Viva La Cola!

Founded in January 2009, PubliCola is a blog about Seattle written by journalists who are dedicated to non-partisan, original daily reporting that prioritizes a balanced approach to news. Started by longtime local editor and award-winning reporter Josh Feit, PubliCola is the first online-only news site in state history to get media credentials to cover the state capitol.

PubliCola was off and running. In June 2009, PubliCola hired another award-winning journalist, super-sourced Seattle city hall reporter Erica C. Barnett.

People were afraid that blogging would change journalism. Instead, we believe journalism can change blogging. Twenty-first century journalism may look and feel different, and yes Erica isn't afraid to get cranky, but we're committed to making sure online news still delivers independent, reliable, even-keeled coverage. And most of all, we're committed to making sure the coverage sparks honest civic debate.

Bringing you cola for the people, PubliCola is named after Publius Valerius PubliCola, the alias for the authors of the Federalist Papers—the original bloggers.

The first online-only news site in state history to get media credentials to cover the state capitol and Seattle city hall, PubliCola has been called a “must-read” by the Seattle Post Intelligencer and a hot “New Media Mover and Shaker” by Seattle Magazine—which also cited our own Erica C. Barnett as the city's No. 1 news nerd.

PubliCola Sells Out

There are some changes to the site today, and PubliCola’s esteemed Chief Operations Officer, Sandeep Kaushik, will certainly write a formal statement about them for the 10-Q. We will publish that statement soon.  

In the mean time, here are a few cool things to note: All the Nerds—”TechNerd,” “FoodNerd,” “SportsNerd,” “MusicNerd,” “FilmNerd,” and “NerdNerd”—along with all the other regular PubliCola features like “This Washington (our coverage of the state legislature),  “That Washington,” (our coverage of the state’s DC delegation), “OMG!Obama” (our fine-tuned Obama coverage), and PubliComix—are now archived.

Scroll down on the left, and you’ll find tabs for each one. Click and Shazam!—you’ll find all our D.C. posts in one spot; or you can go back and read everything that “TechNerd,” “FilmNerd,” or “MusicNerd” has ever written.

You can also click on the headers above the posts—like the “Morning Fizz” logo on the post below this one—and you’ll be taken to the corresponding archive. 

We’ve also added a new column, “Money Where Mouth Is.” MWMI will feature podcast interviews with people working in the trenches for righteous local non-profits. It will debut later this week. (If you click on that logo today, you wont find anything.)

Finally, you’ll notice a couple of ads in the mix. This is the start of PubliCola “Phase 2.” We’ve sold out.

There are more exciting changes to come. Watch for Mr. Kaushik’s tidy explanation of “Phase 2” soon enough.