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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Oct 27, 2011 02:56 PM
The Bay Citizen

Local civic journalism in the national spotlight
By Lauren Kirchner
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA — In early 2009, San Francisco philanthropist Warren Hellman grew concerned about the cutbacks in local newsrooms and what he saw as a decline in professional, original reporting in the area. He convened an advisory group to explore the possibility of creating a new journalism outlet for the Bay Area. At the time, there were rumors that Hearst was considering closing The San Francisco Chronicle, the city's only remaining major broadsheet daily; meanwhile, The New York Times...
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May 26, 2011 01:28 PM
The Beachwood Reporter

A belligerently informed take on Chicago media, sports, and culture
By Armin Rosen
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS — In 2006, after fifteen years as a print journalist, including six years as a political reporter with Chicago Magazine, Steve Rhodes took the biggest gamble of his career. Frustrated with what he viewed as the magazine's obliviousness towards the Internet, he quit his job and threw all of his financial and journalistic resources behind his own online magazine, The Beachwood Reporter. Rhodes describes the site as "a bar's-eye view of Chicago," a reference to the site's origins....
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Aug 9, 2011 10:58 AM
The Big Lead

From independent sports blog to corporate flagship
By Erik Shilling
NEW YORK, NEW YORK — The Big Lead first entered the consciousness of the sports media world around 2006, when then-Kansas City Star sports columnist Jason Whitlock trashed a series of colleagues in a flame-throwing interview that, for a few days at least, lit up the Internet. Less than a year after that the site received a bigger, if more unlikely, boost after the ESPN radio personality Colin Cowherd encouraged his listeners to crash the site by flooding it with...
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Mar 31, 2011 11:40 AM
The Bold Italic

Gannett's bold move in consumer-oriented journalism
By Kathy Gilsinan
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA — The Bold Italic is an experiment. Slickly designed but still in "beta," the Gannett-owned San Francisco website has an image-heavy layout, an alt-weekly feel, and a focus on helping its readers find new places to spend their free time. "It's not meant to replace anything" in the San Francisco print media, says Michael Maness, who, as Gannett's vice president of innovation and design, founded the site and directed its operations until leaving to become a vice...
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Mar 15, 2012 11:41 AM
The Brooklyn Ink

Student reporting on Brooklyn and beyond
By Tom Marcinko
NEW YORK, NEW YORK — At about 1:30am on Nov. 15, 2011, student reporters at The Brooklyn Ink received a tip that police would soon clear protestors from New York City's Zuccotti Park, the focal point of Occupy Wall Street. Rather than get their professors out of bed, the students jumped on the story, providing live coverage throughout the night and early morning. Read more about The Brooklyn Ink At 6:30am, Brooklyn Ink editor and Columbia University Graduate School of...
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Jan 5, 2011 08:37 PM
The Chicago News Cooperative

Newspaper-style journalism for the Chicagoland area
By Alex Fekula
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS — [UPDATE: On February 20, 2012, Chicago News Cooperative editor and CEO James O'Shea announced that CNC was suspending its website, as well as its contributions to The New York Times, in order to " reassess our operations and determine if there is a more sustainable path to the future."] The Chicago News Cooperative was famously the first outside news organization to produce entire pages for The New York Times--but the deal was in the works before the...
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May 25, 2011 01:04 PM
The Connecticut Mirror

Former Courant staffers step up to fill the state's hard news gap
By David Downs
HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT — A tiny, talented, maybe-a-bit-too-earnest team of ex-Hartford Courant staffers is trying to plug the glaring gaps in Connecticut's political coverage at CT Mirror, a sober-minded news startup that chases the sorts of in-depth, investigative political stories that the state's depleted legacy news organizations no longer have the resources to pursue. Working from the state capitol since January 2010, the nonprofit, non-partisan, independent news organization of five full-time editorial staffers chronicles the state's budgetary woes, school system reforms,...
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Mar 24, 2011 04:14 PM
The Dagger

Sharp local reporting for Harford County, Md.
By Alex Fekula
BEL AIR, MARYLAND — Harford County, Maryland-based journalist Brian Goodman wanted to start a band. He had a name picked out: The Dagger. After plans for the band fizzled, Goodman decided to take the name and start a local news blog instead. The journalistic ensemble known as The Dagger officially debuted in April of 2007, and has since evolved into a popular alternative news resource for Harford County, attracting an audience upwards of 30,000 unique visitors a month in a...
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Jan 17, 2011 11:46 AM
The Daily Caller

Tucker Carlson and co.'s political reporting startup
By Michael Meyer
WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA — "My politics are relatively well known," conservative media personality Tucker Carlson told CJR in February of 2010, not long after he and former Dick Cheney aide Neil Patel launched political news site The Daily Caller. "But this site is not a pure distillation of my politics. My views are not interesting enough to sustain the company we're building." Read more about The Daily Caller Since that time, the Caller's editor-in-chief has made good on his...
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Mar 24, 2011 10:39 PM
The Daily Yonder

Local rural news on a national level. Yes, you heard right.
By Chris Benz
WHITESBURG, KENTUCKY — The Daily Yonder strives towards a paradoxical mission: local news on a national level. The website covers rural news and rural issues, posting about one to four new articles a day. The Yonder's mission is to fill a local journalism void in rural areas, and to that end it allows small town papers to publish its content for free. The website is a project of the Center for Rural Strategies, a Kentucky-based nonprofit which advocates for rural...
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Oct 24, 2011 11:24 AM
The Faster Times

Creative revenue earning from an online publication/writers' collective
By Brett Norman
NEW YORK, NEW YORK — For a twenty-eight dollar "membership" in The Faster Times, you can get a critique of your dating profile by the publication's sex and dating expert, Meghan Pleticha. For $500, you can get a one-hour fencing lesson from Ken Mondschein, a research scholar at the Higgins Armory Museum in Worcester, Massachusetts, who writes about the politics of academia. Depending on where you live, the travel arrangements may cost a little more. Read more about The Faster...
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Oct 26, 2011 11:36 PM
The Florida Current

Exhaustive statehouse reporting and research in the Sunshine State
By Paige Rentz
TALLAHASSEE, FLORIDA — Florida statehouse politics has found a new home in The Florida Current, a news site that aims to provide concise, neutral, and accurate reporting on politics and policy in the Sunshine State. Originally billed as The Florida Tribune, the site began as an arm of LobbyTools, a Tallahasse-based legislation tracking and data curation service for lobbyists, businesses, and other parties interested in up-to-the-minute happenings in the state capitol. As the recession took its toll and Florida newspapers...
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Recently Updated: Mar 24, 2011 11:35 AM
The Florida Independent (Defunct)

Legislative watchdogging and more
By Chris Benz
TALLAHASSEE, FLORIDA — [UPDATE:The Florida Independent was closed by its parent, the American Independent News Network, on April 27, 2011, just before the site's second birthday. CJR's detailed profile of AINN's refocusing on a national audience after shutting down all but one of its state sites can be found here.] Launched in May 2010 with a $352,000 grant from the Knight Foundation, The Florida Independent is the newest member of CEO David Bennahum's American Independent News Network (AINN). There are...
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Jul 20, 2011 12:47 PM
The Forum

Local news for four small New Hampshire towns
By Georgia Schoonmaker
DEERFIELD, NEW HAMPSHIRE — When Denise Greig and some colleagues founded New Hampshire-based digital newspaper The Forum in 2005, web-based journalism hadn't really made its way to the rural communities that it served. "When we took on [this project], we were explaining the Internet to our funders," laughs Greig, the current chair of The Forum's board of directors. Six years later, with The Forum averaging 14,000 hits per month from Granite Staters who have found its blend of local news...
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Dec 14, 2011 02:12 PM
The Heavy Table

Food journalism and criticism for the upper Midwest
By Leah Binkovitz
MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA — Food journalism is reaching a zenith of popularity and cool. Scores of people tune in to watch Anthony Bourdain search the world for something to eat. The New York Times's food critic leaves his post and readers across the country speculate over replacements. But the tide of foodie attention has also brought us endless comment chains on Yelp!, countless half-hearted blogs, and other things that lead to nervous talk of the weakening of true food criticism. For...
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