Presidents of the United States of America guitarist and singer Dave Dederer isn’t just a musician. He’s also active in the business world. Dederer develops digital music projects for HP and oversees the Presidents’ business dealings. He calls himself “both a small business owner and a corporate soldier.” Dederer’s reading list reflects his diverse interests. He’s [...]

Just when Luke Burbank thought he’d left mainstream radio behind for good, KIRO came calling. Burbank, known for his The Too Beautiful To Live podcast, signed on last week to join Dave Ross as co-host of KIRO’s mid-morning news and talk program. While Burbank didn’t plan out his move back to commercial radio, he’s discovering he [...]

When Bill Radke returned to Seattle two weeks ago, he needed to hit the ground running. Radke stepped into his new job as morning host on KIRO-FM at the height of election season. After six years working for NPR out of Los Angeles, he needed to catch up on Washington politics in a hurry. He also [...]

Nancy Leson is one serious reader. The Seattle Times food columnist devours everything from the Wednesday food section of The New York Times to Seattle Weekly’s Voracious column to the daily print edition of The Seattle Times. She’s also regularly listening to NPR, scrolling through news feeds on Twitter and Facebook, and surfing the web on [...]

After nearly a year of working as a freelance journalist, blogger, and contract writer, I’m heading back to the world of full-time work. Starting November 7 th, I’ll be working for Patch, AOL’s new, ambitious nation-wide network of local news sites. Like many of the best opportunities in life, I somewhat stumbled into this one. It took [...]

The creators of Seattle’s first lesbian news site believe the city is long overdue for such a publication. Last week, Kate West and Sarah Toce launched The Seattle Lesbian . Though Seattle already has more than one gay news outlet ( Seattle Gay News and Seattlegayscene.com), West and Toce saw demand for a site aimed just at women. Toce, The [...]

Seattleites came to know Christine Chen as a news anchor on KCPQ-13. These days, she’s left her television career behind to run her own communications and public relations firm, Chen Communications. (Small disclosure: In the past I did website copy for a client of Chen Communications, but no longer work for them). Chen doesn’t miss her time [...]

By launching the popular I Can Has Cheezburger sites, tech entrepreneur Ben Huh made LOLcats and epic Fails household terms. All around the world, web surfers looking for a quick laugh visit the Cheezburger Network for photos of animals, people doing stupid things, misspelled signs, and other quirky topics. But that doesn’t mean Huh, a former journalist, spends all [...]

In the last year, Mark Matassa left journalism behind to steer Mayor Mike McGinn’s communications staff through controversial budget cuts, bike-friendly road policies, and tunnel debates. And he’s done it all while fighting brain cancer. Remarkably, Matassa expresses only optimism and gratitude for where he’s at. He’s embracing his hectic life, stress and all. “I really [...]

Tom Douglas is a busy man. The Seattle celebrity chef runs seven restaurants, including the recently opened Seatown Snackbar near Pike Place Market. Douglas’ team is also building out new bread and pastry bakeries in South Lake Union. Yet the time-pressed restauranteur still finds time for traditional news. Though Douglas dabbles in new technologies, he still [...]

When I last checked in with former Seattle P-I columnist Mike Lewis, he was spending most of his time pouring drinks and growing business at the Streamline Tavern, the Lower Queen Anne bar he purchased with three partners last year. Lewis, who lost his job at the P-I when the paper ceased publication as a print news product, admitted to [...]

With lips sunburned from a recent fly fishing trip in Jackson Hole and a baseball cap on his head, Tom Skerritt looked every bit the unassuming Seattleite sipping tea from his Starbucks mug last week. And as he began talking and his enthusiasm grew, it was not to promote his own movie star projects, but to [...]

When I arranged an afternoon coffee session with actor, screenwriter, and TheFilmSchool teacher and founder Tom Skerritt, my main objective was finding out about progress and growth at the school. I realized, though, that I could also tap Skerritt for our weekly “What I Read” column. I wondered if Skerritt, who is part of the older [...]

The last time Real Change hired an editor, their best candidate was an ambitious young journalist fresh out of college. What a difference a decade makes. This time around, Real Change executive director Tim Harris has been flooded with applications from writers and editors with over 10 years of experience at daily newspapers. Thanks to one [...]

On Thursday, fellow Seattle reporter Kirsten Grind and I led a session on blogging at the University of Washington Journalism Day. The annual daylong seminar, sponsored by the Washington Journalism Education Association , draws high school journalism students from around the state. The 800 participating teens could opt to attend sessions on everything from opinion writing to media [...]

This week, we chatted with James Keblas, director of the City of Seattle Film and Music Office, about what he’s reading these days. We found Keblas is, appropriately, a bit of a news junkie and willing and eager to embrace new technology. This is the second installment of a regular series we plan to run. We’re [...]

On the air at KING-FM 98.1, classical music continues to play 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Just like always. Behind the scenes, though, station staff members are hard at work to transform KING from a commercial venture to a listener-supported station. Beginning next July, KING-FM will no longer operate on advertising dollars. At [...]

With new media options cropping up every week and existing media changing so rapidly, we at the Washington News Council have been watching our own news reading habits evolve. It made us wonder, are others in Seattle experiencing the same? We decided to launch a regular blog series called “What I Read.” We’re picking journalists, politicians, [...]

When Scripps Newspapers asked me to profile a new media venture in Seattle for a series they’re running in papers across the country, I immediately thought of PubliCola. Unlike some of the newer start-ups, the online political site has been around for a year and a half. In addition to that track record, PubliCola is [...]

A month ago, Kirsten Grind pounded out daily banking industry updates in the hectic downtown Seattle Puget Sound Business Journal newsroom. These days, she’s more likely to be found driving around the state to the homes of aging former Washington Mutual executives. Grind spent an entire recent weekday in Skagit County with onetime WaMu CEO Lou [...]