Marcus Harrison Green and Florangela Davila of the South Seattle Emerald are Real Change’s 2025 Editorial Excellence Award winners | Sept. 3–9, 2025

Every year, Real Change gives its Editorial Excellence Award to journalists who have made outstanding contributions to Seattle’s news ecosystem and advanced social justice through their reporting. This year, the award winners are Marcus Harrison Green and Florangela Davila of the South Seattle Emerald. Green is one of the South Seattle Emerald’s co-founders and editors-at-large, while Davila is the executive director and executive editor.

Founded in 2014, the South Seattle Emerald is a digital news outlet that specializes in coverage of Seattle’s South End in all of its facets and diversity. As a hyper-local news outlet, the Emerald has helped positively transform perceptions of the South End, expand opportunities for journalists of color and platform voices that might not get a say in traditional mainstream media.

Since co-founding the South Seattle Emerald and serving as its inaugural editor, Green has gone on to have a storied career in the Seattle media scene, writing as a columnist for the Seattle Times and The Stranger, founding the imprint Hinton Publishing, compiling an essay anthology “Readying to Rise” and starting a podcast. Green also served as an interim editor for Real Change in 2023. Even after he stopped working at the Emerald full-time, Green has remained close, serving in various capacities including as a board member and publisher.

Davila is an accomplished journalist in her own right, with decades of experience including as a beat reporter for the Alameda Times-Star and Seattle Times before transitioning in newsroom leadership at Crosscut (now CascadePBS) and later KNKX. Her work has covered many topics, including racial inequities in public policy and the human toll of the U.S. immigration system. In 2024, Davila joined the Emerald’s board. In February, she was hired as the organization’s new executive director and executive editor.

Real Change sat down with Green and Davila to discuss what journalism means to them and where they see the future of the South Seattle Emerald.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Real Change: Could you talk about your upbringing and what drew you to journalism and the world of story-telling?

Marcus Harrison Green: I originally came from the world of finance and investment funds and hedge funds and so forth, and, I don’t know — it was maybe six years or so out of college — I got really disillusioned with that world at that point. To be successful in that industry, you had to look at everyone and everything as a commodity. 
My father’s always been a storyteller, maybe sometimes telling big fish tales and so forth. But that’s something that’s always been ingrained in my family. And so I ended up wanting to just tell the stories of where I grew up in South Seattle. Growing up there you would see broadcast news that would limit the scope of their storytelling just to crime in the area; to Rainier Beach basketball — which is great — but there’s so much more there. When I was growing up there, it was one of the top five most diverse codes in the United States. And so you had all of this richness of culture and humanity on display and just so much human and social brilliance that was never ever discussed and talked about. And to be able to tell the story of that was something that I found fulfilling and still find fulfilling to this day. 

I ended up using some of the business acumen that I gathered in college and then coupling that with the desire to story-tell. And I cold-called every journalist I respected in the city. A few of them got back to me, and I asked them to mentor me and more or less do a DIY degree in journalism. And they just helped me through it. And so those were the folks who gave me the foundation with which to found the Emerald to tell the stories. And here we are, nearly 12 years later.

Florangela Davila: So I grew up in Los Angeles, the child of immigrants, and I was always very aware of storytelling, whether it was Hollywood or the small screen. I always was aware of language because I am the child of immigrants and thought a lot about who were the characters I saw on television and what were the stories that were being told in the media all over, from the billboards to who I saw in magazines. I also, as an only child, grew up around a lot of adults, so I always liked listening, and so I would always hear stories.

Fast-forward, and I’ve always been curious — and probably more on the quiet side of listening and watching and learning — and I found myself drawn to journalism because it has all those elements. There was also a team element. I liked the art of having to hustle, getting access to stories that other people wouldn’t have access to or to people or events — especially world events and political events and international events. 
All those things I think are still present no matter what kind of news you’re working in, no matter what kind of medium, no matter the size of your organization.
I think at the heart it’s always whose voices are being represented? What is the definition of news? What is the story that you’re producing and offering to your public? Who is your public that gets to benefit from the information that you’re giving to them? And it’s information and story and content that spans the emotions. It’s stories that affirm your own identity. It’s stories that surprise you. It’s stories that bring you hope. It’s stories; it’s joy; it’s information. It’s stories that allow you to agitate or drive for improvement, or help your own family or your community at large.

 

What role do small grassroots media organizations like the South Seattle Emerald, Real Change and others play in the wider Seattle news landscape?

Green: At least in the state of affairs that is our country right now, they’re the place where a lot of communities are going to derive hope from and agency and the ability to, quite frankly, realize that you’re not alone, you’re not alienated. I recently did a story that Florangela encouraged me to do about the reopening of this restaurant in Beacon Hill called Homer. They had closed down in May because an electrical fire had torn through their roof and they had to do repairs over the last two months. And during that time period, instead of telling their employees that they’re on their own or maybe “we’ll see you when this opens,” they paid their full salaries for that time period. So you had people in the restaurant industry that typically can’t enjoy Seattle summers, [they] gave them a two-month sabbatical and fully paid. They didn’t have to worry about their ability to pay the rent. 
When I was walking today to actually just come to the the light rail over here, the owner stopped me. I didn’t see her — Sara is her name — and she just ran up and she gave me a hug and she said, “Hey, thank you for just telling that story.” And I said thank you. I think people need that right now. There are so many people now who look at the news cycle on the daily, and it’s so heavy. It seems like there’s so much hardship and, quite frankly, evil and authoritarianism that appears to be coming down the pipeline, that it’s hard for people to sort of gesture toward hope.

Davila: I started my career in Seattle when Seattle was a two newspaper town: two dailies. And I know that having the PI as a competitor to the Times made the Times a better paper. Competition inherently makes for stronger work, no matter if it’s sports or restaurants or the press. I feel like we benefit from a good media ecosystem in Seattle across television, radio, digital of all different sizes and shapes. And so that just ensures that all media is doing good work because [it’s looking] over its shoulder; it may not think that we’re a competitor, but no one wants to be beat and no one wants to miss a story. So I love that you brought up the Homer story, because it is frankly a story that, if we didn’t tell, who else would’ve told it?

But along the same lines about the hope, people — no matter what their work is in life — they could be mobilizing about Gaza or looking at the Sudan or whatever issue is out in the world, but ultimately they come home and they put their head down, and they go outside and [notice the] air quality, or why is there a pothole? Or who is my elected official? What does my child need at school or the playgrounds or parks? The sense of community is really strong and important to people. And we saw that during the pandemic and post-pandemic. 
And so for me, I feel like the grassroots media organizations, we are small — but we have a guiding light and a vision of improving our communities in a way that we know would be cut or ignored in other institutions.

In these times we are seeing creeping authoritarianism, whether from the federal government or elsewhere. What is the role of a journalist in 2025?

Green: I think ultimately it’s to do something that seems to be radical these days: and that’s to tell the truth. And to find the best obtainable version of the truth. No, I think everything has its limitations and drawbacks. But I will say I do think the fact that we are a nonprofit journalistic outfit, that means we don’t have to chase the click-bait. We don’t have to chase stories that are just trendy, but there’s no sort of, shall we say, nutritional benefit too, if you will. Although that doesn’t mean that we don’t do fun stories. Obviously we have one about the best pizza [in] the South End coming up. 

But I say I think that the role is, quite frankly, to see things as they are. Particularly right now when there are so many people who want to divert us from reality, if you will, and want to say, up is down and it’s raining when it’s sunshining outside, and vice versa. I think it’s to be stalwart in; look, this is what the truth is. This is what [is], and it’s going to stay that way. The truth doesn’t owe you any comfort. It doesn’t. It is not supposed to please you. It’s supposed to just be there as starkly as possible. 
And so I think right now, to be a truth teller is … I would just say that it’s more important. I think it’s as important as it’s ever been in terms of my lifespan at 44 years old. And it seems like it continues to be. It has increasing importance as things progress here.

Davila: It’s even more urgent that journalists are not afraid to ask questions, to scrutinize, to hold power to account, to be brave and not ignore what is happening. I think that is the driving force, no matter the size of your news organization, whether you’re a for profit or nonprofit, I feel like we are mindful of recording history. 
I had a great conversation with [South Seattle Emerald editor-at-large] Lola Peters, who’s a multihyphenate, and she said how important it is to talk about how people are resisting and fighting back.

And one of our strong, one of the hallmarks at the Emerald is our Voices section, and we have Marcus as a key voice in that section. And these are experienced opinion columnists who have a strong voice and who aren’t afraid to ask hard questions. And those are probably my favorite opportunities — to just throw out something and talk about things. And what do we know that we could say, given who we are, that we know other newsrooms won’t say when it comes to, say, issues of race or representation. 

We think a lot about our younger demographic, because we’re lucky that we do have a strong young demographic. So what does our community need? What are the conversations that people are having and whispering about that they want to know about our electeds, that they want to know about how our money is being spent? What are the suspicions that are out there? And, again, what is the fight that is happening? And I feel like the role of a journalist is to be part of the community and not be afraid to go to where those stories are and uncover them.

 

What is in store for the future of the South Seattle Emerald? What are your hopes for its next 11 years?

Green: I think to continue to evolve in terms of how it serves our community and our readership in terms of being responsive to maybe even the shifts in geography. We know that, I’ll just tell you when I first started out at the Emerald in 2014, you could say that the South Seattle diaspora spread out as far as Kent and Puyallup and South King County, right? Because of people not having the financial wherewithal, quite frankly, to stay in the city. And so I think it’s finding a way in these next 11 years to help to serve the people who need it the most within our readership and continue to need it. And that being said, I mean, I’m just, and it is not only because she’s sitting next to my left, but just continue to be super-excited about Florangela’s vision and what she’ll be able to do now that — I guess I’ll just say it for her. I mean, the fact that she’s quite frankly just unleashed from some of these publications or news or media outlets that are very much — in the past, like most media outlets — at the C-suite level controlled by people who don’t necessarily have a lot of melanin in their skin.

Davila: We have two full-time employees at the Emerald, including myself and our managing editor, Rosette Royale. And we rely on a core group of committed freelancers and contractors. We want to grow, we want to have more full-time employees so we can be producing high-level, hyper-local journalism for our community. We are part of the swell of nonprofit media outlets across the country that are hyper-local and know their value, and the community knows their value. So it’s really a good moment right now to be part of this larger group of mission-driven, vision-driven media we should have. Where I’d like the Emerald to go is to be fully sustainable and fully staffed in a way that the community deserves, which is more full-time reporters.

We should have an East African columnist, because look at the population that we’re serving. We should have our journalism being delivered to our communities in the way that they want, whether that’s through WhatsApp, whether that’s through podcasts, whether that’s through live events. We follow the rules of other newsrooms, but we’re small enough and we’re nimble enough that we don’t have to stick to the usual ways of doing journalism. So if the community tells us what they really need is more information, more practical information about how to pay a utility bill, or how does my kid find their first job? We are not afraid to lean into that and do that. And at the same time, building an investigative unit would be a dream, and that requires resources. Having at least one full-time photographer requires resources. So I think where we’re headed is building. Building and bringing in more resources and growing our readership. 

 

Read more of the Sept. 3–9, 2025 issue.