Cascadia Scorecard News

February 2006

Sightline has long been dedicated to providing Cascadia’s citizens with information and analysis they can use to improve their community and region. Now, with our new relationship with the Northwest’s top online news service—Tidepool.org—our ability to do so has expanded exponentially.

Tidepool is a Northwest-focused news service whose editors hand-pick the best environmental, community, and economic news stories every day from more than 40 regional and international news sources, as well as key science and world stories relevant to Cascadia. The news is posted on the website every morning by 9am PST; or you can receive the MorningTIDE email with the top ten stories of the day (subscribe here).

Tidepool also helps you keep up to date on the Northwest with original voices (see “Canada’s Great Bear Park? Not exactly”) and topics that get you right to the information you want, like food and farms, green business, growth, and salmon.

In 1997, a group of far-seeing northwesterners, including Portland’s Ecotrust (Tidepool’s sponsor until 2004) and longtime editor Ed Hunt, developed Tidepool to help engaged but pressed citizens sift through the day’s endless cycle of news stories—and to identify the trends with long-term effects on our bioregion—Cascadia’s slow news (pdf).

Sightine staff were probably some of Tidepool’s first—and most dedicated—readers: We’ve used the site daily for almost a decade as a rich source of stories that help shape our research and analysis. A partnership with Tidepool seemed like a natural fit. Tidepool's central function has been to highlight the most significant long-term trends that are shaping our place; Sightline's strength is analyzing and interpreting this news and the trends underlying it. The two functions combined, we believe, will be greater than the sum of the parts.

Tidepool has long been a community asset—something kept healthy through the active support of its thousands of readers. We’d love our members and readers to contribute their thoughts on how Tidepool can better serve their information needs. Sightline will soon introduce more services and ways for the community to participate in Tidepool’s evolution (keep your eyes open for a survey soon!), and will upgrade to a more powerful technology platform.

We trust you’ll join us in celebrating this passing of the torch. We’re also pleased to introduce Tidepool editor—and new Sightline staff member—Kristin Kolb-Angelbeck, who brings solid journalism and Northwest experience to her job of getting up far earlier than the rest of us to select and package the region’s top news of the day (read her bio here).

If you have questions or thoughts, NEW would love to hear from you. Just email Tidepool editor Kristin Kolb-Angelbeck (email: editor (at) tidepool.org) or Sightline communications director Elisa Murray (email: elisa (at) sightline.org).