King County Journal's owner announces paper is closing

The King County Journal's new owner today announced it will close the Kent-based daily.

The newspaper's last edition will be January 21, said Don Kendall, general manager of the Journal and nine affiliated non-daily papers.

Black Press of Victoria, B.C., purchased the 10 papers last month from Horvitz Newspapers, and announced it would decide the Journal's fate over the next few weeks. The daily had been losing money and circulation for years.

Kendall made the announcement to employees in the Kent newsroom early this afternoon.

"We couldn't come up with a business model that would work," he said in an interview. "I've been a publisher for 20 years. It's the most difficult thing I've ever had to do."

About 40 full-time employees, mostly in the newsroom, will be laid off, he added.

Kendall also said six of Black's newly acquired papers that now publish twice a month — the Auburn Reporter, Kent Reporter, Renton Reporter, Covington/Maple Valley Reporter, Bellevue Reporter and Redmond Reporter — would start publishing twice a week in late January.

A seventh bi-monthly, the Bothell/Kenmore Reporter, will become a weekly, he said.