Frank Wetzel, former Journal American editor from 1978-'87. (AP Photo/Doug Esser)
Erica Hall worked at the Journal until the last day. (AP Photo/Doug Esser)
Sherry Grindeland, who worked on earlier incarnations of the paper before it went daily, and off-and-on until 1996. (AP Photo/Doug Esser)
Art Thiel worked at the paper when it was still the Journal American in the 1970s. (AP Photo/Doug Esser)
Terry Tazioli worked at the Journal American in the 1970s. (AP Photo/Doug Esser)
Death of a newspaper.

The mourners came to pay their respects to the King County Journal.

The suburban Seattle daily newspaper -- in which the 200 former employees who gathered had invested part of their lives -- couldn't survive the general decline in the industry, the rise of the Internet, the lack of young readers.

Some of the bereaved held up copies of the last printing, which ran on Jan. 21 with the headline: "FINAL EDITION."

While they called this event on a recent Sunday afternoon a "wake," it turned out more like a high school reunion, with former co-workers snacking on appetizers and renewing acquaintances. Most of the wakers had already moved on; only a few had ridden it all the way down as circulation declined from 47,000 in 2003 to 39,000 at the time of its demise.

The Kent-based paper, which traced its roots back to the 1889 Slaughter Sun in Auburn, was sold in November to Black Press Ltd., of Victoria, B.C. Owner David Black decided to shut it down and focus on weekly papers he also bought in the Seattle suburbs.

But what really killed the King County Journal? Was it cable TV and the Internet? Jon Stewart and CNN? Bloggers?

Doug Esser asked former employees who had gathered that very question. And the irony is not lost that you can hear their voices here, in this asap ... podcast.

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asap contributor Doug Esser, an AP reporter based in Seattle, worked for an earlier version of the King County Journal -- the Journal American -- for a couple of years in the late 1970s.

Here's a little about his experience there:

"I was on the copy desk in Bellevue -- editing, writing headlines and laying out pages. We had computers, but the computers in those days didn't even have spellcheck.

I was wire editor, responsible for state, national and international stories that actually came into the building on a wire from The Associated Press. They were printed on a big black art-deco teletype that went clickety-clack at 66 words per minute. Another device punched holes in rolls of yellow ticker tape, which piled up in a bin as if all the news of the world were confetti. ...

I moved on to The Associated Press Seattle bureau, where one my tasks until recently had been to pick up the King County Journal outside the door on my way into the office each morning. Now the sidewalk is bare.

As an institution, the Journal devolved like a newspaper in the rain turning back into pulp. Some people don't care, but I still wish it were there."

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