📰 Inside CDN 05/18/26

From the editor’s desk: Back in 2021, one of the things that convinced me that Cascadia Daily News was a chance worth taking was all of you: Bellingham and NW Washington, I believed, had one of the most passionate — and underserved — news audiences in the country.

That belief has been borne out. That thought struck me again this past week, scrolling through responses from last week’s Inside CDN newsletter poll question. There, I ticked off a number of examples of our publication’s increasingly diverse news offerings, and asked a serious question: Do you use them, how much, and is it a good mix and/or focus for work that matters most to you?

The responses were plentiful and interesting. Nearly 40% of respondents chose the poll response indicating they were “super excited to see the spread of products.” Close behind: “Options are great; I’ll give it some time and pick and choose.”

That’s a nearly 80% thumbs-up for what we’re up to, which is gratifying.

Another significant chunk of readers made this the third-most popular answer: “Stick to your core; the extras are nice, but essential daily news coverage shouldn’t get watered down in the process.”

The least-chosen response was those who wanted to point out a particular area of interest they’d like to see us focus on; that specific information was also useful.
It’s a mile from a scientific poll, of course, but your responses are very valuable. And so are the extensive comments many of you took the time to add. A sampling, with some minor edits for brevity:

“General feedback: I love all your new ideas, but please don’t burn out! We really need you. Thanks to your efforts and inspiration I now see a veritable garden of local newsletters out there. I do not feel they fill your shoes but keep more of us looking and feeling excited and empowered by local news.”

“I love the diversity of this newspaper. To learn more about the Lummi basketball style, the local artists and what they create, and stories of our local eateries, as well as the local news and concerns facing our community. Bravo!”

“You so far outstrip the Seattle Times reporting. I wanted more local everything, but your in-depth look at the Port, wonderful. I just looked at the magazine, the best I have seen from anyone for a long time. I am putting you on my permanent donation lists, so you can continue with your interns and reporting.”

“Being an extremely slow reader, it is easy for me to become overwhelmed to the point of tuning out. Thus, many of your newsletters are met with a ‘delete’ and not read. Sorry.”

“So glad for the daily soft AND weekly hard copies. Sorry Bellingham Herald, you’re no longer relevant. You folks at CDN need to watch your spelling and grammar, a minor peeve but improving polish is a good goal. The reporting topics and analysis are top-notch.”

“I could be president of the CDN fan club. Sometime during COVID, I started to realize now meager the local news landscape had become and what a poor job I was doing at staying informed. CDN has changed that for me.”

I’m really most interested in:

“News. Not in sports. Not in other options, which would be competing unsuccessfully for my attention among many others.”

“All the less-than-transparent activities our city and county management are involved in, such as your salary articles. Health care articles are timely and well done. Keep them coming.”

“Hard news about the city, county and PeaceHealth. Keep up the great reporting! Also, previews of what’s happening in the arts each week.”

“A print version of the newspaper is top priority for me.”

“Reporting that illuminates what's really going on in politics, economic development (or reverses), judicial issues, and social (and medical) health in our region.”

Thanks again to everyone for your thoughtful feedback.

Weekends are getting busy now and you might have missed a couple of pieces this week:

More CDN flood follow-up coverage, headlined in print, “We feel stuck,” by reporter Sophia Gates and published today. Sophia turned what could have been a bland update about Whatcom County flood relief funding into a compelling human-interest story about some of our neighbors who saw last winter’s floodwaters recede months ago, but experience trauma that keeps rising as they wait for a hand up.

It’s worth noting that Sophia’s stellar work is made possible by the taxpayer-financed Murrow News Fellowship program. All of her work is available free outside CDN’s paywall (as is the case with all of our flood coverage) and worth checking out here.

“Sea Change”: Annie Todd and Santiago Ochoa’s engaging tours of other Northwest ports that have gone through waterfront redevelopment similar to what’s being pondered in Bellingham. Part three of this series really gets to the heart of the matter, tying together the “working waterfronts” of Westport/Grays Harbor and Port Townsend as bookends on the Olympic Peninsula. Check out the full series here, and watch for part four, where we turn our eyes back to our own waterfront, on Friday.

This week, CDN’s staff will meet in our Bellingham newsroom to map out our 2026 primary election coverage for Whatcom and Skagit counties. It’s a big national midterm election year, so as always, we’re seeking guidance about what our local readers want to know most.

The New York Times: (gift link) “Why U.S. Test Scores Are in a ‘Generation-Long Decline.” A fascinating nugget in this rather stunning guest-linked piece about the “national learning recession” comes here: “Students’ test scores had been increasing since 1990 — then abruptly stopped in the mid-2010s. That coincided with two events: an easing of federal school accountability under No Child Left Behind, which was replaced in 2015, and the rise of smartphones, social media and personalized school laptops.”

The Washington Post: “Opinion: The right way to raise the military budget to $1.5 trillion,” in which the WaPo, in an unsigned editorial making the case against unsigned editorials, attempts to justify spending $1.5 billion on last-gen weaponry and associated graft in a nation that can’t feed, house or effectively educate its own children. In the face of that, the paper’s editorial board says this: “Peace doesn’t come cheap.”

KZAX Bellingham 94.9: Make Shift Community Radio station found here online. Yes, you can apply to be your own DJ. To paraphrase my old friend Warren Miller: "If you don't do it now, you'll only be older when you do."