Northwest Reports

Relaunching The Black Lens in Spokane

The newspaper’s future was in question after founder Sandy Williams died. Reporter Mai Hoang talks about the push to get it up and running again.
For years Black readers in Eastern Washington could rely on The Black Lens, a Spokane-based newspaper, for community news.  
That changed in 2022, when founder Sandy Williams died in a floatplane crash. 
Suddenly the fate of the publication — which had already been on hiatus — was left hanging in the balance. 
In this episode of Northwest Reports, Mai Hoang talks about the push to revive The Black Lens, the publication’s value to community members and the legacy of Sandy Williams.   Read more about the relaunch of The Black Lens here. 
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Credits 
Host/Producer: Maleeha Syed and Isaac Kaplan-Woolner
Reporter: Mai Hoang
Story editor: Ryan Famuliner
Executive producer: Sarah Menzies
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If you would like to support Cascade PBS, go to crosscut.com/membership. In addition to supporting our events and our daily journalism, members receive complete access to the on-demand programming of Cascade PBS.

Palestinian, Israeli Women on Friendship, Hope

The two, who met years ago through a peace organization, spoke about their lives before and after Oct. 7 at a Town Hall Seattle event on Friday.
All eyes have been on Gaza since October 7, when Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel that killed around 1,200 people. Since then, Israel has killed upward of 30,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.  
The war between Israel and Hamas has sparked global outrage, triggered widespread calls for a cease-fire and led some Americans to vote “uncommitted” in the presidential primary – an attempt to get President Joe Biden to take a harsher stance on Israel.  
Still, there have long been efforts to build connections between communities tied to the war. One example is Tomorrow’s Women, an organization dedicated to facilitating dialogue and empowering young Israeli and Palestinian women to work toward peace.  
This episode of Northwest Reports is an edited version of a live event at Town Hall Seattle where Lana Ikelan, a Palestinian journalist, and Noga Bar Oz, a Jewish Israeli musician, shared stories about growing up in a divided world, their work as peacemakers and the ways the war has impacted them. Afterward, the women, who met in 2016 through Tomorrow’s Women, spoke with Northwest Reports co-host Sara Bernard about their relationship, their experiences before and after the war began, and what they continue to hope for.  
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Credits 
Host/Producer: Sara Bernard and Scot Michael 
Reporter: Sara Bernard
Story editor: Ryan Famuliner
Executive producer: Sarah Menzies
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If you would like to support Cascade PBS, go to crosscut.com/membership. In addition to supporting our events and our daily journalism, members receive complete access to the on-demand programming of Cascade PBS.

Climate Change Is Putting Us in a Funk

The environmental crisis has brought on anxiety, grief and a reluctance to have kids, says UW Bothell professor Jennifer Atkinson. 
 
It’s hard to miss the signs of climate change.   
The ocean’s heating, ice sheets are melting and – in places like Washington – wildfire seasons are getting longer.  
But climate change isn’t just impacting our landscape: It’s also affecting our mental health.  
In this episode of Crosscut Reports, host Maleeha Syed talks with Jennifer Atkinson, an associate teaching professor at the University of Washington Bothell, about the difficult emotions many of us experience with these changes – and what we can do to navigate them.  
To learn more about the impact that climate change is having on our mental health, check out this episode of Human Elements.  
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Credits 
Host/Producer: Maleeha Syed and Isaac Kaplan-Woolner
Reporter: Maleeha Syed
Story editor: Ryan Famuliner
Executive producer: Sarah Menzies
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If you would like to support Crosscut, go to crosscut.com/membership. In addition to supporting our events and our daily journalism, members receive complete access to the on-demand programming of Seattle’s PBS station, KCTS 9.

An Interview With WA’s Secretary of State

News editor Donna Blankinship interviewed Steve Hobbs about boosting voter confidence ahead of this year's elections.
Washington’s Secretary of State has a big year ahead.  
The 2024 election is already underway as Washington voters begin to cast their ballots in the presidential primary. Voters have until March 12 to choose among a handful of candidates, including Joe Biden and Donald Trump — the likely nominees for president.  
In mid-February, Crosscut’s news editor, Donna Blankinship, interviewed Washington Secretary Steve Hobbs to hear his thoughts on different election-related matters.  
In this episode of Crosscut Reports, Blankinship speaks with Hobbs about protecting election workers, combating misinformation, ranked-choice voting and more.  
Read more about what Hobbs had to say here. 
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Credits
Host/Producer: Maleeha Syed and Sara Bernard
Reporter: Donna Blankinship
Story editor: Ryan Famuliner
Executive producer: Sarah Menzies
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If you would like to support Crosscut, go to crosscut.com/membership. In addition to supporting our events and our daily journalism, members receive complete access to the on-demand programming of Seattle’s PBS station, KCTS 9.

How These Seattle Activists Remember 2020

Reporter Jadenne Radoc Cabahug shares the stories of Black Seattleites who are continuing to work for equity and police accountability.
In May 2020, amid a global pandemic, protests erupted around the United States following the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police.  
People marched to demand greater accountability from law enforcement across the country, including in Seattle, where protesters occupied several blocks of Capitol Hill for weeks.  
Crosscut’s emerging journalist fellow, Jadenne Radoc Cabahug, recently reported on four activists who experienced what Seattle was like in the summer of 2020.  
In this episode of Crosscut Reports, host Maleeha Syed speaks with Cabahug about how the people she interviewed remember this moment in Seattle’s history – and how they continue to channel their activism four years later.  
Read more about these four Seattle activists here. 
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Credits
Host/Producer: Maleeha Syed and Sara Bernard
Reporter: Jadenne Radoc Cabahug
Story editor: Ryan Famuliner
Executive producer: Sarah Menzies
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If you would like to support Crosscut, go to crosscut.com/membership. In addition to supporting our events and our daily journalism, members receive complete access to the on-demand programming of Seattle’s PBS station, KCTS 9.

An Effort to Slow Rent Increases

A Bellingham tenant and a housing advocate explain how steep rent increases are hurting state residents, and how HB 2114 could help.
For many tenants across Washington, rent is too high – and it keeps climbing. Right now, landlords face no limit on when or how much they can raise rents.  
HB 2114 would cap rent and fee increases to 7 percent in a 12-month period and prevent landlords from raising rent at all in the first year of a resident’s tenancy. In certain cases, it would also require landlords to give six months’ notice of rent increases.  
In this episode of Crosscut Reports, host Maleeha Syed speaks with Kerri Burnside, a Bellingham resident and supporter of HB 2114, about how sudden and severe rent increases have affected her life and community.  
Then, Michele Thomas from the Washington Low Income Housing Alliance shares details about the bill, the hurdles it faces, and why she believes it’s needed right now. 
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Credits
Host/Producer: Maleeha Syed and Sara Bernard
Reporter: Maleeha Syed and Sara Bernard
Story editor: Ryan Famuliner
Executive producer: Sarah Menzies
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If you would like to support Crosscut, go to crosscut.com/membership. In addition to supporting our events and our daily journalism, members receive complete access to the on-demand programming of Seattle’s PBS station, KCTS 9.

One Mother's Experience Without Child Support

Reporter Brandon Block shares an example of how the state intercepts parental assistance to people who also receive TANF, or welfare.
In 2017, Amy Roark applied for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program after one of her exes stopped paying his child support.    
She began to receive money through the program, but as these funds started coming in, she stopped getting payments from her exes altogether.   
This was thanks to a Washington policy which intercepts child support to families on TANF. Lawmakers are pushing a bill that would redirect a portion of future payments back to these individuals.   
In this episode, we speak with Crosscut’s Brandon Block about his reporting on Washington’s interception of child support, including why it happens and how it affects families like Amy’s.   
Read more about Washington's practice of intercepting child support payments for TANF recipients – a common practice in most states – here. 
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Credits
Host/Producer: Maleeha Syed and Sara Bernard
Reporter: Brandon Block
Story editor: Ryan Famuliner
Executive producer: Sarah Menzies
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If you would like to support Crosscut, go to crosscut.com/membership. In addition to supporting our events and our daily journalism, members receive complete access to the on-demand programming of Seattle’s PBS station, KCTS 9.

The 24/7 Hotline That Can Be a Lifeline

June Guzman and Audrey Baedke offer housing and emotional support through the nonprofit Real Escape from the Sex Trade (REST).
The Seattle area is a known hub for sex trafficking. Some estimates suggest that more than two thousand people could be trafficked in the region every night. 
June Guzman manages the 24/7 hotline and emergency shelter for Real Escape from the Sex Trade, or REST. Audrey Baedke is director of programs at REST. Both Guzman and Baedke work to support survivors through everything from finding transportation and housing assistance to simply answering the phone when a survivor needs someone to talk to.  
In this episode of Crosscut Reports, host Sara Bernard speaks with Guzman and Baedke about their work and what it’s shown them about the urgency of the issue in the region right now.  
But mostly they focus on REST’s 24/7 hotline: what people who call are often looking for; what stories still stick with both Guzman and Baedke; and what a hotline like this, at its core, really means. 
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Credits
Host/Producer: Sara Bernard
Story editor: Ryan Famuliner
Executive producer: Sarah Menzies
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If you would like to support Crosscut, go to crosscut.com/membership. In addition to supporting our events and our daily journalism, members receive complete access to the on-demand programming of Seattle’s PBS station, KCTS 9.

These WA Districts Could Change by Fall Election

Reporter Mai Hoang talks about the ongoing fight to redraw majority-Latino legislative districts between Yakima and Pasco.
A yearslong debate over redistricting in Central Washington could close just in time for the 2024 election.  
Plaintiffs filed a lawsuit in January 2022 over the 15th Legislative District, arguing that its boundaries as drawn diluted Latino votes. In August, a U.S. District Court judge ruled in favor of those plaintiffs. 
Now the court is reviewing proposed maps that shift those boundaries.  
In this episode of Crosscut Reports, host Maleeha Syed chats with Mai Hoang about her story on the five new proposed maps for the region, including changes that could go into effect ahead of this year’s election and the pushback to this redrawing effort.
Read more about the proposed maps and potential changes in Central Washington here. 
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Credits
Host/Producer: Maleeha Syed and Sara Bernard
Reporter: Mai Hoang
Story editor: Ryan Famuliner
Executive producer: Sarah Menzies
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If you would like to support Crosscut, go to crosscut.com/membership. In addition to supporting our events and our daily journalism, members receive complete access to the on-demand programming of Seattle’s PBS station, KCTS 9.

Tagging Along With Seattle's CARE Team

Reporter Nimra Ahmad describes a day on the job with the city's experimental mental health crisis program staff.
Seattle is now dispatching mental health crisis responders on 911 calls – and reporter Nimra Ahmad got to watch them work in real time. 
In October, the city soft-launched the Community Assisted Response and Engagement (CARE) team, made up of crisis responders who are dispatched with police as needed. This dual dispatch pilot program is one of the many ways cities are reframing the role that police play when it comes to mental health crisis response.  
To get a better idea of what this alternative response system looks like in practice, Nimra went on a few ride-alongs with CARE team members at the end of last year. 
In this episode of Crosscut Reports, host Maleeha Syed chats with Nimra about her reporting on the program, including her firsthand experiences watching the CARE team respond to people in crisis. 
Read more about this new dual dispatch pilot program here. 
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Credits
Host/Producer: Maleeha Syed and Sara Bernard
Reporter: Nimra Ahmad
Story editor: Ryan Famuliner
Executive producer: Sarah Menzies
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If you would like to support Crosscut, go to crosscut.com/membership. In addition to supporting our events and our daily journalism, members receive complete access to the on-demand programming of Seattle’s PBS station, KCTS 9.