PubliCola Archives

January 21, 2010

Uncategorized As Rick Perlstein recounts in the opening of Nixonland, an ambitious and entertaining history of the political ferment of the late 1960s, Lyndon Johnson’s crushing victory over Barry Goldwater in the 1964 presidential election represented the apotheosis of liberal self-confidence. Seemingly the entirety of the American political class was in agreement: Conservatism was being relegated [...] read more →


12 Comments

December 23, 2009

OMG!Sandeep: Obama is Risking His Presidency in Afghanistan. And He Should

News This was originally posted yesterday. [Editor's Note: We're not sure where our OMG!Obama column has run off too. Perhaps ObamaNerd is embarrassed about his hero's health care bill—which appears to have abandoned the public option and half the public, namely, women. Luckily, we're debuting a new Obama-centric opinion column today (it'll have it's own logo [...] read more →


70 Comments

Obama is Risking His Presidency in Afghanistan. And He Should

Opinion, Politics This was originally posted yesterday. [Editor's Note: We're not sure where our OMG!Obama column has run off too. Perhaps ObamaNerd is embarrassed about his hero's health care bill—which appears to have abandoned the public option and half the public, namely, women. Luckily, we're debuting a new Obama-centric opinion column today (it'll have it's own logo [...] read more →


695 Comments

November 11, 2009

Extra Fizz: Post Globe Founder Takes Gig at Lefty Think Tank

News Former Seattle P-I reporter Kery Murakami, the driving force behind the Seattle Post-Globe online news site, is dialing back his involvement with the site after landing a (paying) job doing communications for the Washington State Budget & Policy Center, a liberal economic and fiscal policy think tank in Seattle. What this means for the already [...] read more →


18 Comments

September 17, 2009

Former PI Columnist Mike Lewis Buys PI Hangout Bar

Arts & Culture In his “Under the Needle” column, former Seattle Post-Intelligencer columnist Mike Lewis reported on outside the mainstream, quirky and colorful “stories from the streets of Seattle.” Now Lewis, who lost his job and his column when the print edition of the P-I folded this year, has made a career choice that would have made him [...] read more →


0 Comments

Former PI Columnist Mike Lewis Buys PI Hangout Bar

News [Editor's note, this isn't PubliCola's real BarNerd, President Andrew, it's Sandeep, who—it must be acknowledged—is something of real BarNerd himself.] In his “Under the Needle” column, former Seattle Post-Intelligencer columnist Mike Lewis reported on outside the mainstream, quirky and colorful “stories from the streets of Seattle.” Now Lewis, who lost his job and his column [...] read more →


4 Comments

August 28, 2009

Gates Foundation Rides to the Rescue: Crosscut Gets $100,000 Gift.

News 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 [...] read more →


37 Comments

June 18, 2009

Seattlepi.com Remained Among Top 30 Newspaper Web Sites in May

News Yesterday afternoon, Editor & Publisher issued their rankings of traffic at newspaper web sites in May. It contained some very good news for the Seattle P-I.com, which, despite the shuttering of their print edition in March, continues to draw substantial web traffic. They ranked 28th on the E&P list, with just under 1.5 million unique [...] read more →


4 Comments

June 17, 2009

Erica C. Barnett (and her Mad List of Sources) Joins PubliCola Staff

News Josh was getting a little lonely all by himself at PubliCola headquarters, so we decided to double the size of our staff. Erica C. Barnett, news editor of the Stranger (a friend and former colleague of both Josh and I) will be coming on board at PubliCola ASAP as News Editor. Christopher Frizzelle, the Stranger’s [...] read more →


97 Comments

June 15, 2009

Blethen Sells Maine Papers

News The Seattle Times Company just announced that it has finally succeeded in selling its Maine newspapers. The new owner is a consortium led by Richard Connor, who the Seattle Times describes in their press release announcing the sale as a native of Bangor, Maine, but who since 2006 has been the lead owner, editor and publisher [...] read more →


2 Comments

June 12, 2009

Our New Advisory Board

News When we recently announced that Seattle green developer Greg Smith had bought a stake in PubliCola, we promised there would be more announcements coming soon. Today we are making the first of those: The formation of a PubliCola advisory board of high profile players in Seattle’s civic and cultural life. Our new advisory board members are: Greg Smith – [...] read more →


80 Comments

June 3, 2009

The Greg Smith Deal

News A walk down memory lane: Back in October 2008—seems like ancient history now—Josh called me up and suggested we roll the dice and try to set up a web news site. I thought he must have taken up smoking crack, but we met one evening a few days later in a Capitol Hill bar to talk. I [...] read more →


16 Comments