In direct contrast to the wealth of relevant information about Fortunato and the efficient but relevant information about both Purcell and Hansen, we came away from Crosscut’s article with no tangible examples of González’s past accomplishments or policy positions, both of which would provide voters critical insight into how she might perform as Washington state attorney general. Although the article noted that González had been a civil rights attorney previously, and that she “wants to stand up for people facing discrimination,” for a piece introducing her as a candidate, it lacked critical information about her candidacy.

We reached out to Santos to learn more about why Crosscut cast the piece the way it did. She explained it was part of her broader statewide political coverage: Pointing to her recent articles about who might be the next governor of Washington and the rise of “exploratory committees,” she said that Crosscut’s coverage had focused on the “musical chairs of people wanting to position themselves for potentially open statewide offices.”

As to why Fortunato received so much coverage of his experience and proposals when the article centered on position jockeying, Santos noted that Fortunato (as well as Purcell and Hansen) had received less previous coverage in Crosscut than González.

“Our core audience knows González well,” Santos wrote in an email, “and we took that into account when deciding how to present her to our readers.”

Crosscut’s core audience might be aware of González’s political aspirations to fight gun violence. They may know about her effort to make hate crimes a priority for local jurisdictions, or her public service record of bolstering civilian oversight of the Seattle Police Department’s internal disciplinary system. They may know about her private practice representation of workers in wage-theft and anti-discrimination cases, or the role she played in a federal lawsuit settlement against the Brewster School District’s treatment of Hispanic students (all examples taken from The Seattle Times article linked below), but our guess is that noncore readers may not come to, or away from, Santos’s article with a complete first impression of González as a candidate for statewide office.