About

Olympia Newswire is a new, independent source of news about Washington state government and politics. It covers government from the perspective of those affected by policy, not just politicians.

Olympia Newswire is a non-profit in partnership with Real Change and is fiscally sponsored by Real Change at this time. It was founded on December 15, 2009.

The Olympia Newswire began by raising $10,000 in pledges in less than three weeks during the holidays, with two thirds of that money coming from pledges between $50 and $250. It wasn’t enough to cover our expenses, but it was enough to make us believe that there was a huge amount of goodwill and popular interest in seeing the Newswire succeed.

The idea behind the Newswire is to hire experienced Editor-Reporters to provide in-depth coverage of specific public policy “beats” for Washington state government and politics:

Because the Newswire’s reporters have ultimate editorial authority over their beats, the Newswire does not aspire to present the news in any single voice or style. It is likely to include a mixture of fact-based newspaper journalism, analysis-based alternative newsweekly reporting, and story-based community journalism. We embrace this diversity of styles and voices. At the same time, we insist on fairness to all sides whenever our writers cover an issue, and on a public interest sensibility that is suspicious of decision-making that happens behind closed doors.

Our coverage of the 60 day, 2010 legislative session in Washington state is a “pilot project” that operates on a shoestring budget. Our reporters are experienced writers, but they have much less experience covering state government, and they primarily live in Seattle. We don’t pretend to be comprehensive or perfect. But we do believe that, given the collapse of the Olympia Press corps in the last 2 years, we can make a humble but important contribution to its revitalization.

So while our origins are humble and our resources are limited, we remain hopeful and ambitious. We believe that the hard work of a few scrappy journalists can help fill the void created by the implosion of the newspaper industry, and perhaps even contribute to the revitalization of public interest journalism by developing a new, non-profit business model for it.

Small, private financial support is an essential component of the new, non-profit business model for journalism. While other sources of revenue– from large donors, foundations, events and advertisements– are also important, the fact is that without your support, projects like this can’t continue. Our promise to you is to provide original, in-depth reporting you won’t find anywhere else. If you come to enjoy and/ or rely upon what you read at the Newswire, we ask that you express your appreciation with a financial contribution– no matter how modest.

You can donate by using the buttons to the right, or by sending a check to

Olympia Newswire
c/o Real Change
2129 Second Ave
Seattle WA 98121

Real Change is the leading street paper in North America and is a tax exempt 501 (c)(3) organization, TIN: 91-1817387. Donations made to Real Change for the Olympia Newswire are tax deductible.

For more information about the Newswire, check out the “Publisher’s Notebook” category of our posts.

Thank you for your interest and your support,

Trevor Griffey, Publisher
Olympia Newswire
publisher [at] olympianews.org