The Olympic Herald wants your money, and it is specific about how much.
An archived copy of the site's donate page, captured October 25, 2026, lays out the ask in detail. Under the banner "Support The Olympic Herald" and the slogan "Keep Washington journalism independent," visitors are offered preset one-time gifts of $25, $50, $200, and $500, plus an "other amount" field. Each button opens a Stripe checkout in a new tab. For recurring support, the page sells memberships at $10 per month or $100 per year. "Save $20 a year," it notes.
"Good reporting takes time: to get the records, check the facts, and follow up," the page reads. "Your contribution helps us do that work."
Near the bottom, one line stands apart from the salesmanship: "Contributions are not tax-deductible."
That disclaimer matters more than it might appear. A donation to a genuine nonprofit newsroom, the kind that files IRS Form 990s and publishes them, is typically tax-deductible. The Olympic Herald's own page concedes that contributions to it are not, because the Olympic Herald is not a nonprofit. It is, by its own description elsewhere on the site, one person. The ethics page states: "One person: founder Anthony Tomashefsky. No parent company, no investors, no chain."
The framing on the page borrows the language of institutional journalism anyway. "Keep Washington journalism independent," the banner reads, over a promise that the site is "free to read" and "supported by readers." The word "journalism" does a lot of work in that sentence for an operation whose author page lists a single writer and whose most-covered subjects are the officials who ruled against him.
What the money buys
The donate page tells readers their support "goes into the reporting", public records requests and "local accountability." It carries testimonials from named readers praising the site's "timely, hard hitting stories" and its "research and links to documents."
What the page does not tell readers is what the reporting actually consists of. TROH's archive of the site's 425 published articles shows a body of work concentrated on five people: Judge Brent Basden, who denied Tomashefsky's motion to revise a stalking and harassment protection order and appears in 109 articles; Court Commissioner Brian Parker, who rejected his anti-SLAPP motion and appears in 58; Ben Mavy, the man a Clallam County court protected from Tomashefsky in August 2025, who appears in 17; and two psychologists, Dr. Steve Tutty and Dr. William Singer, who appear in 6 and 5 articles respectively.
A reader moved by the donate page's language about "following courts, public agencies, and decisions that affect Washington communities" would find, on inspection, that the site's most-referenced local figures are, article after article, the people connected to its owner's own court record: the judge in 109 articles, the commissioner in 58, the protected petitioner in 17.
No entity on the receipt
The donate page names no legal entity. There is no LLC, no corporation, no nonprofit named anywhere on it. The checkout is Stripe; the footer says only "© 2026 The Olympic Herald. Independently owned in Clallam County, Washington." A donor giving $500 cannot tell from the page who, legally, receives it.
The page also offers a monthly and yearly membership, meaning the site solicits not just gifts but ongoing financial relationships, $120 a year from a monthly member, $100 from an annual one, for a publication whose entire staff, by its own admission, is the man whose court opponents dominate its coverage. Its own FAQ makes the pitch explicitly: membership "provides recurring support at $10 per month or $100 per year. A one-time gift is a single contribution. Both support the same independent reporting."
And what if a donor has second thoughts? The FAQ again: "Do I need to pay to read The Olympic Herald? No. Our reporting is free to read." The gift, once made through Stripe, is gone, there is no refund policy on the page, no entity to appeal to, no board overseeing the man at the other end of the transaction. "Questions about giving?" the page offers. "Get in touch", a link back to the same single inbox that constitutes the entire "newsroom."
Washington has real nonprofit newsrooms that publish their finances and their donor policies. The Olympic Herald publishes a Stripe button, a $500 preset, and a disclaimer that your gift is not deductible. Readers deserve to know the difference before they click.
This article relies on public court records and public complaints. TROH welcomes a response from Mr. Tomashefsky and will publish it in full.