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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Jul 5, 2012 03:13 PM
The Hechinger Report

Strengthening education reporting nationwide
By Hiten Samtani
NEW YORK, NY — In September 2011, reporter Jon Marcus wrote a story for The Washington Post which showed that, despite increased enrollment thanks to an expanded G.I. Bill, colleges weren't doing enough to support the unique needs of veterans pursuing higher education. Shortly after the story was published, colleges in the DC area added coordinators to help veterans with services. Over eight Sundays in late 2010, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ran a front-page series about teacher effectiveness in Wisconsin....
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Recently Updated: Jan 5, 2011 08:23 PM
The Huffington Post

The online news behemoth grows up
By Michael Meyer
NEW YORK, NEW YORK — As of the writing of this profile, the "BIG NEWS" header at the top of The Huffington Post's homepage reads: "Unemployment, Katie Holmes, Natalie Portman, Health, Lindsay Lohan, Smarter Ideas, More..." It's the mix of topics that might be floating around the head of a conscientious, politically astute fifteen year old--but given that HuffPost only recently entered the second half of its first decade, perhaps the site is maturing more quickly than most people give...
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Aug 10, 2011 01:05 PM
The Iowa Center for Public Affairs Journalism

Investigative reporting for the Hawkeye State
By Alex Fekula
IOWA CITY, IOWA — Stephen Berry worked for over thirty years as an investigative journalist, a tenure that included a seven year stint as an investigative reporter for the Los Angeles Times and a 1993 Pulitzer for Investigative Journalism while working at the Orlando Sentinel. In 2003, Berry opted to enter the world of academia, becoming a professor of journalism at the University of Iowa. While the University of Iowa is known among the literati for its storied Writers' Workshop,...
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Recently Updated: Mar 24, 2011 12:04 PM
The Iowa Independent (Defunct)

An early member of the American Independent News Network, all grown up
By Joel Meares
DES MOINES, IOWA — [UPDATE:The Iowa Independent was closed by its parent, the American Independent News Network, in November 2011. Lynda Waddington, the site's last employee, wrote a moving note to readers about the closure, which can be found here. 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.] When Jason Hancock joined the Iowa Independent in the summer of 2008, he was part of...
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Mar 24, 2011 12:07 PM
The Iowa Republican

Reporting-heavy partisan news
By Joel Meares
DES MOINES, IOWA — While serving as political director of the Republican Party of Iowa in 2007, Craig Robinson had one of those out-there, against-the-grain ideas that rarely survive the journey from imagination to reality. Republicans, he recalls, were having big problems in terms of media coverage. "It wasn't that we didn't have people in our state doing good stuff, it just wasn't being reported on," says Robinson. His radical idea: to overhaul the party's communications department. Instead of pushing...
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Oct 24, 2011 04:57 PM
The Ithaca Independent

One man among the gorges
By Daniel Luzer
ITHACA, NEW YORK — The major daily paper of Ithaca, N.Y., the Ithaca Journal, is, like eighty-two other daily papers in America, part of the Gannett chain. Over the last decade or so, Ithaca resident Ed Sutherland, who writes business news for computer blog Cult of Mac, started to notice a change in the paper. Over time, much of the content in the Ithaca Journal became virtually identical to that of the Binghamton Press & Sun Bulletin, another Gannett paper...
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Mar 24, 2011 12:20 PM
The Lens

Investigative reporting on The Big Easy
By Brendan Buhler
NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA — Launched in January 2010, The Lens is an eight-person nonprofit investigative news website partnered with weekly papers and a local television station in New Orleans. The site aims to fill the gaps that are no longer being covered by New Orleans's cash-strapped traditional news operations. Right now, The Lens's goal is to produce big, investigative stories every two weeks, and to fill the gaps with daily web updates on stories it has already done. Read more...
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Dec 15, 2011 11:32 AM
The Lo-Down

News for New York's Lower East Side
By David Riedel
NEW YORK, NEW YORK — When husband and wife Ed Litvak and Traven Rice started The Lo-Down, a hyperlocal news site reporting on Manhattan's Lower East Side, it wasn't with the intention of creating a business. Litvak, a television news producer, and Rice, a filmmaker, took the site live in January 2009 after two years living in the neighborhood, and thought of it more as a way to channel their interests rather than as an outlet for any latent entrepreneurialism....
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Apr 20, 2012 06:22 PM
The Local East Village

NYU student reporting for the NYT
By Maura R. O'Connor
NEW YORK, NEW YORK — In 2009, The New York Times made drastic changes in its approach to local news. The year saw the closure of the papers City section, but also the launch of The Local. A web-based hyperlocal reporting initiative, The Local created two separate sections of nytimes.com: one devoted to the Brooklyn neighborhood of Fort Greene and a second covering the township of Maplewood in Essex county, N.J. Each section was run by a dedicated Times staffer and...
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Jan 19, 2011 04:42 PM
The Locust Fork News-Journal

A one-man purveyor of mobile journalism performance art
By Michael Meyer
BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA — The Locust Fork News-Journal, like many websites, is wholly devoted to the quirks, whims, emotions, and talents of its founder--in this case, a former newspaper reporter and self-proclaimed champion of the "independent watchdog Web press" named Glynn Wilson. Unlike most sites (including many owned by the "corporate media" Wilson rails against) the News-Journal is stable and profitable--a testament to what can happen when a dedicated reporter takes on issues that are meaningful to him, and is savvy...
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Jun 30, 2011 11:50 AM
The Los Angeles Review of Books

A book review section for a post-print age
By Lauren Kirchner
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA — Tom Lutz, nonfiction author and creative writing professor, offers a startling statistic about the book business on his new website: "twenty times as many titles are published each year than were in 1980, and we have one twentieth of the serious book reviews." The Los Angeles Review of Books, an online magazine launched by Lutz in April 2011, is his attempt to pick up some of the slack. Lutz runs the site when he's not teaching...
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Oct 21, 2011 10:57 AM
The Manomet Current

Hyperlocal news for two Plymouth, Mass. neighborhoods
By Alex Fekula
PLYMOUTH, MASSACHUSETTS — In addition to being the landing point of the Mayflower, the birthplace of Thanksgiving, and the home of a notorious rock, Plymouth, Mass. also houses the seaside village of Manomet, a neighborhood within Plymouth proper. Online news source The Manomet Current hopes to provide hyperlocal news for both Manomet and neighboring Pinehills. The site's stated goal is to "tell you what's happening in our community, accurately, quickly and in-depth." Read more about The Manomet Current Plymouth...
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Oct 31, 2011 02:50 PM
The Natomas Buzz

Hyperlocal news for a Sacramento, Calif. community
By Maura R. O'Connor
SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA — In June of 2008, journalist Brandy Tuzon Boyd was scrolling through daily crime reports in Natomas, a community in northwest Sacramento, when she noticed something alarming--a spate of home invasions in which residents were being robbed in their garages. Tuzon Boyd reported the trend on her then-fledgling website The Natomas Buzz. "Is anyone else noticing this happening almost every other day?" Tuzon Boyd recalls writing. Read more about The Natomas Buzz Shortly thereafter, the police department held...
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Mar 12, 2012 01:58 PM
The New York World

Accountability journalism from recent Columbia J-School alums
By Tom Marcinko
NEW YORK, NEW YORK — Last October 18, the day The New York World went live with a mission to expand journalism education and hold local and state governments accountable, editor Alyssa Katz posted a story by World reporter Sasha Chavkin about a private bus line in Brooklyn that ran a city bus route under a franchise agreement. Despite being open to all New York residents, the line primarily served Orthodox Jewish communities, and women had to ride separate from...
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May 19, 2011 04:01 PM
The News Outlet

College students report local news for northeastern Ohio
By Connor Boals
YOUNGSTOWN, OHIO — Faced with an increase in journalism majors and the general decay of legacy media coverage in the Mahoning Valley region of northern Ohio, Youngstown State University journalism professors Alyssa Lenhoff and Tim Francisco created The News Outlet, a collaborative effort between the university and several local media outlets. The founders hoped the site's journalism would not only fill a hole in local coverage but also build a new generation of multimedia-savvy student reporters. Read more about The...
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