Well, shit. We were going to tell you this news ✨tomorrow✨, but it looks like the badger is out of the bag. The Stranger has been acquired by Noisy Creek, a new company founded by Brady Walkinshaw.
Noisy Creek also bought our sister publication, Portland Mercury, our events site EverOut, and our ticketing business, Bold Type Tickets.
So what does this mean?
We’re all fucked! Lol, jk, jk. This is actually good news, we think!
Walkinshaw, our new benevolent overlord, worked as a former Democratic Washington State House Representative for a while before becoming the CEO of Grist, which does a nice job reporting on our melting planet. He says he’s not going to lay off anyone, and he’ll bring in a bunch more money to expand and deepen our coverage.
Our first question to Walkinshaw was, “Motherfucker, if you think you’re getting within 10 feet of the fucking Stranger Election Control Board, we are going to throw you in a garbage can so fucking fast you won’t even fucking believe it.” In response, he said, “That’s fine! Actually, I want nothing to do with editorial! I was a politician 10 years ago, and I have moved on with my life.”
We accept that answer, but we have installed a new, big garbage can outside of the conference room where we grill people just in case he tries some shit.
Now, he did install a new editor, Hannah Murphy Winter. But she’s legit. She worked at Rolling Stone and ProPublica, she’s mentored young journalists, she’s published a book on queer power couples, she’s got cool hair, and she seems really nice! While we all learn more about her, Rich Smith will take on his old role as news editor, where he and the news team will continue to terrorize local politicians.
Now, we’re journalists. We’re skeptical by nature. We’ve been raised to distrust power and money. And as the Index Media Union writes, “Our workers still have many questions, as the vast majority of Index Newspapers employees have not yet had a chance to hear Walkinshaw’s plans in his own words. Regardless of what we learn at tomorrow’s all-staff meeting, we remain committed to the editorial independence of our publications—both in day-to-day reporting and in the candidates we endorse.”
As we wait for more explicit plans from the new top brass, we’re optimistic, and we look forward to working with these new people to make the biggest, best, brattiest possible Stranger we can make. And we hope you all will continue along with us on this journey, or at least continue yelling at us in the comments.
We also hope you continue to support our journalism by maintaining your contributions to The Stranger. These new people are bringing money, but they’re betting not losing what we got.
On a serious note, Big Tech gutted our industry. Journalism is collapsing at a time when tyrants are on the rise nationally, and when corruption continues to creep into local government. Journalists—the guardians of our democracy, the people who speak truth to power—are fleeing the field and learning to code. Our old frenemies, the Seattle Weekly, are a shadow of their former selves. The regional papers are fighting for their lives, even the big boys are trying everything they can to keep staff and tell stories that change worlds big and small. We hope this deal gives us the opportunity to pay our staff more (RIGHT, BRADY? RIGHT? THAT’S WHAT YOU SAID. THAT’S WHAT YOU FUCKING SAID), add staff, and create more of the journalism you love and/or love to hate. That doesn’t sound too bad to us.
“Big Tech gutted our industry. Journalism is collapsing at a time when tyrants are on the rise nationally”
And yet so many TS staff link to the cesspool that was Twitter (maybe knock that shit off?).
Good luck with new ownership!
Journalists?
will there
still* be
Drugs?
b. will
Wormtongue
still be Grandfathered in?
*if Alcohol’s
not a drug
how can
Weed
be?
Trump and Vance are yesterday’s litter-besotted litterbox and it’s time to clean up, Cat Ladies. Don’t forget that it was Nala and Sarabi and the huntresses like the Lady Sirella and their multi-species wild bretheren in friendship who restored worthy Simba to the throne and gave them all a fighting chance in victory. For is it not a mighty queen with all the power in chess or otherwise?
I wish everyone best of luck under the new ownership and editor, although it appears the root of the problem still needs work: “… if you think you’re getting within 10 feet of the fucking Stranger Election Control Board,”
So, will the Stranger still attempt to impose their current, failed ideology on a city whose voters clearly no longer want it?
Here’s hoping a new editor will ensure the writers put some facts into the stories, e.g. homeless persons continue to die of overdoses on Seattle’s streets, there’s an entity called “Hamas” which operates in Gaza, etc.
Again, best of luck to everyone!
Journalists? That’s pretty funny.
New owner the CEO of a climate media organization and former Dem state rep. New editor previously at 𝘙𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘚𝘵𝘰𝘯𝘦 and 𝘗𝘳𝘰𝘗𝘶𝘣𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘢.
Hang on to your fedoras—it’s going to be a wild and unpredictable ride! But I joke.
I kept hoping Mr. Poe would buy you all out.
Scooped on your own story! Har Har! Trying blaming that on Sara Nelson!
Hope it works out for all.
I’m seeing this news made the New York Times home page:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/30/business/media/the-stranger-seattle-new-owner.html
Good to see The New York Times recognized this as national news.
Please bring back print. I will gladly pay
I agree with stjerome. It is crucial that The Stranger return to print. I hope that is part of the new owners’ plans.
So what elements of the Stranger’s empire didn’t he buy?
So what elements of the Stranger’s empire didn’t he buy?
There aren’t any journalists here. The Stranger publishes poorly edited opinion pieces.
That said, I am hopeful having a somewhat serious editor on board will lead to some improvements. Charles is just phoning it in lately, it’s like he gets paid for the number of times he writes the term “Keynesian.”
The Stranger can only go up from here. I think they should start by firing the staff and hiring some journalists. Many years ago the Stranger did some legitimate journalism.
Time and tide….it’s only natural for change to spur introspection.
Amazon and The Stranger had quite similar origins here in Puget Sound…
both scrappy startups long on dreams but short funds.
Most long term readers probably miss the Goldy era, endorsing McGinn was a bonehead move, but the weekly had talent AND work ethic back then…
Also, interestingly if COVID lock-down dogma (and the continuing loss of ticket revenue) had gone on any longer The Stranger would have been pandemic history.
Blaming tech innovation for The Decline of Journalism in 2024 is pretty lame but fitting of a middling weekly coasting on the past.
A vital Alt Weekly wouldn’t sound like legacy media, pitting human innovation against gate keeping interests.
There are journalists here? Good riddance (I hope) to the Stranger’s failed backing of anything marxist, communist and ludicrous. Don’t let the door hit you in the butt.
8: Wow, that’s a blast from the past.
Bring back A. Birch Steen! He was the best reason to read here in the first place.
Big tech hasn’t gutted the industry, it’s only gutted credibility as it makes it easier for readers to fact check sloppy and incomplete reporting. If journalists are really the guardians of democracy, we’re in big trouble.
@14-15 — the part that controls double posting
The first thing I hope they do is nuke the comments section, I hope I never have to hear or see another thing from you miserable fucks in it again.
@24: Or, you could just, you know, not ever read any comments? Because if you did that, then you’d ensure you “never have to hear or see another thing” from your fellow readers, no matter what the new management of the Stranger decides or does. (Reading the comments does not seem to agree with you anyway, so why do you bother?)
@24 You’ve been on here for 14 years and posted over 100 times. You can always just walk away if you don’t like it here.
from @11’s
link to the nyt:
“… [tS & the Merc,]
two of the country’s
best known alt-weeklies… “
whoa!
people
other than
tS’s Commentariat
READ this publication?
(or do they Know of it &
just Keep the Hell Away?)
I thought it was
just us 9 or 10
commenters
sounds like there
may be a Whole
‘nother World
out there
that’s a little
Frightening.
@21 — bingo.
to be Eviscerated
a birch Steen’s been
a Lifelong Dream* of mine
and Hopefully
it’ll fit on my
Gravestone
*And to make
eltrumpfster’s
Enemies List
Never Forget:
it’s Don-OLD
thee most
Corrupt
Prez:
EVER.
As usual, Tensorna cuts right to the heart of the matter:
[W]ill the Stranger still attempt to impose their current, failed ideology on a city whose voters clearly no longer want it?
Here’s hoping a new editor will ensure the writers put some facts into the stories, e.g. homeless persons continue to die of overdoses on Seattle’s streets, there’s an entity called “Hamas” which operates in Gaza, etc.
Brady did well at Grist (and it sure helps to have millionaire grandparents) – This is a big lift though – the Stranger has become comically lazy, ideologically rigid (find the most extreme candidate possible..that’s who we’ll endorse, ignore facts/stories we don’t like {Cap Hill Light Rail stabbing, Bell Town restauranteur shooting, Hamas}) and the runway for turning this around –not the finances, but the public’s perception of the Stranger’s relevance is REALLY short. Tim Keck is right too..maybe the nonstop profanity and “we love drugs so much” …kinda tired, kinda played out. There’s a ton to fix. How about start with that? Knock it off.
Very sad…but these days inevitable. We are on our own folks.
@28 In sum:
“I was saying Boo-urns.”
~Hans Moleman