1. Crosscut.com basics - Almost 6 years old. - Started to reinvent itself in late 2012. Still reinventing itself. - Experimenting with the mobile market. Most news organizations are experimenting with the mobile market. - 1 publisher, 3 editors, 2 admin/support staff members. - Small group of contract writers. - Large stable of freelance writers

2. Crosscut's editorial direction -We're still tweaking this. -We tend towards highbrow stories for the Puget Sound area. -We're trying to focus on the "how" and "why" of news. We're still working on how to do this. -Our stories and writers are a strange, hard-to-define mix of being a daily newspaper, an alternative weekly, a magazine, citizen journalism, op-ed page, and essays. -We lean towards politics, environmental issues, urban life and arts.

3. Journalism on the Internet - New skills are coming into play. Old skills are being downplayed. A struggle is underway to find a good blend of the old and new worlds. - Few journalists are experts in the entire range of old and new skills. - The primary readers of online news are people who read at work. - People who read on mobile devices are becoming more important. - Poor people have little access to online news, and are being marginalized.

4. Newsgathering in the Internet Age - Journalists extensively use the internet *Good -- We have access to vastly more information. *Bad -- We've become lazier. Legwork and street smarts are being downplayed. - Linking to other news organizations stories has become routine. This would have been unthinkable 10 years ago. - News Web sites have become more niche-oriented like cable television channels. - Small staffs/shoestring budgets - Less professional journalists. More semi-pros and citizen journalists.

5. So you want to approach a news organization about a complicated story? - Different Web sites, newspapers, TV stations and radio stations vary greatly in their philosophies on stories. - There are good and bad newspapers, good and bad TV stations, and good and bad news Web sites. Pay attention to which are good in your region. - If you want pitch a telecommunications or energy story, find a news organization that has a track record of actually covering that subject or a similar one. - Some news organizations won't touch anything complicated or time-consuming. Some love that kind of story. do. Know which are which.

6. Other tips on pitching for in-depth stories - Have a well-defined idea in mind. Don't pitch something broad and fuzzy. - Good reporters love documents. - Good reporters love interviewing people with compelling stories. - Hunt for a geeky reporter who likes to do in- depth stories.