📰 Inside CDN 05/25/26

From the editor’s desk: With another Ski to Sea in the rear-view mirror, a few thoughts on how that event fits into our pages.

I’ve written here before that Cascadia Daily News strives to be not only a paper of record, but one that reflects the heart and soul of our community — and how our collective identity derives from, and is shaped by, the natural world around us.

Sense of place, in other words.

In my mind, nothing better personifies that than Ski to Sea, an athletic event that embraces — right down to the mud-up-your-shorts level — our people and place. People and place matter. So we treat the event accordingly.

CDN devotes its entire staff to this task, positioning our reporters and visual folks at every station along the race, top to bottom. Yes, that even includes yours truly, making pictures and taking in the scene down at the cyclocross/kayak handoff at Zuanich Point Park.

It’s a great team-building effort; our live coverage account of the race, which can be viewed in hindsight here, is evidence of the nimble work of our talented staff. We hope our coverage, which began with a wonderful special section in CDN’s Friday print paper and continued through the weekend, does justice to the event.

For us, covering Ski to Sea also serves a practical purpose: It’s the annual field test of our staff to file quick information from places scattered all over the map, coalesce it into our office, and send it out to you, our readers, as fast as possible. Skills we’ve developed in covering Ski to Sea five times now have come into play during our breaking news coverage — most recently during our blanket coverage of the massive Northwest Washington flooding this winter.

With Ski to Sea behind us, we shift immediately into election season. In a way, that subject never leaves our back burner. But this past week it moved to the front, with a full-staff meeting to split up the task of covering this summer's primary election. Look for our election coverage to start rolling out in mid-July and continue strong through the big midterm national election Nov. 3.

Also this week, letters have already gone out from CDN to many candidates in our award-winning Citizens Agenda public crowdsourcing project. We’ll be asking candidates in selected races to provide written answers to questions posed to them directly from readers. Watch for more details on how and where to submit those questions very soon.

One aside: We were happy to learn recently that some friends at Spokane’s Inlander are planning to launch their own Citizens Agenda project on the state’s other side this summer. Welcome to the room!

As always, CDN’s election coverage is provided free, in its entirety, as a public service from your locally owned, independent newspaper.

Which brings us to …

I was pleased to see that a large number of readers answered last week’s question about election-coverage priorities by adopting the approach we take here. The overwhelmingly most popular answer was: A nice mix of national/local — and how those puzzle pieces fit together — is the context I need.

Here’s a selection of the many insightful comments readers added to their vote:

“I really feel more connected to the community by your reporting. ”

“A smart mix of local and national is essential right now. Voters need to see how school boards, county races, and state policy connect to the broader political machinery shaping them. Ignoring either level misses how we got here — and how to fix it.”

“National elections greatly affected local lives more than many fail to remember. Several programs have had the loss of federal funds leaving institutions scrambling to meet budget shortfalls. The usual local response is more property taxes and gutting programs. There's too many politicians more concerned with their jobs than the needs of constituents. Wake them UP.”

“I want to know how local/ state officials plan to protect our interests and lives from the executive branch's harmful orders and legislation.”

“National news from online service providers like WSJ, CNN, etc provide great national coverage. For me your footprint should be regional, state, local and BC.”

“I recognize the fortunate bubble I am in here, but appreciate the CDN team’s ability to keep some perspective on the wider Whatcom and WA political scene and its connection/reflection on the nation at large. I arrived in B’ham just as you were getting going, and was so glad to have a great local paper to support. Still am!”

As my colleague Jon Bauer noted in Saturday’s Cascadia Voices newsletter, CDN has yet another enterprise project in the works: A July 3 special section celebrating the 250th anniversary of the Continental Congress’ formal adoption of the Declaration of Independence.

That document, and the revolution and Constitution to follow, was made possible in part by the fledgling American free press. The ideals behind it, along with fundamental rights we have long taken for granted, are ensconced in the First Amendment. It’s always been my view that they were first for a reason.

CDN will celebrate that achievement with a section filled with stories about the critical role of First Amendment freedoms in a representative democracy. That central tenet of our national identity is under threat to the greatest degree in our history, which makes examining both its roots and role in our daily lives worth holding up — and protecting. Look for our take on this critical subject in the print edition of CDN on July 3, also online at cascadiadaily.com.

In the meantime, get geared up by submitting your own letter to the editor about America’s 250th birthday, and your thoughts about our grand experiment as it stands today.

I'm pleased to announce that after two sold-out preview showings, “Respect the Rez,” CDN’s documentary about the state champion Lummi Blackhawks boys basketball team — and the tribe’s proud history of athletics at Lummi Nation School — will be released for public viewing starting June 8. You can see the first of four episodes that week, with additional episodes posted weekly. Also, stay tuned for details of a third public screening of the full film at Pickford Cinemas coming in June.

Jill LePore: “We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution.” Seems timely, no? As a part-time historian, Harvard historian and New Yorker writer LePore’s Pulitzer Prize-winning history of our foundational document pushes all the buttons. And I’m rarely one to disagree with Timothy Snyder, who said this about the work: “It is impossible to imagine a more instructive text on a more timely subject by a more accomplished historian.” If you don’t have the time, absorb the takeaway: It was designed to be changed or even scrapped, not a holy writ for all times.

The Atlantic: “Why College Students are Booing AI,” by Ian Bogost (my gift link to local grads). It’s sweeping the nation, apparently (or at least a few places, magnified by anti-social media?) The author, a university professor and administrator, points toward the latter, noting that “new graduates by and large love AI. The technology has already changed college students forever.” But the individual boo-fests, of course, have their own back stories, worthy of absorption.

John Hiatt: “Slow Turning,” A&M Records, vinyl, 1988. Peak late ’80s Southern blues rock. Springy. If you see this in actual, real, tangible media form, get it; you might spend a couple hours on Meridian searching for a Cadillac with Tennessee plates.