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.

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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.

On PubliCola Today

PubliCola Adds Life   April 15, 2010 at 5:27 pm Josh Feit

First off: POLITICO picked up our Dino Rossi story today. And our Lusty Lady marquee contest is still hot. “Pelvis has left the building.” !!!

We’ll announce the winner—tickets to Neumos—tomorrow.

Meanwhile:

1. Morning Fizz.
2. PubliCola TV: A YouTube interview about the state budget with local lefty think tank, The Washington Budget & Policy Center. (Tomorrow we’ll post the interview we did about the budget with conservative local think tank, The Washington Policy Center.)
3. Your daily PubliCalendar.
4. Last Night, ECB teams up with KCTS.
5. RealEstateNerd Jane Hodges with a McGuire update from City Hall.
6. Last Night. I get my wish.
7. Chris Kissel reports from the 34th District Democrats’ candidate Q&A.
8. P-Patches. Erica gets her wish.
9. Gov. Gregoire’s plan to win federal education dollars.
10. Soundgarden is playing tomorrow.
11. GameNerd is convinced.
12. Today’s big 520 news. (Erica’s on the phone with Mayor McGinn right now, so expect an update.)




  • Cook

    this new feature is annoying. i may be the only one who feels that way, but i figured i should put my two cents in.

  • Josh Feit

    Explain.

  • Morning Fizzy

    Make him show us his papers.

  • JC

    I like this new feature. It's a round up of what's on the site today. Simple, easy, non boasty. What's the problem?

  • Cook

    to me, all it does is push an earlier story onto the next page–there isn't so much news every day on the site that i need to have a “day-in-review” type post. i think it would be 100x more useful if it was once a week. maybe you schedule it for friday afternoon/saturday morning, and link to the top commented stories, the stories with the most pageviews, and the stories the editorial board feels were most important. that way, if i missed something from the week, it would be there.

    also, a lot of it seems redundant to me: you can get the morning fizz and publicalender from the left hand sidebar with the newest one of each coming up on top. why does this service need duplication?

  • Josh Feit

    Cook,

    Funny. I actually used to do the roundup on Friday's back in early 2009 when the site first started. That's where the “PubliCola Adds Life” tag comes from. That's what the Friday roundup was called. I stopped doing it sometime that Spring. I don't remember why.

    I started up the daily version this week because we had 20+ posts on Monday, and it felt like we needed a roundup. That got me doing it daily for the last few days. So far, I'm liking it.

    I like that you're using the tabs on the left column, but sadly, you're one of the few. That design element isn't tracking as it was intended.

    Anyway, still thinking it all through. Thanks for the feedback.

  • Cook

    i guess i didn't use the site that far back! i was going to add to my second post that the roundup on monday was understandable because the news day was so busy, but when the amount of posts is less, it seems to make less sense. to me at least. if everyone else likes it, though, then keep on keeping on and somehow i'll manage.