CJR's Guide to Online News Startups

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BUSSUM, NETHERLANDS — Two Dutch guys met at a party in Amsterdam. A month later, they had a magazine. Jochem Wijnands, who... More >

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Nov 11, 2011 11:30 AM
StarkvilleNow.com

Local news and aggregation for a college town in Mississippi
By Alex Fekula
STARKVILLE, MISSISSIPPI — As the results of the 2009 Starkville municipal elections rolled in, Robbie Coblentz waited in city hall and posted the results in real time via iPhone to the Twitter feed of his local news site, Starkville Now. Not long after, he was contacted by the nearby Tupelo, Miss. Daily Journal and the Columbus, Miss. Commercial Dispatch, wondering just how Coblentz was able to beat them to the punch. Read more about StarkvilleNow.com "The local newspaper tried to...
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Sep 12, 2011 02:32 PM
Stateline.org

Filling a reporting vacuum at statehouses nationwide
By Jeremy White
WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA — If the diminished ranks of statehouse reporters is one of the most glaring indicators of journalism's current woes, Stateline offers a glimpse of a potentially promising future. The Washington-based website is at the forefront of a number of publications trying to fill the vacuum of state politics coverage left by the shrinking budgets of traditional news organizations. Launched in 1998 through a grant from The Pew Charitable Trusts to the University of Richmond, Stateline has...
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May 31, 2011 11:48 AM
Street Fight

A news source for the burgeoning hyperlocal industry
By Arvin Temkar
BOULDER, COLORADO — A site named "Street Fight" has to deliver action, and the brand new site dedicated to covering the hyperlocal industry expects to do just that-- though it's probably not the kind of action a teenager who stumbles onto the site after a Google search would expect. Hyperlocal is becoming big business. While the term usually refers to local news, Street Fight has expanded the definition to anybody that targets local audiences--including advertisers. That means popular sites like...
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Jan 5, 2011 06:08 PM
Streetsblog

Public transportation reporters/advocates in NYC, DC, LA, and SF
By Alex Fekula
NEW YORK, NEW YORK — Transport-obsessed site Streetsblog--which focuses on everything from bike lines to subway fare hikes--was born, appropriately, in transport-obsessed New York City. Originally launched in 2006 by Aaron Naparstek, it has since branched out to cover transportation in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C. Streetsblog has its origins in the advocacy movement, focusing on local transportation and street safety issues in the hope of creating a more navigable terrain for those city dwellers traveling sans car....
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May 17, 2011 11:51 AM
Summit County Citizens Voice

Local news and environment coverage for Summit County, Colo.
By Alex Fekula
FRISCO, COLORADO — The day Bob Berwyn of the Summit County Citizens Voice was scheduled to be interviewed by CJR, he had to beg off due to what is apparently a not uncommon event when reporting from Summit County, Colo., home of famed ski resorts like Vail and Breckenridge. "I just got called to a search and rescue," he wrote via e-mail. "Lost snowmobiler. Prob won't be back." Read more about Summit County Citizens Voice In this case, the snowmobiler...
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Jan 5, 2011 08:10 PM
Talking Points Memo

The pioneer of web-based political journalism
By Lauren Kirchner
NEW YORK, NEW YORK — What began as Josh Marshall's personal blog during the Florida vote recount of November 2000 has since expanded into a profitable multimedia brand of fast-paced political news coverage. The TalkingPointsMemo.com homepage now acts as a conduit to several different frequently-updated news sites and blogs, a poll tracker, and a video channel. Popular topics for TPM coverage include economic policy, lobbying, health care, campaign trends, and election polls. Read more about Talking Points Memo Although it...
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Dec 12, 2011 12:09 PM
TBD

D.C. arts, culture, and events listings from a once-anointed champion of the local web
By Armin Rosen
ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA — When Washington, DC-area website TBD launched in August of 2010, it was supposed to shake up the entire media landscape. A local news website with the backing of multiple local television stations and a major legacy media brand, it would combine new media aggregation and reporting methods with old media resources. Politico parent company Allbritton had committed five years of financial and organizational support to the website, and had recruited several high-profile local media figures, including Washington...
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Dec 30, 2010 02:23 PM
TechCrunch

The tech startup news news startup
By Sean Gandert
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA — From the very beginning, TechCrunch was part and parcel with Web 2.0. Founded by Michael Arrington in 2005, the site began as a personal technology blog but rapidly transitioned into a full-scale publication, drawing in millions of page views a month by the end of 2007. Unlike most of his peers, Arrington didn't come from a journalistic background, instead studying law at Stanford, but he left this career to work in technology startups such as Real...
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May 2, 2011 04:17 PM
Technically Philly

Detailed coverage of the Philadelphia tech scene
By Daniel Denvir
PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA — Like so many young journalism school graduates, Sean Blanda, Brian James Kirk, and Christopher Wink could not find jobs in 2008. Philadelphia's two dailies had shed hundreds of positions, and plenty of highly experienced older reporters were ready to apply for anything that opened up. The job market was, "in a word, awful," says Blanda. "The three of us felt like we should have been in fairly good shape upon graduating, but the only jobs we...
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Oct 25, 2011 11:47 AM
Texas Watchdog

A government watchdog for the Lone Star State
By Timothy Bella
HOUSTON, TEXAS — The audience that reads Texas Watchdog's reporting may not be familiar with the news site or the organization behind it, but that's okay by TW. "Being online, half our visitors, quite frankly, don't know who Texas Watchdog is, and they don't care who Texas Watchdog is," says Trent Seibert, the site's founder and editor-in-chief. All that matters is the quality of the investigations that they produce, with the goal of keeping local government honest. That said, Seibert...
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Apr 27, 2012 01:03 PM
The American Independent News Network

A nonprofit news network refocusing in a bid for national relevance
By Erik Shilling
WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA — When the American Independent News Network launched nearly six years ago as the Center for Independent Media, its goals were small. The nonprofit news organization was one of several that launched around the same time, including ProPublica, MinnPost.com, and Voice of San Diego, mostly in response to the ebbing fortunes of newspapers and a perceived shortage of investigative journalism. And while now its closest analogue of the three may be ProPublica, AINN started as...
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Jan 30, 2012 03:07 PM
The Arizona Guardian

Niche political news for a state everyone's watching
By Tom Marcinko
PHOENIX, ARIZONA — Arizona exports political news like other states produce oranges or cheese. When Democratic media consultant Bob Grossfeld and a handful of veteran journalists launched the Arizona Guardian web-based news service in January 2009, they were well aware they were setting up shop in a state with a lively political scene. And that was before Arizona's headline-making "show-me-your-papers" immigration bill, the recall of that bill's architect at the ballot box, the tragic shootings in Tucson, the US Justice...
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Dec 12, 2011 11:24 AM
The Austin Bulldog

An investigative reporter in the Texas capital
By Caitlin Kasunich
AUSTIN, TEXAS — In January of 2011, Ken Martin, the founder, editor, and publisher of The Austin Bulldog, an independent nonprofit investigative news website, got a tip from a prospective Austin city council candidate that council members were holding private meetings. The Texas Open Meetings Act prohibits private meetings for the purpose of deliberating on public business. And yet, on four of the council members' online calendars, Martin saw that such private meetings were regularly scheduled before every city council...
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Jan 4, 2011 04:37 PM
The Awl

NYC-based cultural witticism from two Gawker alumni
By Alex Fekula
NEW YORK, NEW YORK — The team at New York City-based The Awl has some advice for anybody waiting on some seed funding to launch their dream startup: don't wait. The Awl launched in early 2009 when founders Choire Sicha, Alex Balk, and David Cho set out to start their own site with little-to-no financing beyond their personal savings. It wasn't much, but "there wasn't really anywhere else we wanted to work," says Sicha. Read more about The Awl That...
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May 10, 2011 04:29 PM
The Batavian

Small town news and innovation in local online advertising
By Justin Yang
BATAVIA, NEW YORK — The Batavian began as an experimental project by GateHouse Media, a newspaper publisher with properties in twenty states. The company wanted to launch a community-oriented news website, and chose Batavia, N.Y. because of its proximity to the company's Fairport, N.Y. headquarters; an added bonus was that The Daily News, the local paper for Batavia and Genesee County, lacked a web presence. Howard Owens, then director of digital publishing for GateHouse, helped lead the project. The Batavian...
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