Business Staff Size of Online News Websites: 2-5 : CJR's Guide to Online News Startups

Dec 29, 2010 12:02 AM

Alaska Dispatch

Enterprise reporting from the Last Frontier

By Michael Meyer

ANCHORAGE, ALASKA — Alaska Dispatch is a regional reporting powerhouse. A for-profit that fights aggressively for online ad dollars, the Dispatch still manages to be generous with its editorial budget. It sent a reporter all the way to the Gulf Coast to cover the BP spill and the potential fallout for Alaska's own oil industry. The site was also the first news outlet to...

Jan 5, 2011 08:00 PM

Baristanet

Conversational hyperlocal news for New Jersey's Essex County

By Mike Madden

MONTCLAIR, NEW JERSEY — There's something about the smell of steaming coffee grinds that sets the curious journalist in everyone... percolating. Coffee-guzzlers have always used cafes as something of a casual newsroom, a place for gossiping and sharing tidbits about everything from daytime soaps to national politics. And that was the starting point for Debbie Galant and Liz George, the editors, founders, and owners of the...

Mar 20, 2012 01:30 PM

Borderzine.com

Bilingual reporting by Latino college journalists

By Tom Marcinko

borderzine.com.png EL PASO, TEXAS — Borderzine.com director Zita Arocha founded the site at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) with two goals. "One is to tell the unreported stories of the [U.S.-Mexico] border region, which mainstream media doesn't do very well," says Arocha, a senior lecturer in journalism at UTEP. The second is to create "a pipeline" into the journalism profession...

Jan 11, 2012 04:06 PM

Brown Line Media

An independently owned network of three sites reporting on Chicago's North Side

By Ian Fullerton

brown.line.media.png CHICAGO, ILLINOIS — Though he writes a vast majority of the posts on his flagship news site, Center Square Journal, Mike Fourcher prefers the title of publisher over journalist. "That's an important distinction," he says. "I do employ journalists... but the person that runs a baseball bat company is not a carpenter." A native Chicagoan, Fourcher launched Center Square in early 2010, after...

Sep 13, 2011 11:23 AM

Buffalo Rising

A grassroots print startup hits its stride online

By Paige Rentz

BUFFALO, NEW YORK — The mission of Buffalo Rising is embedded in its very name. A decade ago, as Elmwood Avenue shop owner Newell Nussbaumer began to witness a resurgence in his native city, he saw grassroots movements growing and activists who needed a voice. He sought to provide that with Buffalo Rising, first a tri-annual and later a monthly print product, and...

Mar 24, 2011 11:59 AM

Calbuzz

No-holds-barred political analysis

By Joel Meares

APTOS, CALIFORNIA — At political news and analysis website CalBuzz, newly elected California governor Jerry Brown is known simply as "Krusty." His high-spending Republican opponent in the 2010 gubernatorial election, former eBay CEO Meg Whitman, is "eMeg." And so, while most Californians still got their earnest doses of 2010 election news from papers like the Los Angeles Times, The...

Feb 1, 2012 04:52 PM

CalCoast News

Investigations and other news for California's Central Coast

By Chasen Marshall

calcoast.news.png SAN LUIS OBISPO, CALIFORNIA — With major newspapers cutting investigative departments around the country, including along the Central Coast of California, Karen Velie and Dan Blackburn were concerned that major stories would go uncovered. In late 2007, the pair of veteran newspaper reporters launched their own online outlet focused on just the type of journalism they felt was lacking--hard news and investigations. Initially, Velie...

Dec 29, 2010 03:47 PM

Capital (New York)

Observer vets hope to "do well by being good"

By Joel Meares

NEW YORK, NEW YORK — When Capital launched in beta in June 2010, it joined an ever-swelling scrum of startups crowding the most covered, and coverable, city on Earth. How did Capital's co-founder Josh Benson, a longtime writer and editor at the New York Observer, hope to break out from the pack? You can find his answer on Capital's About page: "The premise of Capital is...

Mar 25, 2011 01:38 PM

CaryCitizen

Proud proponents of upbeat hyperlocal news

By Victoria Rau

Cary.Citizen.png CARY, NORTH CAROLINA — Founder and publisher Hal Goodtree knew he was onto something with CaryCitizen when The New York Times referenced his coverage of the arrest of a local terrorism suspect on his site's third day of existence. Although the town had a local newspaper, The Cary News, its coverage focused on other towns in addition to Cary, and Goodtree felt that he could...

Jan 28, 2012 01:43 PM

CHARLIE Magazine

Perfecting the local online glossy in Charleston, South Carolina

By Chris Benz

charlie.magazine.png CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA — "When you start something, what your role ends up being is quite different than what you imagined it to be," says Caroline Nuttall, founder of CHARLIE, a local culture magazine based in Charleston, South Carolina. Originally a publicist, Nuttall founded the website in 2009, and expanded it successfully to a niche market, profitability, and a part-time staff of...

Jun 20, 2012 12:52 PM

Chicago Phoenix

Chicago LGBT media goes digital (and grows up)

By Ian Fullerton

chicago.phoenix.png CHICAGO, IL — Gay media in Chicago has struggled in its search for identity. In recent years, two of the city's most prominent LGBT publications, Gay Chicago Magazine and the Chicago Free Press, shut down after transitioning from the traditional "bar rag" format, with content centered on entertainment and sex culture, to a more issue-related news and features focus. Some observers speculated that revenue problems...

Mar 24, 2011 03:31 PM

Columbus Underground

Entertainment and events coverage with a civic bent

By Connor Boals

Columbus.Underground.png COLUMBUS, OHIO — Launched in 2001, Columbus Underground was founding editor Walker Evans's answer to a lack of online resources for Columbus's nightlife scene. A devoted fan of his city, Evans grew the site from a social calendar to a resource that helps the local community stay informed on just about everything Ohio's capital city has to offer. With 2.1 million visits and 8.5...

Dec 8, 2011 04:11 PM

CountyNewsLIVE.com

A fast-growing news network for rural Missouri

By Caitlin Kasunich

contynewslive.com.png HERMANN, MISSOURI — Although the homepage of Gasconade County's CountyNewsLIVE.com has the look and feel of a simple, straightforward blog, it is actually the first of three frequently updated Missouri-based hyperlocal news websites founded by writer and publisher Jeff Noedel. Launched in March 2008, the Gasconade County site primarily covers rural Hermann, Missouri, a small agricultural town that attracts tourists with its nearby...

May 18, 2011 12:59 PM

Crosscut.com

Robust nonprofit local news coverage for Seattle

By Sara Germano

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON — David Brewster couldn't have been the only Seattle citizen concerned about the potential demise of one of his local papers, but back in the mid-aughts, he was ahead of the curve. In 2006, Brewster, a thirty-five-year veteran of the local media landscape and the founder of alternative newspaper Seattle Weekly, was phasing out of his role as director of Town Hall Seattle, a...

May 3, 2011 12:23 PM

DavidsonNews.net

Ambitious local news site for Davidson, N.C.

By Justin Yang

DAVIDSON, NORTH CAROLINA — David Boraks, a veteran journalist of thirty years and long-time resident of Davidson, N.C., started DavidsonNews.net after returning from a year abroad in China and Taiwan. Upon returning home, Boraks found that staying updated on current news was not as easy as he had remembered, and so he started an online town newsletter. The newsletter soon evolved into a full-blown...

Apr 10, 2013 02:51 PM

District

A student voice from the Savannah College of Art and Design

By Meredith Qualls

SAVANNAH, GA — After beginning in 1995 as a weekly student-run print publication at the Savannah College of Art and Design, District relaunched as an online-only in 2008, becoming part of the early wave of student publications to scrap their print product. "We wanted to go digital because we felt like that was where the industry was headed, and all of our students...

Mar 24, 2011 10:41 PM

ecoRI

Community engagement through environmental news (and composting)

By Daniel Denvir

PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND — Frank Carini, a Boston native with an accent to match, has gone from sports writing to composting. He founded ecoRI.com in September 2009 after spending twenty years at newspapers on the North Shore in Massachusetts, Cincinnati, and in Newport, Rhode Island. "I was getting sick of the direction of where we were going," he says. "Too much covering press releases and...

Mar 28, 2011 01:43 AM

Education News Colorado

The "paper of record" for Colorado education policymaking

By Dohini Patel

education.news.colorado.png DENVER, COLORADO — Education News Colorado is an online-only news site devoted exclusively to in-depth coverage of Colorado state education news and policy. The site began operating in its present form in 2008, but can trace its roots back to Headfirst Colorado, a state-wide quarterly print magazine that, until current EdNews publisher Alan Gottlieb came aboard in 2006, would have been more accurately described...

Oct 24, 2011 11:00 AM

Eleven Warriors

News and commentary on Ohio State football

By Erik Shilling

PATASKALA, OHIO — Jason Priestas was a lonely Ohio State football fan when he moved to Chicago seven years ago with his wife. He was only a six hour drive from Columbus, but he felt like he was living on the opposite end of the globe. So, in August 2006, he did what many tech-savvy fans do: he started a blog. Five years and several...

Mar 24, 2011 11:39 AM

Fayetteville Flyer

A music site that made the leap to general news

By Sam Eifling

Fayetteville.Flyer.png FAYETTEVILLE, ARKANSAS — Not long ago Todd Gill and Dustin Bartholomew were part-time musicians working in advertising. In late 2007 they began blogging about the music scene around Fayetteville, Arkansas. Gill saw it as little more than a hobby, but bands, he found, were natural self-promoters, pushing friends and family to read their coverage. Interviewing musicians, reviewing shows, and running a calendar of events led to...

Feb 3, 2011 05:14 PM

Florida Center for Investigative Reporting

A pioneer bilingual investigative nonprofit

By Justin Yang

MIAMI, FLORIDA — When the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting (FCIR) received a $100,000 grant from the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation in September of 2010, it marked the launch of Florida's first nonprofit bilingual online investigative reporting organization. Located at the International Media Center at Florida International University, FCIR is emerging as a leader in investigative news and an innovator...

Mar 24, 2011 04:00 PM

Front Porch Forum

Social networking and citizen journalism in northern Vermont

By Armin Rosen

Front.Porch.Forum.png BURLINGTON, VERMONT — Vermont-based social networking site Front Porch Forum has earned an intense regional following, partly thanks to its success as a venue for hyperlocal citizen journalism. FPF users within 120 small, geographically specific networks write daily and weekly newsletters covering the most quotidian neighborhood news, from church talent shows to snow removal reports. (Since FPF newsletters aren't archived online, we can't provide...

Jul 27, 2011 02:48 PM

Gotham Gazette

Detailed reporting on New York City governance

By Connor Boals

NEW YORK, NEW YORK — It's no secret that many Americans are shamefully uninformed about their elected representatives, particularly at the local level. The blame for this can often go as much to local press as to citizens themselves, but thanks to Gotham Gazette, an online source for what's happening in the world of NYC government, citizens of the nation's largest metropolis will...

Feb 18, 2011 12:29 PM

Great Lakes Echo

Sharp science news with a sense of humor

By Justin Yang

EAST LANSING, MICHIGAN — Residents of the Great Lakes region have one publication to thank for their understanding of the menace that is the zebra mussel, clogger of power plant intake pipes. That publication is the Great Lakes Echo. A project of the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism at Michigan State University, the Echo aims to build environmental awareness of...

Feb 23, 2011 06:32 PM

Honolulu Civil Beat

A journalistic "civic square"

By Alex Fekula

HONOLULU, HAWAII — Honolulu Civil Beat is the brainchild of eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and former eBay exec Randy Ching, both of whom attended high school in the Aloha State. The pair shared a common goal, in Omidyar's words, of "empowering citizens and encouraging greater civic participation through media." In keeping with this mission, they envisioned a site that considered audience participation to...

Jan 3, 2011 04:54 PM

indieWIRE

Independent film news for fans, filmmakers, and insiders

By Sean Gandert

NEW YORK, NEW YORK — IndieWIRE is a daily news site and online resource that covers all aspects of specialty and independent film. Founded in 1996, the site is known for its dogged coverage of film festivals around the world and its efforts to support the independent filmmaking community itself. The site's multifaceted approach to film coverage has earned it a following among fans...

Feb 3, 2012 04:54 PM

InMaricopa

Online community news for an Arizona town damaged by the housing crisis

By Tom Marcinko

MARICOPA, ARIZONA — When the InMaricopa website launched in 2004, the once-small town of Maricopa, Ariz. was in the midst of a massive population boom. With families seeking cheaper housing outside of Phoenix, the former nineteenth-century mail stop on the Gila River went from 1,000 residents in 2000 to 40,000 in 2010. In 2006, housing prices began to level off, two years...

Jan 3, 2011 06:21 PM

Investigative Reporting Workshop

Multimedia reporting in a university setting

By Colin Fleming

WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA — American University's Investigative Reporting Workshop is one of sixteen university-based investigative journalism centers, but the only one in the nation's capital. Founded in 2008 by Charles Lewis and Wendell Cochran, both veteran journalists and professors at the university, the Workshop produces original reporting and mentors the next generation of investigative journalists. This dual mandate creates a unique newsroom; undergraduate...

Jan 5, 2011 04:38 PM

iWatch News (The Center for Public Integrity)

Twenty years' worth of investigative journalism for the public welfare

By Colin Fleming

i.watch.png WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA — The Center for Public Integrity celebrated its twentieth anniversary in 2010 with a YouTube video detailing its many accomplishments. The organization has won more than forty national journalism awards, pursued more than seventy major investigative projects, published sixteen books, and, perhaps most significantly, has been cited in print and electronic media more than 15,000 times. Now, the...

May 18, 2011 12:08 PM

Jersey City Independent

Eye-opening alternative news for a bedroom community on the Hudson

By Sara Germano

JERSEY CITY, NEW JERSEY — Unfortunately, it's not difficult to imagine how a city of nearly a quarter-million residents could be wanting for local news coverage these days. When that city exists in the shadow of media-manic Manhattan, that fate becomes even more understandable. Such was the case for Jersey City, a bedroom community located along the Hudson riverfront bordering the Big Apple, until a couple...

Mar 24, 2011 10:35 PM

Journal Watchdog

A print startup's bold online muckracking operation

By Armin Rosen

Journal.Watchdog.png GREENVILLE, SOUTH CAROLINA — The purpose of Journal Watchdog, an online news site launched in January of 2009 and based in Greenville, South Carolina, couldn't be any clearer: on the site's "About Us" page, the words "We are a watchdog website" are emblazoned in bold, twenty-four-point font, with a link to a page containing salaries of various state employees positioned just a couple inches...

Mar 11, 2011 03:51 PM

Lexington Commons

A voice for Lexington's nonprofit organizations

By Georgia Schoonmaker

Lexington.Commons.png LEXINGTON, KENTUCKY — The tagline on the Lexington Commons homepage defines the site as "The Voice of Lexington," which is quite appropriate, considering it is written entirely by volunteer citizens of the city and its surrounding suburbs. Because of this, all of the stories featured have a very personal feel. Much of the site's content deals with the local nonprofit sector--"Celebrating Nonprofit Organizations and Volunteers!",...

Jan 5, 2011 04:53 PM

MinnPost

The Twin Cities startup is seeking loyal readers for hard news

By Chris Benz

MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA — Harvard's Nieman Journalism Lab calls MinnPost founder Joel Kramer "one of the brightest stars in the news-startup firmament." The former editor and publisher of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Kramer started his nonprofit in 2007 with a rolodex of veteran journalists to whom he offered freelance work, and $1.2 million dollars in commitments from foundations and private donors. This was...

Oct 31, 2011 01:52 PM

MyVeronaNJ.com

Wide-ranging hyperlocal news for a New York City suburb

By Caitlin Kasunich

myveronanj.com.png VERONA, NEW JERSEY — Editor Virginia Citrano has worked at the intersection of journalism and technology for nearly three decades. In 1983, she was hired by the Wall Street Journal/Europe, an early innovator in the use of computers in the newsroom. She got her hands on her first news website in 1995, as an assistant managing editor at Crain's New York Business. From 2000 to...

Oct 20, 2011 11:41 AM

Neighborhood Notes

Hyperlocal news and advertising in Portland, Oregon

By Maura R. O'Connor

neighborhood.notes.png PORTLAND, OREGON — For hyperlocal news sites, one problem looms above all others: while demand for hyperlocal news is growing in communities around America, the small, location-specific audiences targeted by these sites often don't provide enough web traffic to support an advertising-based revenue model. Can hyperlocal sites become financially viable through other means? This is the problem Neighborhood Notes, a hyperlocal website serving...

May 25, 2011 01:12 PM

New West

News, analysis, and culture reporting for the Rocky Mountain region

By David Downs

New.West.png MISSOULA, MONTANA — All over the harsh terrain of the Rocky Mountains, local fears of rampant development burst with the real estate bubble, leaving communities to confront a new enemy: economic stagnation. On the frontier of the struggle is New West, a six-year-old digital guide to news, analysis, and culture for the Rocky Mountain region. Based in Missoula, Montana, and Boulder, Colorado, the company's...

Jan 18, 2012 12:59 PM

NOLA Defender

Edgy arts and culture coverage for a cultural mecca

By Erik Shilling

nola.defender.png NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA — After scraping by in New York City for several years as a freelance journalist and screenwriter, in early 2009 Ben Mintz was offered the chance to live in New Orleans for three months to work on a script. Like many before him, he was seduced by the storied city and decided to stay permanently. But Mintz still missed some of the...

Oct 24, 2011 11:42 AM

Noozhawk

Reporting (and financing) the news in Santa Barbara, Calif.

By Paige Rentz

SANTA BARBARA, CALIFORNIA — 2006 was a tumultuous year for news in Santa Barbara. The daily Santa Barbara News-Press was experiencing a very public conflict between the publishers and editorial staff that resulted in waves of resignations and firings--a situation which ultimately led the National Labor Relations Board to find that management committed unfair labor practices after the staff voted to unionize. Four years later,...

Jan 27, 2012 11:55 AM

NOWCastSA

Multimedia community news for San Antonio, Texas

By Maura R. O'Connor

SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS — This spring, San Antonio residents will vote on a five-year, $596 million bond package intended to upgrade the city's infrastructure. The package includes 140 projects across the city, such as improvements to parks, sidewalks, and drainage facilities. Until they go to the polls on May 12, citizens who want to learn details about these projects can visit NOWCastSA.com, an...

May 20, 2011 01:35 PM

OpenSecrets.org

Exhaustive reporting on money in politics

By Daniel Luzer

WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA — In 1983, Senators Frank Church (D-Idaho) and Hugh Scott (R-Pa.) founded the Center for Responsive Politics in order to "track money in politics and its effect on elections and public policy." This government watchdog eventually gave birth to OpenSecrets.org, a searchable database of campaign contributions and a center for investigative journalism about money in politics. <!-- OPEN CLOSE top...

Sep 14, 2011 02:48 PM

Oswego County Today

An early online news source by a mayor-turned-newsman

By Paige Rentz

FULTON, NEW YORK — When Mayor Don Bullard lost his bid for re-election as chief executive of the small city of Fulton, N.Y. in 1998, he and three members of his city hall team set out in search of a way to continue working for their community. In the waning years of the last millennium, online news was still a young industry, but the former...

Dec 21, 2011 11:43 AM

Plains Daily

Right-leaning reporting for North Dakota

By Erik Shilling

plains.daily.png FARGO, NORTH DAKOTA — Plains Daily debuted in March 2010, the brain child of North Dakota conservative talk-radio host Scott Hennen, who was previously best known around the state for interviews with former vice president Dick Cheney and presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann, among others. Bachmann has been a particularly vocal supporter, calling him the "voice of today's Tea Party patriots,"...

Feb 2, 2012 11:12 AM

Plymouth Daily News

Hyperlocal news for "America's hometown"

By Caitlin Kasunich

plymouth.daily.news.png PLYMOUTH, MASSACHUSETTS — For almost two decades, editor and publisher Walter Brooks and his family have run online media ventures in several Massachusetts communities. Starting in the early months of 1996, Brooks helped launch the online edition of the vacation guide Best Read Guide/Cape Cod. Just a year later, he started the hyperlocal news site CapeCodToday.com--an early example of the hyperlocal...

Jul 29, 2011 01:42 AM

PubliCola

Extensive political coverage for Seattle and Washington state

By Alex Fekula

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON — [UPDATE: After briefly ceasing operations in May 2012 due to "limited and inconsistent" ad revenue, Publicola was purchased in mid-June 2012 by SagaCity Media, owner of the Seattle Metropolitan magazine and other properties, for an undisclosed sum. The new web publication is called PubliCola at SeattleMet. Popular features like "Morning Fizz," "Afternoon Jolt," and and "ThinkTank" continue to be published,...

May 23, 2011 11:12 AM

Quorum Report

A pioneer in niche online coverage, reporting on Texas politics since 1998

By Connor Boals

AUSTIN, TEXAS — Harvey Kronberg and his team at the Quorum Report are true Internet news frontiersmen. Kronberg, who has been covering Texas politics since 1989, purchased The Quorum Report, then a print-only political newsletter, in 1998, and within a year had turned the Report into an all-web news operation. Although he admits that he had to be convinced to go to the web...

Mar 25, 2011 02:41 PM

Rio Grande Guardian

An online-only news source for South Texas

By Justin Yang

rio.grande.guardian.png MCALLEN, TEXAS — In July of 2005, Steve Taylor and his partner Melinda Barerra sold their Isuzu Rodeo for seed money and launched the first online-only news site in the Texas border region. The site, called the Rio Grande Guardian, bills itself as "the internet newspaper of south Texas," and covers the Rio Grande Valley, which consists of the four counties that make up...

Jan 9, 2012 12:15 PM

RiverheadLocal

Local news and web advertising for Riverhead, Long Island

By Maura R. O'Connor

RIVERHEAD, NEW YORK — In 2009 Denise Civiletti tried to switch careers, but in the end she came back to journalism. She had taken a job in public relations with a local hospital after working as a publisher and editor for a decade in her hometown of Riverhead in Long Island, New York. Health care, she thought, was a growth industry that would offer better...

Mar 25, 2011 02:46 PM

RVANews

Richmond's online-only news source

By Alex Fekula

RICHMOND, VIRGINIA — In 2007, Ross Catrow and Scott Pharr set out to create an online hub where Richmond residents could have access to the increasing number of blogs and hyperlocal sites based in and around the small city. The two had been college roommates who found web-related jobs after school: Catrow worked for the state of Virginia, Pharr for a gold and jewelery wholesaler. The...

Nov 28, 2011 11:08 AM

Silicon Prairie News

A home on the range for Midwest tech coverage

By Maura R. O'Connor

silicon.prairie.news.png OMAHA, NEBRASKA — In the summer of 2008, Jeff Slobotski was working for the sales team of a technology company in New York City but living in his hometown of Omaha, Nebraska. During his travels around the country for work, he kept getting asked, "What's going on in Omaha?" Slobotski knew that, contrary to popular belief, there was a lot going on in Omaha, including...

Feb 15, 2012 11:43 AM

South King Media

A network of six hyperlocals in Washington State

By Maura R. O'Connor

south.king.media.png BURIEN, WASHINGTON — In 2007, Scott Schaefer, an Emmy Award-winning comedy writer who worked on shows like Bill Nye the Science Guy and The Arsenio Hall Show, decided to create some comedy websites from his home in King County, Washington. He quickly discovered that getting advertising or creating revenue for comedy sites was extraordinarily difficult. "You're competing at a national level," says Schaefer. "Nothing was...

Jul 21, 2011 12:18 PM

Sports Gab Network

A network of over seventy sports blogs with a special focus on the NFL

By Erik Shilling

sports.gab.network.png MOUNT LAUREL, NEW JERSEY — An increasingly large player in the world of sports fan blogs, the Sports Gab Network has been one of several such news sites in the past couple of years to give many of the traditional online sports news sites a run for their money. The site was founded with just one contributor in 2006, when an NFL blog written...

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....

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...

May 2, 2011 04:17 PM

Technically Philly

Detailed coverage of the Philadelphia tech scene

By Daniel Denvir

Technically.Philly.png 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...

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

the.american.independent.news.network.png 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...

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...

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

The.CT.Mirror.png 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,...

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...

Oct 24, 2011 11:24 AM

The Faster Times

Creative revenue earning from an online publication/writers' collective

By Brett Norman

the.faster.times.png 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...

Mar 24, 2011 11:35 AM

The Florida Independent (Defunct)

Legislative watchdogging and more

By Chris Benz

The.Florida.Independent.png 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, <a href="http://floridaindependent.com/"...

Jul 20, 2011 12:47 PM

The Forum

Local news for four small New Hampshire towns

By Georgia Schoonmaker

The.Forum.png 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...

Jul 5, 2012 03:13 PM

The Hechinger Report

Strengthening education reporting nationwide

By Hiten Samtani

the.hechinger.report.png 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...

Mar 24, 2011 04:42 PM

The Post (Defunct)

Social media gurus of South Dakota

By Justin Yang

The.Post.png SIOUX FALLS, SOUTH DAKOTA — [Editor's note: The Post ceased publication in July 2011. A note on the site in late 2011 and early 2012 promised a relaunch, but it never materialized. The site is down, but was last captured by the Internet Archive in February 2012.] The Post, a story co-op site in which a team of volunteers and staff create...

Dec 29, 2010 02:01 PM

The St. Louis Beacon

"News that matters" for St. Louis

By Kathy Gilsinan

St. LOUIS, MISSOURI — Margaret Freivogel's thirty-four years as a reporter and editor at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch came to an end when she took a buyout in 2005. "Several of us took buyouts without any intention of doing anything else at that point," Freivogel says. "We were just kind of weary." But within a year, Freivogel and a few former colleagues had begun work on...

Jan 4, 2011 05:48 PM

The Texas Tribune

Political reporting and investigations for the Lone Star State

By Justin Yang

texas.tribune.png AUSTIN, TEXAS — The Texas Tribune, which writer Jake Batsell profiled for CJR in July 2010, focuses on state politics, government, and investigative reporting, and prides itself on finding innovative ways of presenting the news to an increasingly expanding audience. The nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization has helped redefine online journalism and extended its goals of civic engagement far beyond the Internet. ...

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...

Feb 8, 2012 07:43 PM

TownSquareBuzz.com

Community and sports news for a Dallas-Fort Worth suburb

By Tom Marcinko

townsquarebuzz.com.png 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. <!-- OPEN...

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...

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...

Oct 26, 2011 06:13 PM

Washington Independent Review of Books

Serious-minded reviews of books across the literary spectrum

By Daniel Luzer

washington.independent.review.of.books.png WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA — When newspapers across the country have to cut costs, their book sections inevitably end up on the chopping block. David O. Stewart, president of the Freedom to Write Fund, which is dedicated to education and public advocacy on behalf of writers, says that he and the other members of the Fund became concerned about shrinking book review sections and the...

Jul 11, 2011 01:18 PM

Watchdog New England

A catalyst for investigative reporting in Boston and beyond

By Isaac Olson

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS — Watchdog New England, the website of the nonprofit Initiative for Investigative Reporting at Northeastern University, aims to revive and strengthen investigative reporting throughout New England's six states--not as a news outlet in its own right, but as an ally to the region's more than eighty daily newspapers and countless weeklies. For now, the site primarily exists as a compendium of links to...

Feb 22, 2012 01:38 PM

Welles Park Bulldog

News and sports for Chicago's North Side

By Ian Fullerton

welles.park.bulldog.png CHICAGO, ILLINOIS — The Welles Park Bulldog takes its name from a picturesque public park in Chicago's Ravenswood neighborhood, and delivers insight and opinion on politics, culture, and sports for a dense stretch of residential and mixed-use boroughs on Chicago's North Side. The site's founder and publisher, Patrick Boylan, first had the idea that would eventually become the Bulldog in 2009. "I had...

Nov 21, 2011 11:38 AM

Yadkin Valley Sports

High school sports news for eighteen schools in central North Carolina

By Erik Shilling

yadkin.valley.sports.png ELKIN, NORTH CAROLINA — After earning his undergraduate journalism degree from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill in 1993, Eric Lusk spent more than a decade patrolling small town sports beats at a number of newspapers across the state. In 2006, he got a job at the Elkin Tribune, which has a circulation of around 4,000. But just a year later the privately-owned paper was...