The Stand at 10: We need to hear from YOU on how to improve

Complete our Reader Survey and let us know what we’re doing right and wrong

By DAVID GROVES

(April 30, 2021) — The Stand, the news service of the Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO and its affiliated unions, went online for the first time 10 years ago on May Day, International Workers Day.

The headlines that week were dominated by the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton, President Barack Obama announcing the death of Osama bin Laden, and Ell & Nikki winning the 2011 Eurovision Song Contest with the unforgettable “Running Scared” (Azerbaijan). So you could be forgiven for not noticing the debut of what proclaimed itself to be “YOUR Internet Newsstand.”

In the 10 years since, The Stand has grown in fits and starts in both usage and subscribers to become Washington state’s leading (and only) news outlet dedicated to unions and working people standing together to improve their lives and achieve social justice. That was always the point: to create a progressive populist source of information about Washington’s working families and their issues given the vacuum of interest in and coverage of the state’s labor movement from the commercial media.

Over the years, The Stand has won a few awards and generally accomplished what it set out to do. But a lot has changed in those 10 years, which is a lifetime in terms of the fast-paced evolution of online media and commentary. And The Stand, bless its heart, has not undergone any major changes in design, format and content during that time.

That’s where you come in.

Please fill out this quick Reader Survey for The Stand. Tell us what we are doing right and what we are doing wrong. Tell us what you like and what you dislike. Tell us what you want to see covered more, and what do you want covered less.

The survey is totally anonymous so you can feel free to be brutally honest in your feedback. Thank you in advance for helping us improve The Stand and make it more useful and effective.

POINT OF PERSONAL PRIVILEGE — We sincerely want to thank the WSLC’s executive officers and board — past and present — for the faith and trust they have put in The Entire Staff of The Stand to publish independently every day. It’s no small thing that we have been empowered for 10 years now to curate and publish what is effectively a daily online newspaper without prior review. Sure, we’ve made a few mistakes along the way. But a unique endeavor like The Stand would not be possible if its content each day was subject to organizational approval from upstairs. We have never taken that faith and trust for granted, and we never will.

David Groves is Editor of The Stand.