David Brewster, who sold his interest in the Seattle alt-weekly in 1997, has recruited two other former Weekly staffers to work on Crosscut, which will cover Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and parts of British Columbia, according to the Seattle Times. Former Managing Editor Chuck Taylor will be Crosscut's editor, while former Editor-in-Chief Knute "Skip" Berger will write for the site, set to launch March 12. Brewster says he started working on Crosscut about 18 months ago, to counteract "the growing fatalism of Seattle journalism."
David Brewster, co-founder of Seattle Weekly, hopes to launch an online news site focused on the city that would include member-written stories, The Seattle Times reports. He believes that "local journalism is suffering" from a reduced number of traditional media outlets, but he has had trouble financing his new project because of a glut of online ventures. "There are a lot of people crowding into something that doesn't have enough dollars to support anything yet," he says. "It's like everybody trying to get into the same apartment building."