Back in March of this year PubliCola reported that people close to Crosscut.com, a bastion of high-minded civic commentary, were saying privately that the site might be on its last legs. Founded by David Brewster, who founded the Seattle Weekly in the 1970s and more recently Town Hall, Crosscut was conceived in 2006 in Brewster’s own image as a haven for "independent, bipartisan, ‘solutionist’ politics" and analysis, as an FAQ provided on the site puts it. The site quickly emerged as a home base for Brewster’s circle of friends and acquaintances in the old school Seattle commentariat, including former Weekly editor and self-described "Mossback" Knute Berger, former Hubert Humphrey aide Ted Van Dyk, and former King Broadcasting CEO Steve Clifford. Former P-I columnist Jean Godden (now on the City Council) has contributed occasionally, as has former WSDOT director Doug MacDonald.
Initially intended as a for-profit venture, the site is privately criticized by some in the local journalism world as overly dry and self-consciously upper-middlebrow to the point of borderline snobbery, though the site’s worship of intellectual detachment and penchant for discursive musings—heavy on context, relatively light on news—has also won it a core of dedicated readers, mostly among the over-50 set.
In any event, Brewster’s solutionist politics turned out to be something of a buzzkill when it came to advertising sales, and the site rapidly burned through several hundred thousand dollars in seed capital drawn from monied Old Seattle benefactors.
By this May the Seattle Weekly (long since sold by Brewster, and currently owned by the nation’s largest alt-weekly chain, Village Voice Media) was also picking up indications of trouble, reporting that Crosscut was having difficulties paying its freelance writers. Brewster, however, was undeterred, hinting at the possibility of better days to come in an e-mail to his contributors. "I’m waiting for a decision on a lead gift that would really launch us, so I hope I can send good news and catch up with past-dues. Thank you very much for staking me and Crosscut," Brewster wrote.
He is waiting no longer. Indeed, happy days are here again for Crosscut; solutionist politics may not have won over many advertisers, but it apparently strokes the intellectual erogenous zones of program officers at major philanthropic foundations. According to two knowledgeable sources, Crosscut, now refashioned as a non-profit venture, is about to receive a $100,000 grant from the Gates Foundation (the Seattle Foundation is also involved) that will ensure the stie’s continued survival for some time to come.
Though the grant is still being finalized, new signs of life at Crosscut are already apparent. As Josh reported a few days ago, Mark Matassa, a talented former Seattle Times , P-I , and Los Angeles Times editor, will be joining Crosscut on September 15 as deputy editor, a half-time position. (Matassa has been a member of PubliCola’s advisory board—not a paid gig—but is now stepping down to take the Crosscut gig; he was not a source for this post).
What other changes the new funding will bring remain to be seen. In response to an inquiry about the new Gates Foundation funding and its implications for the site, Brewster politely declined comment. “I have nothing to announce at this point,” he wrote in an e-mail.
