunately, closing or selling the site will be a corporate decision, not a local one. One hire doesn’t address the site’s real problem: what is Hearst’s plan to make the site a moneymaker now that it has sold its Skiff platform and is selling its e-reader device? The more relevant moves to watch will be whether Hearst trims the site’s ad staff and, of course, whether Hearst decides to dump its entire newspaper unit.
Bill Richards
Posted Wed, Jun 23, 11:02 a.m. Inappropriate
The main problem I see in this story is the use of the word "reporter" in the same sentence as the words "Monica Guzman".
Please compare that to using the words "former P-I reporter" and "Shelby Scates" in the same sentence.
There you have the decline of what was once a feisty urban daily with what it has become today.
Posted Wed, Jun 23, 12:16 p.m. Inappropriate
Damn, Lindy West from The Stranger, that was harsh...
I think that Amy is even sexier than Guzman... so I'm all for it!
Posted Wed, Jun 23, 1:53 p.m. Inappropriate
What exactly makes a blogger sexy?
Posted Wed, Jun 23, 1:57 p.m. Inappropriate
To find somebody "sexy" means that when you see her (or him), you want to have sex with her (or him). This is true for bloggers or anybody else (though to be honest, it probably isn't true that often for bloggers).
Posted Wed, Jun 23, 2:03 p.m. Inappropriate
Nope, I'm not that Lindy.
Why harsh? I'm comparing someone who did solid reporting on a regular basis with someone who writes lightweight blog entries. My comment reflects what editors are feeding us these days: stories based on the sexiness of the blogger, not on journalistic standards.
I can't say I envy the position editors find themselves in these days.
Posted Wed, Jun 23, 4:15 p.m. Inappropriate
Well, who has time to read long-form these days anyway? I'm much too busy trying to come up with witty things to say in comments.
Posted Thu, Jun 24, 12:34 p.m. Inappropriate
Lindy (above) nailed it. Show me a single bit of reporting that Monica Guzman did for seattlepi.com. She rewrote press releases, blogged about hip events going on in the city and developed a following that owed at least some measure to her looks and self-promotion.
Nothing necessarily wrong with that -- it worked and attracted traffic to the site. But to suggest it had anything to do with journalism or newsgathering is laughable.
Posted Sun, Jun 27, 8:30 a.m. Inappropriate
It says something, all bad, about journalism and Crosscut that someone thinks hiring a lightweight reporter to replace a lightweight blogger is going to save the P-I - and that, in any case, it's worthy of an overblown puff piece with a gauzy sex-me shot to boot.
As the discussion above shows, this isn't about reporting or artful writing or informing the public about hard-to-get information, it's about babes. The P-I, Crosscut, and the News Council are all hereby permanently exiled from the practice of journalism for repeated sexual harassment of news-seeking readers.
Posted Mon, Jun 28, 8:13 p.m. Inappropriate
Blackie nails it. Also: What Richards said.
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