First, I’d like to again acknowledge all the other local folks who’ve also proclaimed their admiration for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and its seattlepi.com Web site, and who want to see at least the latter continue.

Today’s additions to this list include Meghan Peters, Dylan Wilbanks, and my ol’ pal Grant Alden.

Peters hopes Hearst will continue seattlepi.com as a laboratory in transitioning local pro journalism to the Internet era.

Wilbanks offers his own formula for an online-only news organization. In his vision it might only employ 20 or so people to do what absolutely cannot be duplicated by bloggers.

Alden, fresh from having to euthenize the print version of music magazine No Depression, is somewhat more downbeat about the Web’s ability to support quality original content:

“Right now the web is a parasite, killing its host.… All this citizen journalist stuff is lovely, except that it assumes that all writing is functionally the same, or that the web is a meritocracy, or that people will keep contributing for free because it’s fun and they have nothing else to do. Which, in this economy, may be true, but I wouldn’t want to build a long-term business model around that notion.…”

I happen to believe there’s life in pro content.

Even in print.

Even in daily newsprint.

Even as an urban “second paper.”

And so, as I’ve promised all week, here’s how I’d revamp the printed P-I:

• “Ich bin ein Berliner.” The P-I and Seattle Times have narrowed their page size in recent years, and (in a move announced prior to the P-I‘s announcement of potential sale or closure) will narrow their page size again by another inch next month.Take that narrower width, then crop four or five inches from the page height, and you’ve got the “Berliner” format. It’s popular in France (Le Monde), Britain (The Guardian), and elsewhere in the world. It has more impact and design versatility than a tabloid, but is still compact and easy to hold and carry. It can be produced in either an unfolded, one-section version or a folded, multi-section version.
• Stop trying to be everything to everyone. Let the Web site contain the total product of the staff. Turn the printed paper into something intensely focused on local/regional politics, policies, and people.
• Be bright and bold. The P-I, with its Hearst-populist roots, already does a better job of this than the Times. Keep pushing in this direction with powerful photos and compelling stories. Make a newspaper something people want to read again.
• The print product should promote the online product, not the other way around. Let the site have the full coverage. Let a leaner paper version be the tease that recruits more online readers.
• Slash expensive home delivery, except perhaps on Thursday and/or Friday.
• Revise, or dump, the Joint Operating Agreement. The Times could continue to print and deliver the P-I, but as a contractor. Bring ad sales back in-house (you can’t possibly do a worse job of selling ads than the Times is doing these days).
• Turn Saturday into a “Weekend Edition,” with think-piece essays and entertainment features that would otherwise go into a Sunday paper.
• Explore a Sunday edition that would be the same size as a weekday paper. Perhaps it could run only during college-football season, the only time of year when there’s something you know will happen on a Saturday afternoon that people will want to read about the next morning.
• Be a real alternative to the Times. Not in the formula of an “alt weekly,” but as a dynamic, well-written, well-edited product with its own mission and its own audience. If the Times continues to be a paper by and for suburbanites, the P-I can be the paper for those who prefer city life, and for those in the suburbs and exurbs who look to the city for cultural and civic leadership.

With these and other innovations, the print P-I‘s financial losses can be pared down to a level that could be supported by a consortium of local angel investors. With anything resembling an economic recovery, such a printed paper might even pay its way for a while, until new digital-delivery mechanisms make it fully obsolete.