Former colleagues at The Daily News are teaming up once again to bring first rate coverage back to readers in Southwest Washington. This time it's longtime TDN city side news editor Andre Stepankowsky who’s byline you’ll remember.

Stepankowsky covered local news at TDN for more than four decades and was a central figure in the newspaper’s Pulitzer Prize winning coverage of the Mount Saint Helens eruption and its aftermath across the blast zone. Now retired, Stepankwosky hasn’t been able to shake his penchant for covering local news and politics. His work can now be found online and published through Substack under the name Lower Columbia Currents, which was founded in 2022 and now boasts more than 1,200 subscribers.

While Stepankowsky has plenty of experience in the sports world as a longtime coach and volunteer for the Special Olympics, he’s been mostly sticking to his roots as a dogged reporter covering local beats as they were meant to be covered.

Now freed from the constraints of daily newspapering, Stepankowsky refers to his new journalism as "reported opinion." With election season coming up quickly on the horizon, Stepankowsky has been busy reporting and publishing analysis and recommendations for local political offices. To read the latest on Lower Columbia Currents click and subscribe, here.

As ink-stained kindred spirits we will be cross promoting each other’s work going forward so news junkies can find out what’s happening in the sports world and sports fans can learn more about what’s happening in the real world. Keep checking back at www.blastzonemedia.com for additional updates and dispatches from Stepankowsky and Lower Columbia Currents.