Cascade PBS won seven awards in the 2023 Society of Professional Journalists’ Northwest Excellence in Journalism competition, including the award for General Excellence in Writing. The contest is a competitive one, as it honors the work of newsrooms across the organization’s Region 10, which consists of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Alaska. Cascade PBS competes against the largest news outlets in those states, qualifying as a “large” newsroom in the audio categories and an “extra large” newsroom in the writing categories. 

Cascade PBS’s entry in the General Excellence category included a selection of 10 stories. Reporters who worked on the pieces include Brandon Block, Josh Cohen, Jordan Gass-Pooré, Lizz Giordano, Mai Hoang, Luna Reyna, James Stout and Joseph O’Sullivan. 

Here is a list of the winners from Cascade PBS in the individual categories:

• Writing – Extra Large: General Excellence 

First Place – Cascade PBS Staff, “Cascade PBS 2023 General Excellence Entry,” Cascade PBS 

• Writing – Extra Large: Investigative Reporting 

First Place – Farah Eltohamy, Mai Hoang, Genna Martin, “WA mobile home communities organize against ‘economic eviction’,” Cascade PBS. 

Judge’s comments: “Deeply researched and reported, this investigative report exposes weaknesses in oversight and regulation that puts the vulnerable elderly population at risk. Important work.” 

• Audio – Large: Investigative Reporting 

First Place – Sara Bernard, Farah Eltohamy, Mai Hoang, “After a takeover, mobile home tenants are fighting back,” Cascade PBS. 

Judge’s comments: “An important story that highlights the challenges faced by some of Washington's most vulnerable residents. Terrific storytelling with great reporting. Fantastic job and keep up the good work!” 

• Writing – Extra Large: Arts & Culture Reporting 

First Place – Margo Vansynghel, “A Seattle artist and the auction frenzy that sparked an FBI tip,” Cascade PBS. 

Judge’s comments: “This was a great way to tie a narrative about a Seattle artist to the larger issues with art plagiarism. It’s well reported and written with a great narrative structure.” 

• Writing – Extra Large: Series 

Second Place – Joseph O’Sullivan, “Coverage of “‘Legislative Privilege’,” Cascade PBS. 

Judge’s comments: “Tremendous and important series that demonstrates investment in quality watch-dog journalism.” 

• Audio – Large: Technology & Science Reporting 

Second Place – Sara Bernard, Brandon Block, “The gray areas of surveillance tech in WA police forces,” Cascade PBS. 

Judge’s comments: “Comprehensive and fair look at an issue most of the public is not aware of, without being alarmist. Newsrooms around the country would do well to examine this issue locally.” 

• Photo & Design – Large: General News Photography 

Second Place – Amanda Snyder, “New mothers can stay with their babies at this Washington prison,” Cascade PBS. 

Judge’s comments: “Babies behind bars, a thought-provoking photo for every parent.”

The 2023 Northwest Regional Emmy Awards were held on Saturday, and the Cascade PBS Original Productions team came away with some hardware. Cascade PBS won two awards from the Northwest Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences after being nominated for a total of seven. 

The episode “The Range Rider" from season 3 of Human Elements won in its category, Environment/Science – Short Form Content. It was the first Emmy for the series and for senior producer Sarah Hoffman, director of Human Elements. 

“I am so thankful the hard work of this series was recognized. Human Elements has given us a rare opportunity to share intimate stories that authentically represent our community,” Hoffman said. “On our small team we’ve created a space where we can be creative and where each of us brings unique perspectives to continually elevate the series.”  

Mossback’s Northwest won in the category of Historical/Cultural – Short Form Content, making this the second Emmy award for the series. The winning episode chronicles a historic event when German saboteurs blew up a ship in Elliott Bay.  

“Being able to tell this story about such an important event in Seattle just before World War I with this amazing team has been the real win. The Emmy is icing on the cake,” says director and senior producer Michael McClinton. 

The other nominations for Cascade PBS included episodes of Nick on the Rocks, Black Arts Legacies, Mossback’s Northwest, as well as craft nominations for Sarah Hoffman and Bryce Yukio Adolphson for Photographer and David Quantic for Editor. 

Catch up on all our original video series online and on the Cascade PBS app.

The winning filmmaker for the third season of Cascade PBS’ Origins series will be Samuel Wolfe, who will create a short-form docuseries telling the story of the last reefnetters in the Salish Sea. Wolfe and his team were announced as the winners Saturday at the closing ceremony of the Seattle International Film Festival.

Wolfe was one of several dozen directors to apply to work with Cascade PBS to create a video series that reflects the makeup of our region told from an insider’s perspective. The key requirement for the Origins grant was that the filmmaker be part of the community they are documenting. 

The project will receive $40,000 in grant funding to cover production costs for the five-part series, as well as technical and editing support. Their work has the potential to be broadcast and streamed by Cascade PBS. 

The inaugural season of Origins, “Refuge After War,” examined the experiences of Vietnamese and Afghan refugees forced to flee and resettle in Washington after the fall of Saigon in 1975 and Kabul in 2021. 

Reefnetting is considered one of the most sustainable fishing practices and is an important tradition in Indigenous culture. Wolfe’s series will focus on the Kinley family, the last Native permit holders from the Lummi Nation.  

The docuseries is intended for release on Cascade PBS platforms in March 2025. 

Cascade PBS has received seven 2023 Northwest Regional Emmy Awards nominations from the Northwest Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. Here are the nominated titles and categories:

Environment/Science - Short Form

Human Elements: The Range Rider, produced by Sarah Hoffman, Bryce Yukio Adolphson, David Quantic and Sarah Menzies. 

Nick on the Rocks: Moses Coulee, produced by Sarah Menzies, Shannen Ortale, Brady Lawrence, Nick Zentner and Kalina Torino.

Arts/Entertainment - Short Form Content

Black Arts Legacies: Reginald André Jackson, produced by Sarah Menzies, Brangien Davis, Tifa Tomb, Avery Johnson and Kalina Torino.

Historical/Cultural - Short Form Content

Mossback’s Northwest: The First Around the World Flight, produced by Michael McClinton, Knute Berger, Resti Bagcal, David Quantic, Sarah Menzies and Madeleine Pisaneschi.

Mossback’s Northwest: The Day Germany Bombed Seattle, produced by Michael McClinton, Knute Berger, Resti Bagcal, Madeleine Pisaneschi, Sarah Menzies, Alegra Figeroid, David Quantic and Matthew Jorgensen.

Photographer - Short Form or Long Form Content

Sarah Hoffman and Bryce Yukio Adolphson 

Editor - Short Form Content

David Quantic

The recipients will be announced at the Northwest Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences’ Emmy Awards Gala Event on June 1. 

Cascade PBS is honored to share that our state government reporter Joseph O’Sullivan has been honored by the Washington Coalition for Open Government for his work covering state lawmakers’ efforts to hide information about their work from the public using what they say is their “legislative privilege.”

O’Sullivan and his partner in the reporting project that spanned 2023, Shauna Sowersby of McClatchy, were given the Coalition’s prestigious Bunting Award at a ceremony on Friday at T-Mobile Park, although O’Sullivan was unable to attend.

“The Kenneth F. Bunting Award recognizes journalists and media outlets for work that uses or advances Washington state’s open government laws, or educates citizens about them,” according to their website. The Coalition said this was the first time they had honored journalists from two different organizations who collaborated on a project. O’Sullivan and Sowersby worked together on their reporting for more than a dozen stories published in their respective publications. Crosscut also won this award last year for investigative coverage. 

Sowersby and O’Sullivan used public records and dozens of interviews to tell the story of how lawmakers were silently exempting everything from deliberative documents to embarrassing content, why they decided to use “legislative privilege”; and how the exemption was crafted and used. They also uncovered how powerful lobbying agencies can influence transparency laws and how at least one executive branch agency secretly had a “legislative privilege” policy on their books. That agency has since rescinded the policy.

This Friday, Cascade PBS will take part in an event highlighting the voices of two young women from Palestine and Israel travelling together to share stories of war, strength and hope.  

Lana Ikelan and Noga Bar Oz from Tomorrow’s Women met at a camp in New Mexico in 2016 organized by the 20-year-old nonprofit organization. Tomorrow’s Women aims to train “women from Palestine, Israel and the United States to be strong, compassionate leaders who partner to resolve conflicts and inspire action that promotes equality, peace, and justice for all.” 

They have left their deeply divided homelands for a series of events in the U.S., including a program this week at Town Hall Seattle at 7:30 p.m. on March 8. They will both share parts of their stories, and afterward, Cascade PBS podcast producer Sara Bernard will host a Q&A that will be broadcast as a future episode of Northwest Reports (formerly Crosscut Reports). 

Ikelan and Bar Oz will also participate in an event on Sunday morning March 10 at Seattle First Baptist Church. 

The Seattle events are part of a short tour that includes similar events at UCLA and a Jewish Community Center in Los Angeles later this month. 

Crosscut has long been known for its in-depth, long-form reporting and multipart investigations into broader issues facing the Pacific Northwest – from levees in Aberdeen to affordable-housing issues in Spokane. Each published story takes a lot of behind-the-scenes beat reporting that often gets left on the cutting-room floor. 

The Crosscut newsroom has decided to start picking up those pieces by launching briefs. They’re just as the name implies. Briefs will be shorter reads that provide continuing coverage of the issues our readers are interested in – from affordable housing to Indigenous affairs to climate – as well as emergent news of the day, including breaking news from Olympia, arts events happening around town and agriculture reports.  

Our long-form content isn’t going anywhere – we will still publish daily stories that provide the same nuanced reporting that is the backbone of Crosscut. And each Wednesday we will continue to produce our long-form features alongside our weekly Crosscut Reports podcast. We just will also offer a few more brief stories each weekday afternoon, as well. 

So we’ll keep it brief. You can find the latest briefs on our homepage, or go to crosscut.com/briefs to find more.