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Contents on this page were published in the April, 1993 edition of the Washington Free Press.
WFP, 1463 E. Republican #178, Seattle, WA -USA, 98112. -- WAfreepress@gmail.com
Copyright © 1993 WFP Collective, Inc.
IDEAS THAT
CUT THROUGH
THE BS
Washingtonians, with some immodesty, consider themselves among the best read and most informed people in the country. The numbers back up this pride. The people who keep track of such things say that we go through more books per capita than readers living in any other state.
Thankfully, this means that there is no shortage of places to buy pre-read books. It's a welcome symbiosis.
But we don't always have a few bucks in our pocket. The result: Word-starved people short on dollars but long on spare time and urges to learn create fertile ground for free publications. In this field, Seattle has a bumper crop.
While we like to think that we lead the national curve in many respects - liberalism, environmentalism, diversity, music, coffee - we're hurting in one important area.
Almost without exception, Seattle's freebie publications have as their inspiration a narrow, specialized interest: music/art, ethnic/minority affiliation, neighborhood identity, business, self-improvement, and so on. Most of them do what they do well.
But every other US city of comparable size has something that Seattle does not have: a true "alternative newsmagazine." You've seen them: usually they'll have a probing news story featured on the cover, a few supporting news articles inside, one or more editorials written by staffers or members of the public, letters to the editor, an essay or two, an entertainment section, a few comics, classified ads and personals. It's a can't-miss formula.
Seattle's already got one. Right?
Wrong.
Which of these ingredients is conspicuously left out of Seattle's best-known weekly periodical? Frankly, we think that cover stories about spring weddings, Jamaican cooking, French restaurants and Christmas gift ideas - along with a couple of warmed-over news articles already reported to death by the two daily newspapers - leave this publication short of the mark. (And you have to pay for it, unlike nearly all other alternative newsmagazines around the country.)
Over the years, this weekly has relied more and more on its entertainment listings and reviews - not on its news coverage - to hang on to readers. Its increasingly mainstream editorial content has become indistinguishable from the Times and P-I , with more and more of its ads being placed by the kind of businesses and interests that benefit from its richer audience and risk-free, status quo-style news coverage.
If you're like us, you pick up publications like the Village Voice , LA Weekly , Mother Jones or Portland's Willamette Week for hard-edged, honest coverage of local and national currents. And if you're like us, you'd rather read exposŽs about police brutality in Los Angeles and sleaze in the breast-implant business than take a visual tour of mansions in Seattle's Capitol Hill or get tips about where to find high-priced Christmas gifts.
What's an "alternative newsmagazine" supposed to do? In the tradition of the grandaddy, the Voice , it should conduct critical examinations of major events and important people, explore alternatives to the Conventional Wisdom, be scrappy in the face of official resistance, confront lies with honesty, report stories with a mature irreverence, and satirize people and institutions that welcome satire.
It should perform the sort of investigative journalism that our major daily newspapers curiously claim they don't have the time or resources to do, and that our weeklies inexplicably ignore. (We're not going to bother mentioning television, which has managed to get its newscasters out of the box, but not its head out of its ass.)
And it should wake up and shake up the detached powers who preside over our governmental, economic, social, legal and educational institutions.
What a great paradox that Seattle - with its unequaled level of political savvy and social awareness - lacks a medium that captures the city's renowned passion for getting to the bottom of an issue. Many Seattleites - maybe even you - have complained about this void. We've heard you, loud and clear, at bookstores, espresso carts and theater ticket lines for years now.
We're not, however, going write about entertainment. Plenty of local rags, and to some degree the dailies, do a great job at giving you the low-down on the Seattle scene. We read them all ourselves, and we encourage you to keep picking them up.
What we will try to bring you is a publication that lives up to Western Washington's reputation as a home to independent, skeptical readers and thinkers who want to be informed without being brainwashed, and challenged without being preached to.
The secret to a successful news publication is to surprise and engage the reader; to write about events, people and trends that escape coverage by publications that thrive on predictability. Vulnerable politicians, flagrant polluters and obvious scumbags make easy targets for our cherry-picking media.
Seattle's established publications don't have the guts to pick on anybody their own size. We're going to get in over our heads.
We're opening up the pages of the Free Press to journalists, essayists, columnists, artists, photographers, cartoonists and humorists throughout Puget Sound who have searched without success for the right medium to publish their work. No offense, but if you like writing about spring weddings, snapping pictures at fashion shows or drawing illustrations for jewelry ads, it's probably best if you call someone else.
But if you would like to write about King County's shadow government, take pictures of industrial polluters or draw the face of a sleazy politician into the shape of a maggot, please call or write us.
Because of the swarm of local publications with entertainment coverage and listings, we're not even thinking about competing with them. Altogether, they probably provide more than enough information to ensure that you'll have a good time on any given evening.
Rather, our competition is Seattle's daily newspapers and a certain weekly publication that you may wish were more challenging of the status quo, and challenging to your intellect.
Here's your chance to put your pen, camera or brush where your mouth is. Instead of complaining about the words and visuals that our town's publications feed us, help us do something about it.
Call us at WAfreepress@gmail.com and tell us if you want to write hard-edged news articles, illustrate them with your art or photographs, or contribute your essays, commentary, comics or humor.
Unlike some of the other publications in town, we will talk to you. And if we're not here, we promise we'll call you back as soon as humanly possible.
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