CJR's Guide to Online News Startups

ACEsTooHigh.com

Reporting on the science, education, and policy surrounding childhood trauma

WINTERS, CA — In 1998, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the results of one of the largest studies ever... More >

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Sep 4, 2012 12:25 AM
TheDigitel

A small chain of local news sites/ aggregators in South Carolina
By Tyler Jones
CHARLESTON, SC — When a Union Army officer surrendered and removed the American flag from Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, the Civil War had begun. Less than thirty miles away and 150 years later, the Confederate flag was flown again at the new home of Annie Caddell, whose relatives fought for the South, to the dismay of her neighbors in the historically black community of Summerville, SC. After a petition to the city council and protest march failed to bring...
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Jun 1, 2011 12:33 PM
Theme Park Insider

News and reviews for theme park enthusiasts
By Alex Fekula
PASADENA, CALIFORNIA — Since Disneyland opened in 1955, Americans and pleasure-seekers the world over have flocked to the variety of theme parks that now occupy mega-park epicenters like Orlando, Florida. and Anaheim, California. With options ranging from Universal Studios to Disney World to Busch Gardens, the vacation planning process can at times seem daunting. Pasadena-based Theme Park Insider aims to take the edge off this potentially complicated process, appealing to theme park novices and enthusiasts alike. Read more about Theme...
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May 6, 2011 11:27 AM
ThePortlander

Portland-centric news with a casual flair
By Alex Fekula
PORTLAND, OREGON — When the news broke that the former model and millionaire's widow Anna Nicole Smith had died, the story seemed to capture the interest of virtually every local TV station, major news network, and newspaper. But all Jeff Martens of Portland, Ore. wanted to know was the score of the previous night's high school basketball game. Frustrated by Smith's death dominating the seeming entirety of local news coverage, Martens set out on his own to provide the kind...
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Mar 21, 2011 05:20 PM
This Land Press

Place-based literary journalism in and about Oklahoma
By Michael Meyer
TULSA, OKLAHOMA — Earlier this month, This Land Press published the latest installment in its ongoing coverage of Bradley Manning, the army private accused of providing thousands of pages of classified documents to WikiLeaks. The story, by newly minted This Land staff reporter Denver Nicks, looks at a formative period of Manning's life through the eyes of Jordan Davis, Manning's best friend from elementary school. At that time, Manning had been kicked out of his father's home and drifted on...
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Feb 8, 2012 07:43 PM
TownSquareBuzz.com

Community and sports news for a Dallas-Fort Worth suburb
By Tom Marcinko
McKINNEY, TEXAS — TownSquareBuzz.com, an online-only news site in the Dallas-Fort Worth suburb of McKinney, Texas, owes its existence to president and founder Angie Bado's passion for local sports. In 2005, she brainstormed with local sports writers about ways to fill the gaps in area papers' declining sports coverage, and launched McKinneyNews.net, a site dedicated to the mission, that same year. Read more about TownSquareBuzz.com The former educator, who wears a "News Junkie" t-shirt to the gym, was happy to...
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Nov 1, 2012 10:24 AM
TRVL

A free iPad travel magazine
By Hiten Samtani
BUSSUM, NETHERLANDS — Two Dutch guys met at a party in Amsterdam. A month later, they had a magazine. Jochem Wijnands, who used to run an online photo agency, and Michel Elings, a technology consultant, found they had a shared passion for travel. They put their heads and networks together to create TRVL, an iPad-only magazine that is the highest rated magazine app on Apple's App Store. Each issue of the weekly magazine features a single destination through content that...
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Mar 24, 2011 11:50 AM
TucsonSentinel.com

Continuing an underdog media legacy in Tucson
By Alex Fekula
TUCSON, ARIZONA — After a 138-year run, the Tucson Citizen, a daily that reported on such historic events as the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, closed its doors in May of 2009. Dylan Smith, the Citizen's online editor, was among the many journalists displaced by the paper's disbanding. Not content to let the Arizona Daily Star claim victory in Tucson's newspaper war, Smith undertook what to him was an obvious move: he gathered several former Citizen colleagues and formed TucsonSentinel.com...
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Jun 7, 2011 11:27 AM
Twin Cities Daily Planet

Citizen-powered local news for Minneapolis and St. Paul
By Armin Rosen
MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA — The Twin Cities Daily Planet focuses on a combination of neighborhood-level news and coverage of progressive, social justice-related issues in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. But it wants to be more than just a news-gathering operation. The Daily Planet is just as committed to creating journalists--or, perhaps more accurately, citizens who engage with their communities through journalism--as it is to publishing them, and since it launched in 2006 it has helped attract and train scores of paid contributors,...
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Jul 25, 2011 04:00 PM
Universal Hub

A wicked smart Boston hyperlocal
By Connor Boals
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS — What started as a simple online directory of businesses, restaurants, and other establishments serving Boston has grown into a full-blown hub of Beantown information. After a layoff prompted him to take his side project full-time, Adam Gaffin set about building Universal Hub into a hyperlocal news hub with an original Boston twist. If you want the day's biggest stories, stick with The Boston Globe. But if you're a Bostonian looking for a ground-level view of your city,...
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Mar 27, 2013 10:43 AM
Uptown Messenger

Hyperlocal news for a neighborhood in New Orleans
By Meredith Qualls
NEW ORLEANS, LA — Robert Morris began his career in print journalism, working for a string of weekly and daily newspapers before deciding he needed a change. "I liked journalism and I liked my job and I really liked the people I worked with, but it seemed like such a long road to be a 28-year-old reporter watching the newspaper industry shrink," he says. Read more about Uptown Messenger Coupled with his concerns about the newspaper industry were thoughts about...
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Jan 5, 2012 11:22 AM
Urban Milwaukee

Reporting and advocacy on urban issues in the Cream City
By Paige Rentz
MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN — After merging two local blogs to launch a news site several years ago, web developers Jeramey Jannene and Dave Reid have a strong presence in downtown Milwaukee, serving up local urban news on their combined effort, Urban Milwaukee. Jannene and Reid do not shy away from writing with a very defined perspective. "We're not simply reporting; there's a level of advocacy there," says Reid. At the core of it all, says Jannene, is the intersection of design...
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Mar 24, 2011 03:16 PM
UtahPolicy.com

Political news for Beehive State political insiders
By Chris Benz
SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH — For an example of how to deliver a massive amount of information with minimal manpower, look no further than UtahPolicy.com. Founded in 2004, the site is a news aggregator, but it also aggregates politicians' press releases, pdfs of proposed legislation, and other original materials. All of this is leavened with a dash of original reporting and analysis. Read more about UtahPolicy.com The for-profit site, run by former Deseret Morning News managing editor and Republican political...
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Recently Updated: Oct 26, 2011 05:27 PM
Village Soup

A small media chain blends print and digital local journalism
By Lauren Kirchner
ROCKLAND, MAINE — [UPDATE: On Friday March 9, 2012 Village Soup president Richard M. Anderson announced the closure of all Village Soup publications. In a story announcing that the company's properties would be sold at auction, the Bangor Daily News reported that Village Net Media, the Village Soup parent company, faced two outstanding loans from the First National Bank of Damariscotta. The initial principal on the loans when they were first taken out in June of 2008 was $7.5 million...
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Jan 5, 2011 05:30 PM
voiceofsandiego.org

A nonprofit news innovator in Southern California
By David Downs
SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA — Exposing the darker side of a sunny beach city, the six-year-old news site Voice of San Diego is having a larger influence than its small size might suggest. With 170,000 unique visitors a month, the nationally renowned nonprofit has an annual budget of $1.2 million (mostly from grants), a slim staff of fifteen, and a content-sharing deal with NBC San Diego. The Voice uses the cash and the reach to break community-focused investigative stories that have,...
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Mar 25, 2011 03:09 AM
VTDigger.org

Deep coverage for the Green Mountain State
By Daniel Luzer
MONTPELIER, VERMONT — As the name suggests, VTDigger (pronounced "V.T. Digger," not "Vermont Digger") aims to provide deep coverage of local issues in the Green Mountain State. "I wanted to follow stories in-depth," explains Anne Galloway, the publication's editor-in-chief. "Not all of our stories are investigative; but we want them all to go deep." While it's not all hard-hitting political stories--the day after Christmas, Digger featured a story called "Vermont's Other Residents," a photo essay about farm animals--the site focuses...
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