The JOLT News Organization

The JOLT – The Journal of Olympia, Lacey & Tumwater -- is Thurston County’s independent, community-owned, non-partisan and nonprofit news service.

We reach thousands of local residents every weekday on their phones or computers with new local news and feature stories.  

Every weekday The JOLT gives you – free of charge – approximately 6 original local news and feature stories, plus the Police Blotter and hundreds of full-length event listings in our Community Calendar. 

The JOLT started in 2020 as an experiment to see whether Thurston County residents would become interested in receiving better coverage of local news again.

So, what's new?

It’s working. 2024 has been a pivotal year for your local news organization:

• Won our first journalism award, a national honor, the 2024 Insight Award for Visual Journalism from the Institute for Nonprofit News.
• Press Forward, the national initiative to strengthen communities by reinvigorating local news, included The JOLT News Organization in its first group of grant recipients. It provided us with $50,000 in 2024 and 2025 to support our growth.
• We just hired our first full-time managing editor (with the Press Forward grant). We’ll introduce you at the start of December to our new editor, who is relocating back to Washington this month to join us.

That Press Forward grant is a challenge: While it will cover about HALF of the cost of our new editor, we need to raise THE OTHER HALF of the funds here, locally, from individuals and businesses.

What you'll find in The JOLT

You can find more than 4,000 local news and feature stories we’ve published, all of which are both searchable and available at no charge on our website: www.theJOLTnews.com

And if you’re not already receiving The Daily JOLT, our weekday newsletter that shows you the day’s local headlines, you’re invited to subscribe – for FREE!  Just click here and enter your first name and email address.

This is reporting you won’t find anywhere else (certainly not in the national news!) because it covers the issues that most impact your day-to-day life — local government activity, school board meetings, building development, etc. 

In addition to covering the hard news, we also feature local columnists who write about gardening, local birds, local nonprofit organizations, life here as a senior citizen, healthcare, recipes and the local literary scene. Plus, an increasing number of reader letters, full-length obituaries (which we publish at no charge) and more. And the police blotter, too. 

Our Community Calendar is the most complete in our area. It offers all kinds of local and online events, usually more than 200 per month. 

Do you need more info?

Please click the Qs & As tab for answers to these questions:

1. Why is local news important?
2. What’s The JOLT’s mission statement?
3. Is my donation tax-deductible?
4. Why can’t The JOLT be supported from advertising revenues?
5. Didn't you guys just get a big grant? Why do you need more money?
6. Where do The JOLT's staff live?
7. How will you use my donation?

And if you have more questions, please click to email publisher@theJOLTnews.com – right now! 

Your contribution would be a big deal for a small, independent news organization like us. It will help us deliver the kind of in-depth journalism you’ve come to expect, every day. It’s the kind of reporting that can make a real difference in our community. And, we hope you agree that it’s worthy of your support.

Thank you.