Crosscut is a public medium, membership-supported, so thanks to all of you who have become new annual Members. We'll be getting in touch with the winners of the drawings for tickets to the Seattle Rep's Fences. by August Wilson; the Emerson String Quartet at Meany Hall; the Moisture/Comedy Festival at Hale's Palladium; and three new shows at The Henry Art Gallery. And thanks to our sponsors for providing the free tickets.
It doesn't look like we'll meet our goal for this drive — joining the club of nonprofits who find it understandably harder than expected to get people to support them in these difficult times. We do have other means of support, including foundations and advertising, and our Membership levels are doing well over the year. But it's disappointing to fall short.
I know you understand how important it is for quality local journalism to find new sources of support as advertising diminishes for many media. I hope you agree that Crosscut.com is an excellent new idea, and that you appreciate our brand of well-written, thoughtful, analytical, expert, multi-partisan journalism. We've staffed up dramatically and look forward to many exciting new improvements and new areas of coverage, in the coming year. So please help if you feel you can. You'll see the benefits in your contribution every day on the site. The more you support us, the more we can do. We're in this together!
People often ask me what audience we seek at Crosscut. Our readership, as the name Crosscut suggests, "cuts across" many borders &mdash: age, gender, geography, topics, and political persuasions. Likewise, we have readers who are broadly curious, interested in politics as well as culture, good restaurants, business, and somewhat offbeat subjects such as historic preservation. Crosscut is a kind of general-interest daily magazine on the Web, producing and finding the best journalism of the region each day.
We serve readers who occupy what's called in politics "the persuadable middle" — open-minded, curious, independent people who have not made up their minds on tough issues and therefore want more data and a wider range of interpretation so they can decide for themselves. (That's one reason we have no editorial page and do no endorsements.)
Such readers are the swing vote in many issues, so they count for a lot — more than those who are locked into certainty and not open to persuasion and new information. And such readers are an ideal audience for writers, since they are hungry for good information and cannot be taken for granted. Likewise, creating a civil forum for many voices seems an essential service in these times of hyper-partisanship and harsh narrow-mindedness.
Sorry to keep pestering you with these pitches, and today's the last day. Maybe you just put off joining and still want to become a Crosscut member? I hope so. We really need your help. In return, you'll be invited to new-members coffees to meet some of us, as well as our big Third Anniversary Party, members-come-free, next month.
I have one special inducement for today (Monday) only. We'll have a drawing for two new members who join today and they will be able to be a day sponsor, normally at the $250 level and above, where you can send a message to a friend or put up a link to a nonprofit you favor (besides Crosscut!).
Thanks for listening. Thanks for helping. And I look forward to meeting new and old members at our next party.
To join, just click here. You can easily donate online, or the link will tell you how to mail in a Membership. Memberships start at $35 a year and are fully tax-deductible.
