Washblog

Crosscut's brand new, owned by "more than a dozen local investors, none of whom has a stake greater than 20 percent" and published by David Brewster, who founded Seattle Weekly and Town Hall Seattle.

It's a "transpartisan solutionist" online newspaper covering the Pacific Northwest.  The name refers to the source of content -- all the "best" local journalism whether traditional, blog, or citizen.  And it refers to the "cut" across "divides of geography, age, big city and small" that its coverage represents.

Knute Berger, former Editor in Chief of the Seattle Weekly, who left after 15 years when the paper was bought by a large chain, has a regular column, today's on "Seattle School District's obsession with racism:.  I recommend his Mossback manifesto.

With Crosscut, it looks like we may get some additional muscle behind meaningful reporting on media -- including the kind of consolidation and unfair practices that I see reflected in the Seattle Times/ PI saga.  Today's top story:

"A former Seattle Times Co. executive claims that Times officials in the mid-1990s secretly violated their joint operating agreement (JOA) with Hearst Corp., owner of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, using unfairly lopsided circulation spending to keep the Seattle Times' circulation lead over the P-I. Times executives then tricked Hearst into giving up their paper's exclusivity in the morning, the former executive claims."

I love it when the cheaters are exposed.

So, it'll be interesting to see where this enterprise goes -- a new, hybrid kind of news source, in what Brewster refers to the "sunrise" news industry -- as opposed to legacy sources like newspapers, I guess.   Congratulations, Crosscut.