Dipping into the big Reader Mailbag

Holy cow, you people ask a lot of questions. Fortunately, the editor has some answers. Let’s get right to our occasional Reader Mailbag, which doubles as a big sweeping of Post-It Notes off the wall above the editor’s desk.

Q: Is the Sunday email, “Cascadia Daily News Weekly Top Stories,” a full week’s “edition” of the Cascadia Daily News?

A: Not even close. The venerable Sunday email, a cherished local tradition for going on half a year, is exactly what it says: A handy, curated selection of our top stories of the week, broken down into categories: News, Opinion, Sports and Living, which mirror the main sections of both our print newspaper and our website, cascadiadaily.com. A couple bonus items appear there, also — a “Sunday Read” piece that we believe would be a nice, well, Sunday read, and a short little memo from yours truly. 

Recently, we introduced a “Daily Updates & Breaking News Alerts” email, as well. This evening email delivers to your inbox Monday through Saturday a top story or two from the day’s work in our Bellingham newsroom, as well as some other CDN material you might have missed from other days. 

Q: So what’s the best way to see all of your material?

A: Watch our website, where the vast majority of our work appears. Read our newsletters, where most of it is chronicled as well. Read our print paper, which has some print-exclusive content such as national editorial cartoons and columns, event schedules, national sports coverage and comics and puzzles. And follow us on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.

Q: When is your site going to start charging for access?

A: We’re still testing a coming website function that will require CDN subscriptions for much of our news material; this will debut sometime in the near future — more likely months than days, but not years, so enjoy the full measure of the site for free while you can! A large number of local readers have already decided to support truly local, independent journalism by subscribing, which also gets the weekly print paper mailed to your home. Those members will get immediate access to all the content on our site once the “pay wall” goes up. Sign up for subscriptions anytime at cascadiadaily.com/subscribe. 

Q: We like your news coverage but would really like to see more business news. Is that possible? 

A: OK, sure. Waiting for someone to ask. We have an exciting new Business and Work columnist warming up in the bullpen at this very moment. See this space next week for details.

Q: We like your restaurant reviews. But what’s your policy about paying for meals and choosing places to review?

A: Thanks! Our restaurant reviews are very popular, and we plan to do even more in the future. Unlike some other publications, there’s no “in-kind” backscratching with CDN reviews. Our subjects are chosen by our news staff and reviewers, not our ownership, and produced with no regard to advertising. Reviewers pay full prices for meals, arrive unannounced and offer frank opinions about the places they choose to dine and review. If you have a suggestion for an eatery you’d like to see featured, send it to us at Newstips@cascadiadaily.com.

Q: We recently hosted a local protest/event/bazaar/sword-swallowing seminar or other local activity, but didn’t see any coverage. Did we do something wrong? 

A: Probably not. Our small staff works hard to cover events that touch on the “soul of our community” — our simple overarching goal. But we can’t get to everything. Your odds of coverage increase greatly if you give us notice by emailing our staff at newstips@cascadiadaily.com, providing a contact person and full details as far in advance as possible. We do our best to spread our personnel wisely. Trust us when we say that not covering an event is rarely a rejection of its significance; it’s much more likely that it’s a simple staffing matter. 

Q: What is your policy on publishing digitally altered images? Can we trust the pictures we see in CDN to represent reality?

A: Yes. CDN, whether through imagery or words, aims to be a window into the real world, and any digital illustration we produce or use from another source will be labeled as such. Our staff photographers adhere strictly to ethical guidelines that prohibit alteration of images beyond small processing to improve clarity. We also publish images provided to us from others, which we endeavor to hold to similar standards. We reserve the right to judge when an image morphs into an “illustration,” based on the expertise of our own editors and visual journalists. 

Q: Your photos of local sports, life and the arts are a welcome breath of fresh air. Is it possible to buy CDN photos? 

A: It soon will be. We’re working with our web provider to implement a system to purchase CDN prints in a broad variety of formats. Stay tuned for more information in the coming weeks. 

Thanks for attending this TED (Ron) Talk, and feel free to send additional questions to the address below.

Ron Judd’s column appears Wednesdays. Email: ronjudd@cascadiadaily.com; Twitter roncjudd.