Allen Schauffler starts new job for Al Jazeera

Allen Schauffler
Photo by Mauri Moore Shuler

By Mauri Moore Shuler

The Al Jazeera America office on Westlake Avenue in Seattle is buzzing with producers, photographers and editors working the phones, setting up equipment, preparing stories for the one correspondent in the office, Allen Schauffler, a Lake Forest Park resident. 

After two decades at KING-TV, Allen just became the new network’s only Northwest correspondent. The fledgling network, based in New York, is up and running on Comcast, Direct TV and Dish. The Seattle office is still a work in progress. (Allen doesn’t even have business cards yet.) But, they have lots of stories to tell the nation about the Pacific Northwest and our own Allen Schauffler is excited to tell them.

“We have done stories on a bee sperm bank and the popularity of major league soccer. We are eager to get to Alaska to cover the tsunami debris and a small college that may be home to the next Olympic ski team. Stories in Oregon are waiting for us, too,” Allen adds, “we’re just trying to find the time to get to them all.”

Allen’s office includes a big view of downtown Seattle where the high-energy, highly-respected newsman can reflect on what’s ahead for him, rather than what he leaves behind.

“I do miss the big team at KING-TV and their “Rolodex” of phone numbers,” he says, laughing, “and it was great. I had one of the great jobs in television.” He listed all the “beats” he was able to cover in his 21 years there, “and I had my own political show for a while and went to 7 Olympics. It was just time for something new.”

He learned of the job opening from his agent and flew to New York to see what the buzz was all about.

“They talked a great game,” he says, frankly. “They said, we want you to find interesting stories in the Northwest and tell them in an interesting way. We won’t tell you how to tell them, either.” That’s a mighty temptation for a newsman. But, like most journalists, he’s also cautious. “So, ask me in a year!”

Allen loves living in Lake Forest Park where he is only 20 minutes from work. He and his wife, “2 spoiled dogs and a spoiled cat,” have lived here for 18 of their 30 year marriage.

“It’s green, leafy, and we get visited by owls, coyotes and a bald eagle or two. It’s just a great place.”

As weekend anchor at KING-TV, Allen has high visibility in the community. Will he miss that by becoming a network correspondent?

  

“Oh, that was great and this is just different. People in this city are pretty mellow about all that, anyway.”

Does he know how many local people see his work? “Not at all and I’ve never concerned myself with that. Somebody else can stress over the numbers. I just do the news. My goal is just to work my ass off and see everything in the Northwest!”

His reach may go farther than the Northwest since rumor has it the Seattle-based crew has been told they will go to South Africa to help cover the passage of Nelson Mandela and all the impact of the icon’s life. 

  

That could be just the beginning of his new life outside of local television. But, Allen Schauffler seems to have the right attitude:

  

“I was lucky to be there. I am lucky to be here.

(Mauri Moore Shuler is a former NBC News bureau chief and former Edmonds City Councilmember and trustee for Edmonds Community College. She now lives on a houseboat on Lake Union and writes.)