Telling Stories From the Inside Out: An Interview with Kade Krichko
- Judy Lee
- May 1
- 7 min read
As a kid, Kade Kricho needed things a certain way. He was a perfectionist, the kind that doesn't just want things to go well but needs them to. At the same time, he describes an ongoing tension between his need for stability and his pull toward growth. He reflects,
"I kind of felt like I needed control of my domain in order to embark on something new or to kind of expand my way of thinking. And at the same time, I was just insatiably curious. So, I got these two forces that were working against each other."
It was travel that finally broke the tension. He started to see imperfection not as a roadblock but as the whole point.
"All of a sudden I saw opportunities in the imperfections, and it forced me to grow out of this really tightly bound, tightly curated life that I was living and experience a whole lot more."
Kade spent his early adulthood pursuing journalism, which he did “the old-fashioned way.” He went to school for it at 18 and it “actually worked out,” though he's quick to add air quotes because as he puts it, journalism is not an easy place to live.
For nearly a decade, he traveled to vulnerable communities all over the world on the edge of crisis or undergoing massive change to tell their stories. That work found its way into Outside Magazine, the Seattle Met, the New York Times, ESPN, and a handful of outdoor magazines.
Along the way, he was always guided by fixers, field reporters, and translators—people who were experts on their home communities. At the end of long reporting days, over dinner, Kade would ask what they did when they weren't leading foreign journalists around. Seven out of ten times, they said they were journalists themselves, or professors, or tour guides.
"That always stuck with me…why am I the one telling this story? And so, I walked away and had some time to think over Covid, when we were all grounded a bit, and really kind of had a…self-reckoning. Am I the one who should be telling these stories? Is there a way to get more local voices involved?"
The pandemic gave him the space to sit with these questions. The murder of George Floyd, and the protests that followed, including what was unfolding in Seattle’s own streets, brought an added urgency and clarity. It gave Kade an opportunity to reflect,
"There was a guilt associated with that. That I had done some of this work as intentionally as I possibly could and I still carried a bias into that just because of how I was born, how I was raised, just the conditions. So, to…shift that bias and give that bias a local power…it just started to take on a new importance for me around that time."
There was also the broader collapse happening inside journalism and while he had reached a point of relative stability in his career, he knew what he wanted to do with it.
"I finally had steady ground, and I wanted to take some people with me. The mantra that I try and live by is ‘lift as I climb’ and it was like, okay, this is messed up. This is crumbling in a lot of ways. But if this is going to work, we, meaning journalists and storytellers, need to take a little bit more agency and take that power away from advertisers or corporations or media conglomerates and get a little bit closer to the source of our information."
These lessons led to Kade’s founding of Ori, a travel magazine with what he calls "a conscience," and as executive director of Ori Artists Collective, the nonprofit umbrella it now lives under. He describes it as a project of calling people back.
"I turned around and I called all these fixers in China and Cuba and Colombia and Mexico. And I asked them what was going on in their hometowns and then I invited them to write for us."
Instead of parachuting into places to extract stories, Ori centers and elevates the voices and lived experiences of the people rooted there. "We have local journalists and local storytellers get their knowledge through their words and amplify it on a global stage," Kade explains. "A slight pivot, but we felt like a very important one in order to create a bit of equity in the storytelling space."
Ori's approach to travel is just as intentional as its approach to storytelling. Kade is skeptical of the checklist where you count countries and collect passport stamps in a gamified version of seeing the world. He's been thinking a lot lately about how the language we use around travel shapes the way we do it,
"I was saying that something was a ‘passport to the world’ and I had an editor check me and be like, you know, a passport is a thing of privilege. A passport is something that opens doors for some but it also closes off a lot for other people. And I think that's how we approach travel a lot of times, like we have this golden ticket and we can just hand it over and get that stamp and the satisfaction of getting that stamp."
His approach to travel has evolved. Rather than moving quickly from place to place, he values slowing down and staying long enough to build a deeper connection. Sometimes that means letting go of the plan entirely, taking a left when he could have taken a right, staying out too late, or ending up at someone’s dinner table the next night.
"As a journalist, that's where my stories came from. It was from the left when I should have taken a right, or the bar room conversation that I should have probably gone to bed before it ever happened. But I stayed out and I met this person and learned about this thing. And then the next day, I'm in their house having dinner with their family."
He's also come to see travel as inherently extractive and thinks it's worth sitting with that discomfort. "We're putting a strain on societies everywhere we go," he says. "Can we give something back while we're there? The very least is listening to somebody."
The collective's new chapter is happening closer to home. This spring, Ori launched a pilot journalism program at Garfield High School in Seattle's Central District, working with 12 students to report and write original stories about Seattle. The program is funded through a Curiosity Pass grant from 4Culture.
The students were given wide latitude. No assigned topics, no prescribed angles. Just tell us something true about your city. Kade describes what happened next,
"I didn't give them any real guidelines on what types of stories they wanted to tell. And they all submitted original pitches that are all across the map, across Seattle, across topics. And I couldn't have asked for a better map of Seattle. These kids just absolutely have touched so many different pieces of our culture."
Kade started the program believing he would be teaching students skills he learned throughout his journalism career, but quicky realized the students had already developed many of them. Instead, it became about something harder to name.
"I think it helps to...show them that their stories matter…things that they have been curious about for a long time but hadn't had time to dive into in their own backyards. We're now saying, not only is that valid, that is something…other people want to know about. I think that belief shift is what we're trying to teach them most because they're already super well versed in skills that I didn't get until college and beyond."
The program culminates this spring with a zine in with each student will contribute an original feature story with full rights retained so they can take their work anywhere. There'll be a gallery showing at Common Objects in Belltown on June 26th, and the students will be woven into Ori's end-of-June magazine release party. Kade is emphatic about why that last part matters,
"I want those kids to…have their work be a part of it and have people ask them questions and have them offer feedback in the moment…that's how they can really feel like it's real."
The plan from here is to grow slowly and sustainably. One school this year, three the next, seven or eight by year three, expanding from Garfield, to Franklin, and Rainier Beach.
Ori runs on its members. Kade is direct about this. "We fly as high as you guys let us fly," he says. Membership means a subscription to the magazine and being part of a community, showing up to events, and paying attention. And 2% of all revenue goes into a creative grant fund, awarded after each issue by community vote with no strings attached.
"We are handing creatives money and telling them to go out and keep doing what they're doing because we believe in them. We apply for grants all the time. There's always a catch, there's always some reporting, there's always something that has to happen. This is literally us handing them a check and saying, we know this is going to go to the right place. That could be to your grocery bills, and it should if it keeps you telling stories."
For someone who spent years needing everything to be perfect before he could begin, Kade has built something that runs on exactly the opposite principle. The conversation is already moving. He's just making sure more people get to be part of it.
To learn more about Ori magazine and Ori Artist Collective, visit their website and follow on Instagram @ori_magazine. Learn more about membership to Ori to support local journalism by visiting their membership page. The June 26th magazine release party, featuring Garfield students, will be open to the public. Follow them for more details and ticket information.
