This is me in the crowd at Pike Place Market in 2008, on the day that Starbucks introduced its Pike Place Roast. CEO Howard Schultz is signing autographs in the foreground.

While on a recent business trip, I made some coffee in my hotel using the coffee maker next to the television.

The Starbucks packets seemed designed especially for the hotel brewer. On check out, I braced myself, expecting to be charged something outrageous.

I got my bill and scanned it. “There’s no charge for the coffee on here,” I told the hotel clerk.

“Oh, no charge for that,” he said.

“Wait, so, the coffee is free?” I asked. “But you charge for drinking the bottled water in the fridge?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

My goodness, I thought, in our society, coffee is considered more necessary than water.

The first time that I met Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, I didn’t know the difference between an espresso and a brew.

And I didn’t even know enough about coffee to know that it was something I should have known.

Maybe it was fitting that as a business reporter, I wasn’t already a fan of the company or its main product. That was more than two years ago. That was before I traded in my daily Diet Cokes for daily coffees.

It occurred to me early on in my career that caffeine was more necessity than luxury if I wanted to make something of myself in modern society. In fact, coffee and tea surged in popularity at the advance of the industrial revolution. (One of the best articles I’ve read on humanity’s dependence upon caffeine is by National Geographic. Check it out here.)

By the time I was a full-time college student, spending long nights writing up physics experiment reports and spending my days working for FDIC in Arlington, Va., I was consuming 32 ounces of regular Coca-Cola per day.

One day, my boss’s boss saw me at my desk with one: My mouth connected to a giant red and white cup via straw. “Do you know how much sugar is in that?” he said. “You’re going to get so fat if you keep drinking that. Switch to diet.”

And, so, I switched to diet. It was difficult at first, because I didn’t like the taste. But then, addiction set in. Diet Coke became “liquid goodness.”

Here I am in Amsterdam in 2007, drinking a "Coca-Cola Light," which is the non-US version of Diet Coke.

I developed a Pavlovian response to the sight of that cold silver can, the feel of its weight in my hands, the cracking sound of the tab — oh, addicts, do you feel me? I would tuck a Diet Coke can behind my feet under my church pew. You’d never find me without a can in my hand. I bonded with news sources over this shared addiction.

Coffee, meanwhile, seemed gross. Who knows what they put in that?

Starbucks taught me exactly what.

Because Starbucks is a brand that must maintain a positive public image, it employs a powerful team of public relations staff. The team struck me as particularly competent at what it did — the staff works hard to educate reporters about the company, and more importantly, about coffee.

I grew up in in a working class New Jersey household. Morning joe meant pouring boiling water over a scoop of Maxwell House instant. My parents kept Sweet’N Low packets in a dish on the table, next to the salt and pepper shakers. And my mother kept a white cannister of saccharin tablets next to her purse, for her morning tea. (As a child, I thought that men drank coffee and women drank tea.)

On a day-long immersion tour of Starbucks, I learned the difference between low-quality robusta and high-quality arabica beans, I saw the labs where the company’s scientists determined which temperatures brought out the best flavors, and I learned about distribution and marketing and product sourcing. (Did you know that the Japanese are the largest consumers of instant coffee? They sell it in machines over there like they do soda here.)

Before that day, I’d thought that coffee beans came brown. I learned that they are plucked off of the trees green and then roasted brown.

For some reason, I’d always thought that coffee was engineered from man-made chemicals. I realized that coffee is as natural as salad. It’s water run through roasted beans. It fit into my decision to make simpler and healthy lifestyle choices.

In October 2009, I officially made the switch to coffee as my main source of caffeine.

I use a French press in the morning. How about you?

With its spinning neon globe overlooking Elliott Bay, the printed Seattle Post-Intelligencer was a West Coast institution. It was the state’s oldest business. A home for elegant scribes and scrappy diggers. Quirky. Artistic. Majestic. Beloved. Hated. Respected. Feared.

Working there as a reporter was a personal dream-come-true. I loved that place and proudly showed off my business card to whoever asked, “What do you do?”

After years of moving around the country and seeking a home, I’d found one in the P-I. I belonged at a newspaper. That newspaper. In a major city. In Seattle.

So when the Seattle P-I stopped printing one year ago, I felt shattered. “How could they do this to this city? To us?” I wondered about Hearst Corp., the New York-based company that owned the P-I.

I felt angry and blindsided and helpless. I was one of 10 percent of the staff chosen to work for seattlepi.com — which was a blessing in that I had something to focus on and I got to keep doing what I love.

But now, one year later, I am working in finance — almost by surprise. And I realized this week: Of course. I needed to understand what happened, and to do that, I had to understand more about how business works.

Sometimes it’s hard to be objective about the things we love — even for reporters.

My new job as a junior stock analyst has helped me to see my treasured-shuttered newspaper with fresh eyes. Objective eyes.

Early into the new millennium, the P-I had become a crappy company with a business model creaking louder than the globe atop the building:

–It was losing up to $14 million a year with no future profits in sight.

–It outsourced its basic money-making functions to its biggest competitor, which also, oh by the way, was run by men who wanted to squash it dead. (The P-I’s printing, delivery and advertising sales were handled by the rival Seattle Times. This would be like if Coca-Cola outsourced its distribution to Pepsi Co.)

–It was staffed by members of a feisty union that wasn’t afraid to tussle with management.

–It was overseen by new executives in New York who didn’t put the paper into the mess it was in, and had little inclination or time to get it out of it.

–It was operating without any legal freedom to market itself.

“Shit show” is a new phrase I’ve picked up from the finance industry to describe operations like the P-I. I love the term. It’s brutally honest, doesn’t mince words and isn’t afraid of the truth: Kinda like the P-I.

The whole devastating debacle taught me two crucial life lessons:

Money matters.

Whatever can’t go on forever . . . won’t.

And that shit show reality is why you’ll never find a P-I flapping in the wind at the Pike Place Market newsstand again.

This question came from a smart and capable guy, and so I was stunned. The best definition I could come up with at first was something stupid like, “Twitter? Uh, it’s . . . Twitter, you know, where you tweet?”

Business people: You are allowed to not like Twitter. You are allowed to not get Twitter. But c’mon, you’ve got to know which technologies are changing how people communicate. Or else, you’re going to get blindsided.

Journalists seem to be having a love affair with Twitter. (Guilty.) But can you blame them for trying? They know what it’s like to be blindsided.

The newspaper implosion shocked a lot of us in print media. McClatchy CEO Gary Pruitt said 2008 was the “worst year” of his life. “By far.” He may have been talking about money, but down in the ranks, we were shocked by our loss of authority. We shouldn’t have been. The clues were there all along.

I still remember the Time magazine cover that arrived in my mailbox featuring a bendable mirror. The magazine’s person of the year designation at the end of 2006 was “you.”

“Welcome to your world.”

Some people called the “you” theme a cop out. I thought it was brilliant. I’d been reading the articles by Seattle venture capital reporter John Cook, and the Time report pulled it all together.

I could see “you” taking over in my own job when the Seattle Post-Intelligencer forced every reporter to stick a question at the end of articles to encourage discussion. Can’t think of a question? The default was and still is, “What do you think?”

A lot of us in the newsroom hated the policy. (I was love/hate at first but my thicker-skinned self now emphatically supports commenting.) We felt it cheapened our brand and undermined our authoritative voice. We let anonymous people tell us we were stupid, we let them post factual inaccuracies and blather. (Half the threads devolved into either, “Blame Bush!” or “blame immigrants!” or worse. “You” may be in charge, but “you” ain’t always intelligent.)

It turns out, comments were only the beginning. Next came unpaid writers and some of them were more popular than us. Lightbulb: It’s not about us. It’s about “you.”

They teach you in journalism school that it’s not about the writer. “Do you remember who wrote the story about the first moon landing?” the professor asks. “The reader doesn’t owe you anything,” says the writing coach.

They talk a good humble game, but I’m telling you the truth: The impact that “you” had on our industry shocked the smartest of us. We got blindsided.

The widespread adoption of Twitter by journalists is a determination to not get blindsided again. The journalists who are most with it are the ones who are following nearly as many people as who are following them.

Getting started

If you never got Web 2.0, and now don’t get 3.0 or whatever-the-heck we’re up to now (mobilephone.0?), here’s a video to get you started. It is 2.5 years old, still relevant, has been viewed nearly 10 million times on YouTube, and is superb. It captures so much of what I was trying to say in my former post about online journalism, and where it is heading.

(Hat tip for the video)

I have no doubt that my former colleagues at seattlepi.com understand most pieces of this video. RSS feeds and Twitter are literally in their job description. More and more businesses get what’s in this video. Every one of my friends under age 30, except maybe my favorite luddite, gets what’s in this video. Do you?

Oh, and now ”you” get to define Twitter too. Or just go to twitter.com.

Update: Here’s another video on social media:

(Hat tip for the video)

I looked down at the scribbles on my reporter notepad. “Hey Scott,” I said to my editor, “I just got the strangest message. There’s this investment bank that is looking to hire someone to do corporate research, and they got my name.”

Scott didn’t miss a beat: “Call him back.”

I Googled the firm and the stock analyst who’d left the voicemail. He’d been recently quoted in Forbes. I called him back.

That was about one month ago. Fast forward to now. August 12 will be my last day reporting and writing for seattlepi.com. In a few weeks, I will start as a research associate at the investment bank.

If you’d told me last year – nay, last quarter – that I’d quit my journalism job to go work for an investment bank, I would have said, “Get out.” (At least, that was the reaction of my former business editor Margaret when she heard the news, followed by, “Congratulations!”)

But then again, a lot has happened in the past year that I wouldn’t have thought possible. First, I attended the inauguration of the first black president and sat near the front row. Then, Lady Fortune came out of nowhere,  took a big swig of liquid economy, picked up the baseball bat marked “career,” and whacked most of my friends. My newspaper shut down. WaMu disappeared. Back to the point. . .

I’m excited about this transition into a world to which I’m already connected. Often when a business stumps me with some change of direction or unique accounting charge, I turn to analyst experts for help. After about six years of covering the markets and business, now I get to learn what makes Wall Street analysts tick. I never could resist the allure of learning new things!

And so, off I go.

Journalism asks: How can you leave me?

Please do not interpret my leaving seattlepi.com as foreboding about the news site’s future. The Web site commands a high readership and from what I hear from management, the already robust content will get fuller and better with each new partnership and added revenue stream.

Journalism industry watchers would do well to keep an eye on Seattle’s online journalism experiments, from what Hearst is doing at seattlepi.com to the rise of community news blogs that are rich with engagement.

Journalism is a rapidly changing industry, and for the past few years, I’ve had a front row seat.

The future will include more democratization of data, more citizen engagement, more unpaid writers, fewer generalists, more amateurs with fan followings, a greater appreciation for quality business reporting, and a whittling down of traditional journalistic authority against the rise of the niche-hobbyist-turned-pro.

The notion of journalists as gatekeepers is obsolete — those who pridefully struggle to hold onto that antiquated view will watch helplessly as information flows around, over and beneath the gates. Those who humbly embrace these changes will become the new stars, appreciated for their ability to generate unique content while at the same time navigating and making sense of the information flow.

Since journalists make a living out of calling people out on their contradictory statements, it’s only fair that I share mine. Before my newspaper stopped printing, I made some public declarations about how I was loathe to leave journalism.

I told Jon Friedman at CBS MarketWatch that, “I feel like I was born to do this work. I’m so curious. Give me a job where I can get paid to be nosy as hell, get my curiosity satisfied and write every day. I can’t imagine going into another field.”

And I declared via the Columbia Journalism Review that, “Journalism is just too much fun to give up. Even now. I’ve seen job openings in other fields, but I don’t want another type of job. I love learning new things. I like questioning authority and calling b.s. when I see it. I’m nosy as hell, and paid to be.”

Here’s what I think now, given the present flux in media: Trying new things maintains career growth and passion. And the same personal qualities that led me to pursue journalism — a love of writing, a desire to understand and make sense of how the world works — are what intrigue me about investment research. In short, I’ll still get paid to ask questions.

I’m not going away forever; my media connections are deep and I’ve loved the business, even as it was breaking my heart. Just last week, for example, I was scheduled to speak to a class of journalism students at my undergraduate alma mater, but had to cancel when duty called.  So, I won’t disappear for good, but I do intend to keep my head down well into the near future to learn the ropes and immerse myself in this new adventure!

Please stay in touch. After a six-month training period, I hope to set up shop back here in Seattle.

One more reflection:

Covering Seattle business has been a blast. Each day I’m reminded of how lucky I have been to chronicle the stories of our corporations, large and small, and the workers who are each threads in the tapestry of this iconic city.

The days leading up to my recent interview were a perfect example of how Seattle innovation has spread:

Wanting to look the part for my interview, I strolled into Nordstrom for assistance on buying the right outfit and shoes. Then, I flew from Sea-Tac to the Twin Cities on a Boeing 757. Once there, a placard in my hotel room declared that the coffee pot “proudly” brews Starbucks. And I was slugging a Microsoft product over my shoulder the whole way: my laptop runs Windows Vista.

I’ll be checking seattlepi.com to stay on top of all of Seattle’s news. I hope you do too.

Cheers and onward.

Update: August 11, 2009: I’ve posted a goodbye to the Seattle P-I’s aerospace blog. Read it here.

Dan Richman and I kept it together enough to write the front page headline story for the last edition of the newspaper:

The online version has a different lede than the version that ran in print, which read:

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer has printed its last edition. You’re reading it.

The newspaper sold out all over the city. It comes wrapped in a commemorative edition with essays and stories by our best writers.

Hearst gave me the option of sticking around as a business reporter with seattlepi.com, and I accepted the offer.

Here’s the squiggly pink worm that I bit like a hungry fish: The Seattle Post-Intelligencer would be the first printed newspaper in the country to transition to an all-online model. If it works, I’d have witnessed something remarkable, the future of general news daily journalism.

Curiosity overwhelms me. What is it like to witness the death of a newspaper, and a rebirth? Do I want to see this first hand, in all its pain and glory? Yes, I do.

Business reporter Dan Richman and I shared responsibility for reporting on this most unhappy news.

I wrote this part, which was quoted on Poynter’s Romenesko blog:

“P-I employees were silent. Some of them shed tears.”

Others held up cell phones or voice recorders in press-conference fashion as they heard that their paper was up for sale. “This is awful, awful, awful,” editorial cartoonist David Horsey said after the newsroom meeting. “I was just standing there looking around at all these people I love to work with. I don’t want this to happen to me or them.”

This is a sad day. But whenever I start to mourn, I just get back to writing and making calls. Reporting has helped me get through a lot in my life, and it’s helping me now.

Seattle will remain a two newspaper town. And I am working for a very, very happy newsroom.

I was at a journalist training workshop at the Tacoma News Tribune when an editor walked in with a breaking news  update: “The Seattle Times and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer have reached a settlement that will allow both newspapers to continue publishing for the foreseeable future.”

The delightful shock rocked my core. The enormity of what that meant exactly — for my job, for my co-workers, for my future — started to flood through my brain.

“I get to keep my job. I get to stay in Seattle! Oh thank God. Thank God.”

About 75 reporters filled the room from various regional papers. Including, to my surprise, Shawna Gamache, a reporter whom I attended grad school with.

But only three reporters were from the Seattle Times — they were gloomier — and I was the only one from the P-I. My colleague, Daniel, arrived later. He told everyone, “I knew Andrea was in the room because she tackled me from behind with a hug.”

The reporters around me said, “Congratulations.”  My phone was filled with text messages, including from my mentor, Rob Wells, who was ecstatic.

Taking this job, moving across the country, was a risk. But one that I gladly took given that I get to work for a stellar newspaper and live in Seattle — a gorgeous, clean and livable city.

But, I’ve started to realize that I want to stay here for at least three or four years. Maybe forever. Except, I hadn’t been allowing myself to get close to anyone. I rent my apartment month to month. I skied as if I won’t be able to next year.

My co-workers also have put their lives on hold. Delaying marriages, children, buying houses, buying refrigerators or any major expense. Instead, we waited to see if our chief competitor, the Seattle Times, would succeed in shutting us down. The lawyers battled it out, while we reported.

Though it was a settlement — that is, it never came to binding arbitration — most of Seattle agrees: The Post-Intelligencer won.

The Seattle Times has to pay the P-I’s parent company $24 million. They can’t try to shut us down again until 2016. And the delivery trucks that deliver both papers will be repainted to have the Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s name prominently displayed.

As I drove back to my newsroom that afternoon, the city sparkled. I smiled and said a thankful prayer. This city is mine now, too.

On Monday night we partied.

The P-I rented out a nearby bar and restaurant. We had free food and drinks from six until midnight.

I left my car at the P-I and walked over. The sun warmed my face.

When I walked in, everyone was eating and drinking. That bar was filled with happy people. Elated people. Hugging and crying people. And spouses and children too.

Anne Foster, who is married to one of our editors, went to Pike Place Market and bought 60 tulips. She gave one to each of us.

Bill Miller, a city editor, put up his hand. I high-fived him and he began to holler. I echoed him with a high-pitched whoop and soon the whole bar broke into hugs and cheers again. This happened several times throughout the evening. A radio reporter interviewed some of us.

The P-I’s pending closure has been hanging over my head for only eight months. For many, it has been looming for four years.

But now we get to live! And print more papers!

People began to say, “This round is on Frank.”  Frank Blethen is the man who owns the Times.

When our publisher, Roger Oglesby, walked in, he got a standing ovation. People threw flowers at his feet.

Mark Matassa, the man who hired me, came too. It was so great to see him in his University of Oregon ball cap. I thanked him for hiring me. He was happy to see that his hires get to keep their jobs!

The managing editor, David McCumber, put his arm around me. “Thanks for taking a chance on us. We are glad to have you here.” I felt enormously proud and part of the team.

Others also thanked me for coming to the P-I, for being brave enough to work for the paper and keep it going while the future was uncertain. I had never thought of it that way. I see myself as lucky to work for the P-I.

Next thing, a long black limo showed up, courtesy of Art Thiel, our sports columnist and radio personality. It was stuffed with champagne and about 10 of us piled in, including David Horsey, our cartoonist.

The limo drove us to Kerry Park overlook, and then we swung by the Seattle Times.

The employees got out of the limo and chanted at the building, “Paint those trucks!” I think this was one of the photographer’s ideas. “Paint Those Trucks! Paint Those Trucks!”

The delivery trucks currenly only show the Seattle Times logo.

And then they whooped and danced in front of the Times. The reporters in their newsroom waved. It’s a friendly rivalry — sometimes.

The limo took everyone out on rounds around Seattle, delivering scores of P-I people to the Times’ doorstep to cheer (or urinate, yikes), and then back to the bar for more food and drink.

At 11 p.m. it was announced: The bar still had $1,000 left to spend for the tab.

Journalists, naturally, took this as a challenge.

More rounds. More beers. Some of the men drank 12- and 18-year-old scotch.

Eustacio, a photo editor recently hired from the Cleveland Plain-Dealer, handed out shots. He’s also my ski buddy. We toasted to shredding more mountains.

Finally the lights came on. The P-I sent us each home in a taxi with cab vouchers.

It was a grateful night. I caught the metro bus in bright and early this morning. Head hurting, but ready to report and do a great job.

Life. Is. Good.

(This piece was written in April 2007 and shared privately with friends at the time. It was published in August 2009.)

I’ll just put the lead at the front, so if you read no further, you’ll know this much:

At the end of the month, I will move to Seattle, Washington.

Today is my 25th birthday, and it is bittersweet. I’m a bit overwhelmed, but in a very good way after a whirlwind week in the Pacific Northwest.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the oldest daily newspaper in that city, flew me to town to interview for a business reporting position.

I left Mobile last Saturday with a packed suitcase and a head full of story ideas for those editors. I returned today with a job offer, a signed lease on a Seattle apartment and no liquids in my carry-on.

Before the interview, the paper put me up in a $300 per night Marriott hotel on Lake Union, gave me a rental car and said, “explore.”

I did.

My Medill friend Chuck Chiang, who works for a newspaper in Oregon, drove six hours to the city to share the joy. He brought his guitar. What a happy reunion!

We ate at the Pink Door in Post Alley. Rode to the top of the Space Needle. Strolled around neighborhoods. Watched men toss fish at Pike Place Market.

I marveled at the prospect of moving back to a big city after 17 months of living in Alabama.

The night before the interview I jogged to calm my nerves. I trotted past the Seattle P-I building — which is a part of the Seattle skyline, right on Puget Sound with an enormous rotating globe. The globe has the words, “It’s in the P-I.” (Reminds me of the Daily Planet from Superman!)

The interview was intense. I met with 10 managers and editors and five reporters. But I was so impressed with the dedication and talent of people in that newsroom. I can’t wait to work with all of them.

On Tuesday, I took a vehicle ferry to stay with my American University professor, Rob Wells, who first planted the seed that I could maybe make it in this business. He lives in a small shore town called Gig Harbor, on a peninsula about an hour from the city.

He and his wife let me stay in their gorgeous guest room right on Puget Sound! Their home became my staging ground for the rest of the week.

On Friday, I returned to the P-I to sign their offer letter and make plans for my move across the country (which they will pay for, entirely, thank God!)

Then I met with a property manager to sign a lease and pay September’s rent on my new apartment — a cute bungalow in a neighborhood called Greenlake. It is just five miles north of the Space Needle and the Seattle P-I. It is one block from the lake and next door to an outdoor grill, a public library and a Starbucks. (Of course.)

In the weeks ahead I’m looking at lots of goodbyes. Hugs and tears. And excitement over the newest adventure.

(Miss Carol from church called me while I was in Seattle. “Come on back to us baby ’soon as you can. It was lonely in the front pew without you darlin.”)

In many ways, moving to the South was like coming home. The South to me feels as real as any other place I’ve lived. It is here. I am here, in the South, right now. Surrounded by heat, palm trees, bugs & critters.

Oh, I will miss the South. Alabama. The Gulf Coast. Mobile.

I will miss the grey-haired ladies at my church, their big hats and spindly hugs.

I will miss ice cold sweet tea on heavy hot days.

I will miss being baby and darlin’ and honey.

I will miss the enormous fuzzy live oaks.

I will miss knowing all the shop keepers, walking down the street and saying hi to everyone.

I will miss my antebellum apartment, with high ceilings and mahogany floors.

And mostly, I will miss my awesome Mobile Press-Register colleagues and friends. My fellow “expats.”

I am leaving all that, and them, to go back to metropolis. Faster pace. Diversity! Coffee shops. Recycling!

Good bye dive bars and watering holes, with your beer-stained floors and neon Bud signs. Hello martini glasses and plush couches and $9 froo-froo drinks.

Goodbye bright sun and beach on Saturday and skin browner than I thought possible. Hello to grey winters and skiing on Saturday and my naturally pale self.

Goodbye to the County Commissioner who grunts “Git ‘r done” at board meetings. Hello to professionals in business suits who make deals without twang.

Goodbye hurricanes swirling. Goodbye slow talkers. Goodbye $450 per month rent. Goodbye Confederate flags. Goodbye dusty front porch.

Goodbye lizard skeleton.

What am I doing with my life? All this moving! Searching, writing, reporting, seeking, learning.

They say that journalism comes with many sacrifices. You spend a good part of your 20s moving from place to place, working hard. Crying over goodbyes and shouting with joy over triumphs.

I wouldn’t trade this career, or the past 17 months in the Deep South, for anything. It’s been such a lesson! On politeness, on the other America, on a place that is constantly struggling and striving. It is very special, I’m glad to have known it.

But now I’m ready for a bigger challenge. What an adventure.

Yawn. I’ll start with a nap.