Environment, commerce, more collide in the Pacific Northwest

SEATTLE -- I was looking for a fresh start and boy does this have the feeling of a fresh start.

Bare white walls, assemble-yourself IKEA furniture, scattered packing boxes, a tangle of extension cords and audio-video cables and scattered electronic gear – that’s what you see when you walk in to the not-so-sprawling offices of the Seattle bureau of Al Jazeera America.

We are a work in progress. We don’t have phones yet. We are a television news operation that doesn’t own a single television. They’re coming. When I record voice-tracks I do it in an equipment-closet where we plan to install foam rubber sound baffling. Someday soon. Ask me for a business card and I'll have to tear a page out of my reporter notebook and scribble down my cell number.

As I say, it’s a work in progress and it really feels good.

There is great energy, great creativity and commitment and opportunity between these bare white walls, a tangible sense that we’re in on the ground floor of a fascinating venture. The ground floor is metaphorical; actually we’re pretty high up and the view of Lake Union and downtown Seattle isn’t bad. “We” are producer Kristin Fraser, photographer and editor Jose Cedeno, and me, correspondent Allen Schauffler.

We are based in Seattle but have responsibility for covering breaking news and finding and telling stories from four states and a Canadian province or two. We’ll be tracking news and looking for interesting people from Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Alaska and British Columbia, from Ashland, Ore., to Anchorage, Puget Sound to Pocatello, Idaho. Yeah, it's sort of a big area, but we can’t wait to get out and explore every corner. Oh, did I mention Montana? We might just get out to Big Sky country, too. At least nobody back in New York has told us not to, so I take that as a green light.

This area has a remarkable and vibrant business community. Microsoft and Amazon in Washington, Intel in Portland, Micron in Boise are just a few of the high-tech headliners. The place is buzzing with international trade and major agricultural operations. We are surrounded by tremendous natural beauty and expansive wildlands that breed a host of environmental concerns and controversies.

People in this corner of the world share the same basic concerns of so many Americans: How do I put food on the table? What kind of education will my kids get? Where are the jobs? What price am I willing to pay for our beliefs and our security?

Lots of folks here have a sincere connection with the earth and there is always a tug-of-war between protecting what we have here and keeping the wheels of commerce rolling. Do we embrace the new coal-train terminal near Bellingham, Wash., and welcome the jobs it brings? Or do we fight it based on the belief that the trains rolling through the Northwest will damage the environment? Can we afford the billions of dollars being spent on cleaning up the Duwamish River in the heart of industrial Seattle, and how do we know when it's "clean enough"? Do we want to continue to reintroduce wolves to the region when the cattle ranchers say they're killing livestock? Should we protect the Spotted Owl by shooting and killing the more aggressive Barred Owl in Western forests? These are emotional issues here and they play out in ways that we think will be recognizable all across the country."

And we have legal pot and gay marriage.

In short, we have lots to work with.

And we’re just getting started.

-- Allen Schauffler,
Al Jazeera America Seattle correspondent