Northwest Reports

How This Election Could Shape Seattle

We spoke with reporter Josh Cohen about the district races and how they could impact the city after Nov. 7.
Election Day is just around the corner and Seattle’s in for a lot of change.
Only three incumbents are running to represent Seattle’s seven City Council districts. Additionally, at-large Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda may leave her post if she secures a spot on the King County Council.
All of this means Seattle will soon have several new leaders shaping the city’s approach to major issues, like public safety and homelessness. 
For this episode, Crosscut’s city reporter, Josh Cohen, chatted with host Maleeha Syed about how voters feel this year; how different candidates are approaching key issues; and how this election could give us insight into the state of Seattle.
Read more about Seattle's upcoming election here. 
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Credits
Host/Producer: Maleeha Syed and Sara Bernard
Reporter: Josh Cohen 
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.
 

Who Got WA’s COVID Small Business Money?

The Working Washington program aimed to get pandemic relief to small and “historically disadvantaged” business owners. Did it?
 
In April 2020, Washington distributed $10 million to businesses navigating the pandemic, the first of many rounds of grant funding delivered by the state.   
The Working Washington grant program was established to get money to small businesses overlooked by federal COVID relief efforts, with officials calling on the Department of Commerce to emphasize “historically disadvantaged” and BIPOC businesses.    
Crosscut filed records requests for the individual grants, finding large corporate chains among the recipients. 
In this episode, host Maleeha Syed speaks with reporter Brandon Block, who recently published a story on these findings, about where the relief dollars went – and if the state made good on its plan to reach small and historically disadvantaged businesses. 
Read more about Crosscut's analysis of Working Washington 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.

Israel-Hamas War Hits Close to Home in WA

Members of local Jewish and Palestinian communities discuss the war's impacts across the Atlantic.
On Oct. 7, Hamas, a militant group that controls the Gaza Strip, launched a surprise attack on Israel. 
Israel quickly declared war – pounding Gaza with airstrikes and restricting the region’s access to water, food and electricity. 
Around 1,400 Israelis and 3,000 Palestinians have been killed. 
For this episode, host Maleeha Syed spoke with Maxima Patashnik, a member of the local Jewish community, and Sabrene Odeh, a member of the local Palestinian-American community, about how the war has affected them. Read more about the local impact of the war between Israel and Hamas here.  
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Credits
Host/Producer: Maleeha Syed and Sara Bernard
Reporter: Mai Hoang
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.

WA Armenians on War and Hope

Azerbaijan’s push for territory has forced thousands to flee. Reporter Taija PerryCook spoke with local communities about erasure and resilience.
Azerbaijan launched an offensive in September to claim land that Armenians have long considered home.
The move has driven about 100,000 ethnic Armenians from the disputed territory, known as both Nagorno-Karabakh and Artsakh, and raised fears of ethnic cleansing.
Over the past year, reporter Taija PerryCook spoke with Armenians in Washington, who watched from afar as tensions heightened.
In this episode of Crosscut Reports, PerryCook and host Maleeha Syed discuss the history of the region and how decades of war and erasure are affecting local Armenian community members. Many describe a need for more awareness of what’s happening — and a confidence that their culture will prevail.
Read our full report on what Armenian communities in Washington have to say here.  
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Credits
Host/Producer: Maleeha Syed and Sara Bernard 
Reporter: Taija PerryCook
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.

Meet Our New Co-Host + Mossback Preview

You probably noticed a new voice in the past few episodes of Crosscut Reports.
That’s Maleeha Syed, the show’s new co-host. She’ll be working alongside Sara Bernard to bring you weekly updates on the stories coming out of Crosscut’s newsroom. 
This episode of Crosscut Reports starts with a casual conversation between the two co-hosts. Syed, previously Crosscut’s communities reporter, talks about what it’s like to switch from written to audio storytelling and shares a few podcasts she has had in rotation lately.
Bernard then gives listeners a sneak peek into the fourth season of Mossback, the companion podcast to our award-winning video series about Pacific Northwest history, with a snippet from one of the newest episodes.
Read Knute Berger's essay about Season 8 of Mossback's Northwest here.
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Credits
Host/Producer: Sara Bernard and Maleeha Syed 
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.

WA Teachers Face Public Backlash

Politics reporter Joseph O’Sullivan talked to teachers about the increasing criticism they face at school over race and LGBTQ+ topics.
Teachers have found themselves embroiled in a national culture war as parents and politicians question what children are learning in school, from critical race theory to gender identity. 
These days, educators in Washington say they’re feeling reverberations from this conflict. 
Crosscut’s state politics reporter, Joseph O’Sullivan, wrote about how these confrontations are contributing to burnout among educators and union leaders at a time when their field is experiencing a labor shortage. 
In this episode of Crosscut Reports, host Maleeha Syed spoke with O’Sullivan about the pushback these educators are getting from their communities – and how these encounters are impacting them.
Read our full report on the pushback that educators in Washington are experiencing here.  
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Credits
Host/Producer: Maleeha Syed and Scot Michael 
Reporter: Joseph O’Sullivan 
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.

Nurses Leave Jobs for New Careers

Reporter Megan Burbank spoke with former nurses who, amid grievances like staffing shortages and low pay, changed their careers.
Nurses took on immense responsibilities as COVID-19 raged across the country, overloading hospitals and overextending health care workers. 
Today, some of these nurses have left the field completely due to mounting pressures that were exacerbated by the pandemic – but had existed long before.
Freelance reporter Megan Burbank talked to several former nurses in Washington about the stressors that led them to leave their field for new career paths like massage therapy and web development.   
In this episode of Crosscut Reports, host Maleeha Syed talks with Burbank about what drew these nurses to the field; what pushed them out; and how their lives have changed for the better since leaving. 
Read our full report on how people are adjusting to life after nursing here.
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Credits
Host/Producer: Maleeha Syed and Scot Michael 
Reporter: Megan Burbank
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 Push to Preserve Mobile Home Communities

Residents say that WA-based management company Hurst & Son LLC is responsible for price hikes, reduced services and other grievances.
Mobile home communities have long served as an affordable-housing option for Washington residents, but many say they’re now being priced out of their homes. 
Crosscut reporters Farah Eltohamy and Mai Hoang investigated allegations against Hurst & Son LLC, a company that has acquired dozens of mobile home parks across the state in recent years. Some residents allege that the company is responsible for rent hikes, new fees and reduced services.  
Now these community members are pushing back against Hurst & Son – which is not the only company that has been accused of these practices. 
In this episode of Crosscut Reports, host Sara Bernard talks with Eltohamy about why mobile homes are not in fact mobile; the different ways community members are advocating for themselves; and why it’s so important for them to stay where they are. 
Read our full report on the fight to preserve mobile home communities here. 
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Credits
Host/Producer: Sara Bernard and Scot Michael  
Reporter: Farah Eltohamy and Mai Hoang
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.

Free Speech vs. Civil Rights

Reporter Mai Hoang explains how the court decision to exempt a Colorado web designer from LGBTQ+ antidiscrimination laws could have a ripple effect.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that a Christian website designer in Colorado can refuse to provide wedding websites to same-sex couples, because doing so falls within her First Amendment right to free speech.
As Crosscut reporter Mai Hoang found, the ruling in Colorado was the first to address whether prohibiting discrimination against a protected class can be set aside for someone’s free-speech rights.
This decision signals a marked shift from a Washington Supreme Court case, settled in 2021, that required Barronelle Stutzman to follow public accommodation laws after she refused on religious grounds to provide custom floral arrangements for a same-sex marriage.
In this episode of Crosscut Reports, host Sara Bernard talks with Hoang about the significance of this Supreme Court ruling; its potential implications in Washington; and the tenuous balance between upholding First Amendment rights and protecting vulnerable communities from discrimination.
Read our full report on the impacts of 303 Creative in WA here.  
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Credits
Host/Producer: Sara Bernard
Reporter: Mai Hoang
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 Fight Over Public Libraries

Calls for censorship of LGBTQ+ young adult books in Columbia County mirror a national political debate. Meg Butterworth shares her reporting.
A fight has been raging nationwide over book-banning in schools and libraries. According to the American Library Association, calls for censorship of specific titles nearly doubled between 2021 and 2022, and the vast majority targeted books by and about the LGBTQ+ community and people of color.
But as reporter Meg Butterworth found, in one rural county in Washington the battle has gone beyond the books themselves. It could end up eliminating an entire library system.  
That’s because, after a year of tense board meetings, misinformation and demands to censor half-a-dozen titles, one local resident collected enough signatures to put a petition to close the library on Columbia County’s November ballot. 
For this episode of Crosscut Reports, host Sara Bernard talks with Butterworth about what’s been happening in Columbia County, how closely it tracks with the national debate and what all this says about political polarization, censorship, the role of librarians and the meaning of a public library. 
Read our full report on the local and national battle over books here. 
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Credits
Host/Producer: Sara Bernard
Reporter: Meg Butterworth
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.