Tag Archives: media

Capitol Hill bars go into ‘extra time’ to bring games to sportsball fans

Posted on by
5

(Image: Pitch the Baby)

By Lilja Purs, UW News Lab

Behind the bar at Capitol Hill’s inclusive sports bar, Pitch the Baby, bartenders tap through cable channels and streaming apps before kickoff, racing to find the night’s games before the first customers ask.

For sports bars across Capitol Hill, the rise of streaming-exclusive broadcasts and complicated — but lucrative — contracts between the leagues and the platforms has turned game day into a complicated and increasingly expensive process.

During the World Cup, things have been easy but when it comes to the regular schedules for big leagues like the MLB and, especially, growing leagues like the NWSL, making sure your Capitol Hill venue has the right service package and subscriptions is only getting harder. Then there’s the challenge of actually finding the right channel or app to click on.

At Pitch the Baby, bartenders check around 10 streaming services each day to make sure customers can watch everything from local women’s soccer to nationally televised matchups, said Mik Noel, a bartender at the bar. What once required a single cable package has become a patchwork of subscriptions.

“We have a lot of platforms, it’s a lot to navigate at times,” Noel said. Continue reading →

‘We Keep Us Safe’ — NPR podcast series investigates deadly shooting that ended CHOP

Posted on by
12

The unsolved deadly shooting of a San Diego teenager during the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest will be the subject of a new investigative podcast series from National Public Radio.

Meanwhile, the city is seeking to appeal a $30 million jury verdict in the wrongful death lawsuit brought by the Mays family.

NPR’s investigative podcast Embedded is partnering with KUOW and The Seattle Times to launch a new eight-episode series probing the killing of 16-year-old Antonio Mays Jr. It will debut June 11th. Continue reading →

Nature is healing: The Stranger says it is back on Capitol Hill

Posted on by
15

(Image: Dunn & Hobbes)

Displaced by a self storage facility, Seattle’s only newspaper has returned to its formative neighborhood. The Stranger says it is back on Capitol Hill and is inviting friends and neighbors to stop by Thursday’s Capitol Hill Art Walk to say hello:

On Thursday, April 9, come on down to The Stranger’s office for our very first Capitol Hill Art Walk event. Climb up to the third floor to see the best original photography that appeared in The Stranger last year. Plus, video installations from our two most recent issues, and you’ll have a chance to see Brandon Bye’s More Paint exhibit (a rare second chance if you missed it at Vermillion earlier this year).

Talk about dirty laundry, according to the updates, the media and events company has made its new Capitol Hill home in the historic Baker Linen building along 11th Ave nestled against the Chophouse Row Development.

Built 115 years ago as a showroom and garage for the neighborhood’s booming auto row, the building was home to the provider of linens to the city’s hospitality and medical industries for decades before eventually falling into the loving embrace of Capitol Hill developer Dunn & Hobbes and Liz Dunn who rehabilitated it and later developed neighboring Chophouse Row to complete the block. Continue reading →

The Stranger is now an Oregon company — with Capitol Hill roots

Posted on by

The Stranger, Seattle’s only newspaper and a former Capitol Hill landmark, is now an Oregon concern.

The alternative weekly turned new media survivor has been sold to Portland-registered media company Noisy Creek in a deal reported widely by multiple outlets.

Seattle politician turned publisher Brady Walkinshaw and Rob Crocker, the one-time Portland Mercury publisher who eventually rose to lead the company after the Stranger launched its southern alt-weekly cousin in 2000, formed Noisy Creek in June according to state records. Bend, Oregon-resident Crocker has served as president of Index Newspapers, the Stranger and Mercury’s parent company.

Index and its ownership including Stranger founder Tim Keck and Chicago Reader founder Bob Roth will continue to hold a reported 20% stake in the new Noisy Creek venture and will hold onto the Hump! film festival and Dan Savage’s sex advice media business.

The Stranger once called the neighborhood home and many still associate it with Capitol Hill despite its pre-pandemic exit from dilapidated offices above 11th Ave. Continue reading →

Veteran journalist who covered Capitol Hill Occupied Protest new owner at Seattle Gay News

Posted on by

(Image: Renee Raketty)

Raketty, center, appeared on a Trans Journalists Association panel at the Society of Professional Journalists regional conference in Seattle earlier this year (Image: Renee Raketty)

Seattle Gay News, one of the oldest queer news publications in the nation, is celebrating its 50th year of bringing LGBTQ+-news to the Pacific Northwest.

While the passing of longtime editor George Bakan in 2020 led to years of change, writer, leader in the trans journalism community, and current editor of SGN Renee Raketty has officially taken ownership.

“There is no doubt that this paper has been a lifeline to the LGBTQIA+ community in Seattle and the Pacific Northwest. I’ve been told we are the nation’s third-oldest LGBTQIA+ newspaper. I’ve dedicated nearly a decade of my life to SGN, but I’m just one of many people who have contributed to the paper over the last 50 years,” Raketty told CHS. “It is truly an honor that Mike has chosen me to lead the paper into the next 50 years.”

Prior to his death, publishers and Capitol Hill character Bakan created arrangements for his family to take over as owner and publisher but SGN was sold last fall to Stratus Group to add to its LGBTQ+ newsmagazine business with publications including Coastal Pride of Ocean Shores, Washington and outlets in Bellingham and Spokane.

But changes in life plans has put the SGN on the move again. Stratus owner Mike Schultz and his husband are moving to California to be closer to family. After being associated with the paper on and off for a decade and a tour of duty as managing editor under the Stratus ownership, Raketty has the opportunity to lead the Seattle queer newspaper into a new era under her ownership.

It comes after Raketty has built a distinguished career in journalism that included work covering the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests and the police clashes around CHOP that took place on her home Seattle turf. Continue reading →

Cascade Public Media, KCTS, and Crosscut are working on a new name — They now have a new home on Broadway

Posted on by

A rendering of the new reception area (Image: Crosscut)

Cascade Public Media’s new home (Image: Childhaven)

The workers of Seattle public television KCTS and Crosscut are moving onto Broadway.

Cascade Public Media says it is in the process of opening its new First Hill headquarters at 316 Broadway. It acquired the building from Childhaven, a provider of therapeutic services for children who have experience trauma and neglect, for $23 million in 2022, according to King County Records.

The media nonprofit says employees of the public television station and Crosscut are now working in the newly reopened Broadway facility and that the organization is preparing the building’s “several large gathering spaces” to host KCTS and Crosscut events with the “potential to enable new types of community engagement” for the organization.

“The thing this building offers is a chance for us to reimagine the ways in which we interact with the community,” president and CEO Rob Dunlop said in the Crosscut story announcing the opening.

The future could also involve the use of the building for community events and gatherings, Cascade said. Meanwhile, there are other changes afoot including a plan for a massive sign marking the headquarters place in the city’s changing media landscape. That sign will likely help introduce a new brand — Cascade says it is in the midst of an effort to rename itself after decades in the city. Continue reading →

Under new owner, Seattle Gay News now part of statewide queer media group

Posted on by

The Seattle Gay News, one of the oldest queer news publications in the country and a staple of the clutter of newspapers, zines, and flyers that have pleasantly littered Capitol Hill hangouts for decades, has a new owner and a new, more regional mission.

Stratus Group has acquired SGN to add to its expanding LGBTQ+ newsmagazine business. Publications include Coastal Pride of Ocean Shores, Washington and publications in Bellingham and Spokane.

“In stepping into the pilothouse of the SGN, I do so with stewardship in mind and humility. But I also open this new chapter with an innate and tenacious enthusiasm to further our causes of visibility, equality, and dignity,” Stratus publisher Mike Schultz said in a letter published in the latest edition of SGN. Continue reading →

You’ll find plenty of Capitol Hill history digging through the more than 40 years of Seattle Gay News archives now online from the Washington State Library

Posted on by

41 years of the Seattle Gay News — including page after page telling the stories of the places and the people of Capitol Hill — have been digitized and are now available online from the Washington State Library.

“Historians, genealogists, students, and anyone who wants to learn more about local perspectives on world events now have greater access to their area’s rich history,” Shawn Schollmeyer, Washington Digital Newspapers coordinator at the Washington State Library, said in the announcement. “We are grateful for our many partnerships with museums, libraries, archives, and publishers statewide that share our commitment to preserving our communities’ cultural heritage.” Continue reading →

Seattle public television KCTS and Crosscut are coming to First Hill — UPDATE

Posted on by

Behind the scenes at KCTS (Image: KCTS)

It will be quite the pledge break. Cascade Public Media and its Seattle public television station KCTS and online news provider Crosscut are coming to Broadway in a $23 million deal.

The nonprofit media organization is running a $12.5 million capital campaign to help cover the cost of acquiring a 300-block Broadway building from Childhaven, a provider of therapeutic services for children who have experience trauma and neglect. The property’s price tag is $23,000,000 according to King County records.

“Cascade Public Media will move to a pre-existing 44,317 square foot building in Seattle’s First Hill neighborhood,” Cascade’s announcement reads. “The space is well suited for the needs of KCTS 9 and Crosscut and is ideally located within communities we serve and among those with whom we hope to build a deeper connection.”

UPDATE: Cascade president and CEO Rob Dunlop tells CHS the move will put the organization in “a location where we hope to increase our connection to a more diverse collection of neighborhoods such as the International District, the Central District, and Capitol Hill.”

Continue reading →

Capitol Hill Community Post | Tracing The Rocket’s Capitol Hill vapor trails

Posted on by

By Todd Matthews

The COVID-19 pandemic led many people to take up new hobbies—solving jigsaw puzzles, baking bread, or bingeing Netflix shows—to curb boredom and anxiety. As a longtime journalist and Capitol Hill resident interested in local history, I opted to collect and read old issues of The Rocket, the music and culture magazine launched on Capitol Hill in 1979.

The magazine occupies a special place in local music history. Sub Pop Records’ roots trace back to the label’s co-founder, Bruce Pavitt, and the column he wrote for The Rocket. Before achieving rock stardom with Nirvana, Kurt Cobain picked up The Rocket at a record store in his hometown of Aberdeen, Washington. In the late-1980s, while searching for a drummer, Cobain placed a classified advertisement in The Rocket, and Nirvana scored its first-ever magazine cover with The Rocket‘s December 1989 issue. The band even used the magazine’s typesetting machine to design its iconic logo. The Simpsons creator Matt Groening and MAD magazine’s Don Martin illustrated covers for The Rocket. In addition, The New Yorker staff writer Susan Orlean, best-selling author and National Book Award Finalist Katherine Dunn, and NPR music critic Ann Powers (while she was still in high school) wrote for The Rocket.

The final issue of The Rocket published on October 18, 2000. Flipping through 40-year-old issues with my ink-stained fingers, I felt like I was popping open time capsules and peering inside to learn more about a city and neighborhood that I thought I knew after living here for 30 years. Continue reading →