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http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattlepolitics/2014/11/06/anna-minard-is-latest-writer-to-leave-the-stranger/

Anna Minard is latest writer to leave The Stranger

Posted on November 6, 2014 | By Joel Connelly

Anna Minard is the latest high-profile writer to leave The Stranger in a string of recent departures that has deprived the alternative newspaper of wit and bite, and made it the object of biting wit about low pay and a strained workplace environment.

Dan Savage: Editorial director at The Stranger.

She follows out the door Bethany Jean Clement, who is becoming a food writer at The Seattle Times, and investigative reporter Dominic Holden.

Holden has moved to New York and landed on his feet. He begins work in the Big Apple next week as BuzzFeed’s national reporter on LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual) issues.

Holden was a vocal critic when senior Stranger management interfered with reporters who were covering — and advocating — the city’s move to a $15-an hour minimum wage.  The issue spilled over onto the question of what The Stranger pays its own staff.

Minard has been a crack City Hall reporter.  She has covered other topics such as the Seattle School District’s inept, ham-handed (and later overturned) transfer of Center School teacher Jon Greenberg.  (Greenberg is back teaching his acclaimed Citizenship and Social Justice curriculum.)

Other recent departures include Cienna Madrid, a witty feminist and lucid writer, and food critic Clement. Longtime Seattle blogger David Goldstein was fired from the staff last spring.

The Stranger did announce Thursday that it has hired Angela Garbes as its new food writer.

The senior management at The Stranger did not fare well at a farewell roast of Holden last weekend. Several speakers — including Seattle Mayor Ed Murray — made jokes about low pay of writers at a publication that has vocally argued for a living wage.

Notably absent from the speaker’s roster were Publisher Tim Keck, Editorial Director Dan Savage and Editor Christopher Frizzelle.

Keck has had the difficult job of presiding over a hydra-headed operation. The Stranger’s print edition garners revenue while its online presence (“Slog”) generates controversy, influence and readership.  Savage, the Stranger’s sex advice columnist — and office Bigfoot — has enjoyed a national profile and lucrative honorariums on the college lecture circuit.

The Stranger again has the byline of Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Eli Sanders after a lengthy book-writing absence.  With departures on the news side, however, there are few reporters for Sanders to edit.