Trevor Griffey, a journalist, doctoral candidate in history, and prolific PubliCola commenter, is launching a new nonprofit web site, “Olympia Newswire,” dedicated to covering the upcoming legislative session.
So far, Griffey has enlisted the (paid) services of two local reporters—George Howland, former news editor at Seattle Weekly (and current part-time communications director at the Seattle Channel), and Margie Slovan, most recently at the Daily Journal of Commerce—and says he’s in negotiations with one more. Slovan will cover public education, Howland will cover the economy (including “taxes, jobs, and labor relations,” Griffey says), and the third reporter will cover social services. Griffey says he’s concentrating on those three areas because he feels other news sites (the P-I; the PostGlobe) spread themselves too thin, and because the other subjects he’d like to cover, environmental news and transportation policy, are already being covered well by other blogs.
The site will rely, at least in part, on donations from individual benefactors; tonight at 6:00, Griffey’s holding a fundraiser (baseline ask: $100) at Cafe Septieme on Capitol Hill. Griffey says he’s aiming for $10,000 in pledges by the 31st; if he gets there, he’ll commit to covering the session in 2010 and the following year. Pledges so far have come from a who’s who of local lefties, including former Church Council deputy director and onetime city council candidate David Bloom and Low-Income Housing Alliance director Rachael Myers, raising the obvious question: Who will the site be for?
Griffey says his intent isn’t to push any ideology, which is one reason he’s hiring professional reporters and not doing any writing for the site himself. (He’s also forgoing a paycheck, at least at first) “As publisher, I imagine my role being one that might not ever result in my having a paid position,” he says. “What I am seeking to do now is not provide any kind of voice for myself but rather, to hire experienced journalists who, in a normal universe, would be at the top of their games and in really excellent positions, but becase of the state of the journalism industry are underemployed or unemployed or otherwise dissatisifed with their opportunities to do reporting.”
In recent years, as the newspaper industry has contracted, the number of reporters covering Olympia full-time has declined precipitously—from 34 in 1993 to about seven in the coming session. (The dwindling Olympia press corps, in fact, is a major reason Josh founded PubliCola a year ago). Whether need translates into demand—and, more importantly, money—however, is an open question. So far, the only nonprofit site covering Olympia to any extent (caveat: That I’m aware of) is Crosscut, which initially started out as a for-profit and has reportedly continued to struggle since the reorganization.
Griffey acknowledges he doesn’t have a business background, but says his fundraising record so far shows he’s capable of getting contributors on board. “If you can raise $10,000 in just a few weeks, it shows you’ve got some energy. You’ve got some momentum,” he says.
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This is a fabulous idea. Erica, you sound skeptical about the non-profit status, but there’s already great models out there: publications like The Guardian and Harper’s function extremely successfully as non-profit newsgathering/reporting organizations. And ProPublica has made a great start in a similar vein as a non-profit funder of investigative reporting.
Publicola is invaluable but desperately needs some competition to stay sharp. I expect that a seasoned journalist like Howland will be confident enough to dispense the worst parts of Publicola’s work: your unfortunate & grating KoolKid attitude, inconsistent fact-checking, substitution of anecdote for research, flippant contrarian proclivities, and substanceless rumor-generating reports-of-rumors.
And who knows, maybe the competition will even motivate Publicola to do some copy-editing before clicking that big fat publish button!
…just proved the law that any criticism of someone else’s copy-editing always includes a typo. I meant of course to write:
“…confident enough to dispense with the worst parts…”
With so much at stake this session, namely the elimination of so many essential public services, Trevor’s project comes when we most desperately need new sources of independent news coverage.
Thanks for giving tonight’s event and the project some exposure ECB!
To make your pledge or get more information, contact trevorgriffey@gmail.com
Indeed, an effort worth of support. Local nonprofit journalism needs as many entrepreneurial startups as it can get!
PS… don’t forget about the folks at http://www.InvestigateWest.org, who are doing solid, northwest-scoped investigative journalism and just landed a major startup grant from the Bullitt Foundation.
I’m at the kickoff right now. There’s a lot of support for this project, people realize it’s an idea whose time has come. Nobody is doing this kind of in-depth, focused work in Olympia.
We have some things like this in California, focusing on the nuclear meltdown that is Sacramento and state government. It can and will
succeed. Kudos to Trevor for launching it.
Crosscut is somewhat conservative (or “moderate” as Brewster would say) so a progressive Olympia report would be welcome. I can’t see it as a direct competitor with Publicola, since the latter also does excellent intensive local reporting and there’ll certainly be enough local news in the coming year. We need both.
Crosscut conservative? Please. Then again, considering the readership of Publicola, I guess I’m not surprised at that characterization.
@ 7. Darren
After reading crosscut, publicola, the stranger, huff, etc, I often have to watch FoxNews and listen to Dori
Monson to get back to being a fairly liberal Democrat.
For a change, it would be nice to see one of these new or up-and-coming on-line sites be really independent, open-minded and journalistically challenging rather than just an on-line extension or copycat of the corporate mainstream news media. The more experience these so-called alternative media get, the more they look like the same old, same old (familiarity breeds comfort, indeed).
Much as I enjoy the left/progressive spin on much/most of the Stranger, Horsesass, Publicola, etc sites, it would be nice if we had a fact-oriented effort here to work Olympia during the session. Please just report what’s going on, and not going on…and leave the spin to the spinners.
Howland is what I would consider a traditional journalist. It’s good to have him back reporting.
Here is wishing good luck to Trevor. It is really hard to get news out of Olympia these days even when you go searching for it. Trevor’s project should provide a valuable service and I will be looking forward to reading it regularly.
Trevor isn’t going to push an ideology? Dream on.
One possible good thing from this: If he is busy pissing away other people’s money, maybe he will have less time to grace these pages with his insights.
Oh Margie, we can not wait read what you will write about education. Will we finally get a writer who will seek, find and report truth. For the sake of the children and social sanity. Or will the WEA and whining adults prevail? We are told that in Harlem “The Children’s Zone.” a safety net for kids, replaces 50% of their teachers annually because they fail to teach the children in their schools. Seems like it makes sense. If that Boeing Dreamliner had not taken off like a dream, the entire line would have been seeking other employment.
So, what new concept will the legislature come up with in 2010 that will make it appear they are not owned by the WEA? I can not wait to see, go find out for us Margie.
Dawn, instead of bashing WEA’s name and the work of over 80,000 public employees, you need to give specific examples of how WEA and its members hurt public schools. WEA is the number one organization defending the funding of public schools, fighting to allow the majority of voters to decide how to fund local school levies, holding the state legislature accountable for the impact of the WASL on students, and proving what practices work best in our schools on a day to day basis.
And Stephen Miller is president of the Sammamish Council Board of the WEA. Just thought it would be nice to attach an attribution to the commercial he posted.
If you need my professional resume, it includes over 15 years of teaching and union leadership. I currently teach social studies to 11 year olds in a high needs neighborhood. In addition to being the Sammamish President, I serve on the WEA and NEA Boards.
Sarah, I put my entire name on my post. Who are you and what is your affiliation?
Stephen, I don’t write commercials. They’re individual posts from someone who doesn’t hold any professional position and isn’t beholden to any organization’s official stance. That’s exactly what I was pointing out.
Trevor, get that donate button up fast. I don’t think I can make it to your fundraiser tonight.
sarah @ 6
Yup. I love Knute Berger like a brother. But Crosscut publishes Vance and Van Dyk. I just can’t bring myself to frequent that site; life’s just too short.
Hi Stephen Miller.
Can I be pro teacher, pro schools, pro unions, and still criticize the WEA and the districts?
My mom was a teacher. Special ed. She had it pretty rough. Between fighting the district and the union, she finally decided she had better things to do. I’ve had friends do the same.
I’ve never been a member, so am really talking out my hat. But it seems to me the unions need to be more pro teacher, especially newer teachers.
Sarah68, it is not a commercial, since I’m not selling anything. I’m simply stating facts based upon my experience working in public education. Ask anyone who knows me, and I am beholden to no person or organization. I can be as critical of WEA leadership and members as I am of people you throw unsubstantiated criticism toward my peers. Postings should be based on something more than just a feeling by anonymous people.
Jason, yes, please do criticize both the unions and districts when we fall short. Personally, I believe our first responsibility as a union is to defend the contractual rights of our dues paying members. Our critics claim that is proof we do not put students first. I don’t believe it hurts students but in fact supports a better learning environment when we model due process for our members on the front lines.
Stephen, not to belabor the point, but I will because you don’t understand. You were selling the WEA. In fact in your last post you talk about the union as “we”, so you are speaking as a union member/Board member. That’s what you should have put in your first post. That would give other posters a better idea of why you’re saying something. Your full and proper name doesn’t do it. As you say, postings should be based on something, and yours was — you are a WEA union person.
In anonymous postings (and we’re all anonymous; we have no real idea whether you’re who you state you are, and that’s the nature of blogs), we owe each other a little extra courtesy if we want to be taken seriously. If I were speaking as a member, especially a Board member, of an organization, I’d say so.
That being said, we’re free to criticize whom we want how we want. And sometimes our criticism is based solely on a “feeling.” Most of life is. The facts you gave were facts as you saw them, through your feeling.
With so much at stake this session, namely the elimination of so many essential public services, Trevor's project comes when we most desperately need new sources of independent news coverage.
Thanks for giving tonight's event and the project some exposure ECB!
To make your pledge or get more information, contact trevorgriffey@gmail.com