As the traditional media die, a major side effect has been the precipitous loss of reporters .. you know the pad wielding, camera carrying guys and gals who gave us Watergate. the Pentagon papers and all those juicy sex scandals? When papers can’t sell ads, they also do nto pay even the traditional pittance for reporters!
So, I was very sad when Josh Feit and Erika Barnett closed down their great site PUBLICOLA. They tried to over to Crosscut but, sadly that media is far too gray for the fizzle Josh and Erika are so good at. If TA had its way, the publisher of Crosscut, David Brewster, would hire David Goldstein away from The Stranger and put some drama into dated format Crosscut offers online.
Now the good news. PUBLICOLA is on its way back!
Thu, May 10, midnight
PubliCola.com, a valued website covering Olympia and city hall, is closing down. Crosscut is hoping to keep these two energetic reporters working their beats.
By Erica C. Barnett and Josh Feit
This is our last post at Crosscut. The team here is great — and founder David Brewster has been particularly gracious and supportive, bringing Erica and me on board so we could continue to write. As Brewster wrote when he brought us on in mid-May to preserve our reporting:
I’m glad we could row our little lifeboat out to them. … May what they started long live on!
We’re grateful for Brewster’s amazing support at Crosscut, but PubliCola is our thing. And it will live on. More details to come, but the Cola will be back in full force later this month.
For now, we’re taking a much needed break.
As Erica puts it, cell phones are off and we’ve “Gone fishin’.”
See you soon.