General News Websites : CJR's Guide to Online News Startups

Jul 27, 2011 02:53 PM

A2Politico

Accountability journalism in Ann Arbor, Mich.

By Erik Shilling

ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN — [UPDATED September 16, 2011] When the daily Ann Arbor News announced in July 2009 that it would cease publication and be replaced by a two day a week print product with a website, the college town of Ann Arbor, Mich. suddenly became, after 174 years, a city without a daily newspaper. That's when Patricia Lesko, a higher-education book publisher and thirty-year...

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...

Jun 13, 2011 04:27 PM

All Over Albany

Conversational news, events, and culture for the New York capital region

By Dylan DePice

ALBANY, NEW YORK — All Over Albany is a conversation starter. The Albany, N.Y.-based blog covers local news, events, and culture with a mission to provide its readers with fodder for a casual but informed exchange. Editors Mary Darcy and Greg Dahlmann created the site in 2008 after working together at WAMC Northeast Public Radio. At the time, they sensed that there was a...

Oct 26, 2011 06:00 PM

Berkeleyside

News and notes from California's most quotable town

By Daniel Luzer

BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA — Frances Dinkelspiel had worked as a journalist for two decades--reporting for the Syracuse Newspapers and the San Jose Mercury News--before she and two other colleagues started Berkeleyside.com. In Dinkelspiel's opinion, Berkeley is too interesting a city not to have its own hyperlocal news site. "The University of California's here, it has this really long liberal radical political tradition, it's the...

Jun 6, 2012 01:47 PM

Big World Magazine

A travel webzine that pays its contributors

By Tom Marcinko

big.world.magazine.png NEW YORK, NY — Brooklyn-based editor and publisher Mary D'Ambrosio has taught a graduate level summer travel writing course at New York University for the past decade. A couple of years ago, she noticed something about her students' work: she liked it better than the usual travel magazine fare. "They weren't going to write 'Ten Hot Hotels in Rome,'" she says. "They were going to...

Mar 24, 2011 12:11 PM

Boise Guardian

Pugnacious reporting on Boise's institutions

By Chris Benz

Boise.Guardian.png BOISE, IDAHO — The Boise Guardian, a one-man muckraking blog in Boise, Idaho, has developed an outsized influence and a regular following, thanks to the energy of its proprietor/ reporter, Dave Frazier. No friend of city hall, Frazier has an Idaho court decision named after him. In 2005, he sued the city of Boise for taking out a loan on a new police station...

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...

May 27, 2011 11:50 AM

Broward Bulldog

Nonprofit investigative journalism for Broward County, Fla.

By Joel Meares

FORT LAUDERDALE, FLORIDA — Few states have been hit so hard by the newspaper downturn as Florida. In 2009, The South Florida Sun-Sentinel cut 20 percent of its staff. The same year, McClatchy's Miami Herald cut nearly 200 jobs and stopped distributing its international edition in South America and the Caribbean. Then, in 2011, the paper killed another fifteen jobs and...

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...

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 5, 2011 06:54 PM

Center For Investigative Reporting

Old-school investigative nonprofit takes to the web

By Colin Fleming

BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA — In the world of American investigative nonprofits, the Center for Investigative Reporting is the oldest and one of the best recognized. Founded in 1977 by a small group of investigative reporters, CIR has grown considerably since, amassing numerous awards. It now employs a full-time staff of twenty and works with an annual budget of over $4 million. CIR has broken stories...

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...

Jul 21, 2011 05:46 PM

Common Language Project

In-depth human rights reporting and multimedia storytelling

By Connor Boals

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON —In 2005, three friends on their way to becoming freshly anointed college grads had an idea. They were budding journalists with global ambitions who didn't want to sit on their hands while foreign coverage in American newspapers continued to fade. The three, Sarah Stuteville, Alex Stonehill, and Jessica Partnow, decided to take a trip to about a dozen countries in Southeast Asia and...

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...

Feb 20, 2012 01:54 PM

Cronkite News

Arizona State University's student-reported website and news wire

By Tom Marcinko

cronkite.news.png PHOENIX, ARIZONA — Student journalists now learning their trade by filing stories for Cronkite News were born long after Walter Cronkite (1916-2009) signed off the CBS Evening News in 1981. A part of Arizona State University's Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communications, Cronkite News publishes news by student journalists on its own website, and produces stories for the Associated Press, McClatchy-Tribune...

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...

Mar 24, 2011 12:15 PM

CU-CitizenAccess

University-based reporting on poverty in central Illinois

By Kathy Gilsinan

CU.Citizen.Access.png URBANA, ILLINOIS — When Brant Houston moved to the Champaign-Urbana, Illinois area from Columbia, Missouri to assume the University of Illinois's Knight Chair in Journalism, he did what he had long encouraged students to do in the classes he taught on computer assisted reporting: he trawled through census data to get a sense of his community. The poverty rate immediately stuck out as far out of...

Sep 27, 2011 04:52 PM

Dallas South News

Making the move from blog to nonprofit news site

By Timothy Bella

dallas.south.news.png DALLAS, TEXAS — Shawn Williams was in pharmaceutical sales for nine years before starting his personal blog in 2006. The blog was about South Dallas, an area of more than 500,000 people. He says he first started the blog to try to combat negative images of the African American community that he saw in the mainstream media. When he was let go from his job...

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...

Mar 24, 2011 03:22 PM

Delaware First Media News

Nonprofit news in text, audio, and video

By Georgia Schoonmaker

Delaware.First.Media.png NEWARK, DELAWARE — Delaware First Media News, an independent news site specializing in news and commentary about goings-on in the Diamond State, grew from seeds planted in the nonprofit sector. As explained by Micheline Boudreau, DFM's president and a former news director of a public television station in Delaware, all of the journalists who came together to create the website began in nonprofit journalism--a...

Mar 28, 2011 08:32 PM

DNAinfo

Hyperlocal news for Manhattan

By Alex Fekula

Dna.info.png NEW YORK, NEW YORK — Manhattan surely has more media outlets per square foot than just about anywhere else in the world, but DNAinfo has proved that there's still plenty of room on the island for local news. Conceived by Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts, the site is a compendium of hyperlocal news for Manhattan's many communities. The site's ten separate verticals provide coverage of neighborhoods...

Sep 28, 2011 11:48 AM

Engadget

Tech news the AOL way

By Richard Nieva

NEW YORK, NEW YORK — Engadget is a one-stop hub for enthusiastic tech consumers, featuring breaking news updates, product reviews, podcasts, multimedia, and more. Light in tone, just edgy enough to amuse but not offend, and often genuinely informative, it's tempting to compare the site to a tech version of Gawker--and, in fact, Engadget was founded in 2004 by Peter Rojas, the tech...

Dec 13, 2011 11:28 AM

Eugene Daily News

Sports and lifestyle news for Eugene, Oregon

By David Riedel

eugene.daily.news.png EUGENE, OREGON — When publisher Kelly Asay and his business partner Jeff Tunnell, the two co-owners of the Eugene Daily News, launched the site in February 2011, they had no journalism experience. The entrepreneurs and video game developers thought their expertise with the Internet and digital media would help them avoid the difficulties that some print, radio, and television news outlets have struggled...

Oct 31, 2011 11:33 AM

Evanston Now

A hyperlocal news site holds its own in a media-saturated Chicago suburb

By Ian Fullerton

evanston.now.png EVANSTON, ILLINOIS — As a native Evanstonian, Bill Smith remembers a time when the small suburban municipality just north of Chicago had only one paper to its name, the weekly Evanston Review. "For the latter half of the century there had been a few start-ups, but those mostly failed," he says. Today, that field has expanded, thanks in part to Smith, who logs around sixty...

Dec 8, 2010 03:40 PM

FactCheck.org

A "consumer advocate" for voters

By Justin Yang

PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA — In a world of 140-character tweets and political attack ads posted on YouTube, information has become easier to access and easier to release. It's also become more difficult to discern between what information is true and what is false. FactCheck.org rose to the challenge of making those calls in political discourse leading up to the 2004 election and has continued to...

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...

Oct 25, 2011 04:50 PM

First Arkansas News

News, musings, and pre-television radio serials

By Tyler Jones

BENTON, ARKANSAS — "Benton resident. Rogue journalist. Recovering attorney." Scary words if you're a city official caught using public property for campaigning purposes. Just two weeks after launching First Arkansas News, founder Ethan C. Nobles, whose 'about' statement above is brief but bold, broke such a story after filing a Freedom of Information Act request for the e-mail records of Arkansas...

May 30, 2012 01:58 PM

Florida Voices

A digital editorial page for the Sunshine State

By Annie Wu

florida.voices.png TAMPA, FL — In 2008, Rosemary Goudreau was laid off as editorial page editor of the Tampa Tribune. She found work in public relations, but missed the constant immersion in issues and ideas afforded her by life in a newsroom. "On the other side of the fence, I saw the need for a place that made it easy to know what people were talking about, and for...

Jan 3, 2011 01:35 PM

Gawker

Pioneers of Internet snark branch out toward general interest news

By Sean Gandert

NEW YORK, NEW YORK— The rise of Gawker has been well-documented. Founded by Nick Denton in 2003 as "the source for daily Manhattan media news and gossip," the site's urbane tone of bemusement in line with the old Spy, coupled with the Internet's ability to feature near-instant commentary on events, turned the site into a quick, widely imitated success. But the current version of...

Nov 30, 2011 03:19 PM

GazeboNews

News and "stuff" for two affluent Chicago suburbs

By Justin Peters

LAKE BLUFF, ILLINOIS — When, in 2006, Adrienne Fawcett moved to Lake Bluff, Illinois, a leafy suburb thirty-five miles north of downtown Chicago, the local news scene was in repose. "I felt the people I was talking to in the community had a better sense of what was going on than the media covering the community," she remembers. At the time, the town of 5,722...

Jan 5, 2011 01:35 PM

GlobalPost

A new news agency helping to fill the gaps in foreign reporting

By Dohini Patel

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS — GlobalPost has breathed life back into the foreign news agency business. Philip Balboni and Charles Sennott, two ambitious and entrepreneurial international news journalists, founded the for-profit site in 2009. They say the site sets out to have a distinctive American voice and American style of storytelling while reporting on news from every corner of the world. GlobalPost has complete editorial...

Mar 24, 2011 01:03 PM

Gothamist

A pioneer of the city blog format

By Armin Rosen

NEW YORK, NEW YORK — In an over-saturated New York media market, there are few news sources that can claim even a modest percentage of the city's attention. Gothamist's constantly updated coverage of offbeat, interesting, and generally important news stories in New York City lacks the ubiquity of, say, the front page of the New York Post, but it's getting there. The site's New...

Feb 16, 2012 01:09 PM

Grand Prairie Reporter

News by a former USPS employee turned reporter in the Dallas-Fort Worth area

By David Riedel

grand.prairie.reporter.png GRAND PRAIRIE, TEXAS — "I'm a reporter. I am not a journalist," says Grand Prairie Reporter founder Bob Fitch. "I don't want to degrade the craft of journalism. I can't write and paint a picture with words." Fitch's writing style is utilitarian and not nearly as bad as he claims, but he does try to keep stories on the Reporter at 250 words...

Jan 12, 2012 10:19 AM

GrossePointeToday.com

Nonprofit hyperlocal news in suburban Detroit

By Maura R. O'Connor

grossepointetoday.com.png GROSSE POINTE, MICHIGAN — When the 2010 Census was released, it revealed some interesting changes in the metro Detroit community of Grosse Pointe. Whereas in 2000 the non-white population of the area was marginal, in 2010 the percentage of minorities had risen steeply. The number of African Americans living in Grosse Pointe area, for instance, had increased by 300 percent. The online news site <a...

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...

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...

Oct 24, 2011 07:04 PM

InsideClimate News

Environment news and investigations

By Alysia Santo

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK — After experimenting with a variety of quick-hit approaches to environmental coverage, a four-year-old online news startup focused on climate change is moving in a slower, more involved reportorial direction. Originally launched in 2007 as SolveClimate News, the site announced on September 6, 2011 that it had hired an executive editor, Susan White, and changed its name to InsideClimate...

Apr 5, 2011 01:06 PM

Intersections South Los Angeles

USC students report on their neighboring communities

By David Downs

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA — When conservative Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly needs a sparring partner on immigration issues, his producers occasionally turn to a totally under-the-radar nonprofit news site, Intersections South Los Angeles. The two-year-old site, a hybrid of hyperlocal reporting and user-generated news, runs on grant and university funds and operates out of the University of Southern California. Editor-in-chief Willa Seidenberg, a journalism...

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!",...

Oct 6, 2011 05:15 PM

MediaStorm

Multimedia outlet meets production house

By Lauren Kirchner

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK — Above the cobblestone streets of Brooklyn's DUMBO neighborhood, the producers, engineers, and cinematographers of MediaStorm are producing some of the most arresting and moving stories online today. While side-stepping the news cycle in favor of more timeless features, their particular brand of multimedia narrative is attracting online viewers from 170 countries around the globe. It has also helped the...

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...

Mar 28, 2012 12:23 PM

Mint Press News

A privately financed international news startup in Minnesota

By Leah Binkovitz

mint.press.news.png MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA — The coming of Mint Press was noted all over the journalism jobs boards. Touting its independent status and dedication to honest reporting, the site seemed to advertise for a new position every day: staff reporters, California and D.C. correspondents, and associate editors. Many of these positions remain open. Mint Press currently claims five staff writers and three paid writing interns;...

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...

Mar 24, 2011 12:53 PM

Neon Tommy

A student-run news site with a national reputation

By David Downs

neon.tommy.png LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA — When swine flu heated up international headlines in 2009, University of Southern California's fledgling news site Neon Tommy discovered some cold truths about the official reaction to the disease. Neon Tommy staff obtained forty-four death certificates from Los Angeles county health officials, interviewed family members and doctors, and discovered authorities weren't notifying relatives that the deceased had died from a contagious...

Sep 26, 2011 11:27 AM

New America Media

A news wire (and much more) for America's ethnic press

By Lauren Kirchner

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA — In 1969, historian Franz Schurmann and journalist Orville Schell founded Pacific News Service to provide an alternative news source about U.S. military actions abroad. Four decades later, a descendant of that project continues the mission of supplementing the American mainstream press with news it wouldn't get otherwise--but this initiative seeks to inform by crossing linguistic, rather than geographic, borders. <!-- OPEN...

Mar 24, 2011 12:44 PM

New Hampshire Watchdog

Long-term investigations, libertarian style

By Joel Meares

new.hampshire.watchdog.png CONCORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE — The draw of presidential politics is a strong one in New Hampshire, home of the first presidential primary. Every four years, the Granite State finds itself inundated with a new band of ambitious hand-shakers, and local political reporters find themselves dutifully shuffling from dinner halls to town halls to school halls, picking up scraps of policy platforms and hints of presidential aspirations...

Recently Updated: Jun 28, 2011 01:18 PM

New Haven Independent

Connecticut-based leader in nonprofit community news

By Arvin Temkar

NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT — The nonprofit New Haven Independent, which has been delivering serious-minded local news to residents of New Haven, Conn., and the surrounding area since 2005, takes a lot of pride in how it interacts with the community. In fact, the site's editor maintains that its readers are as integral to the editorial process as its reporters. "Our readers do our typos,"...

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...

Oct 5, 2011 08:03 PM

NewsOne

Original and aggregated national news for black America

By Maura R. O'Connor

NEW YORK, NEW YORK— In July 2011, New York City's beaches and rivers were closed to recreational use for five days, after a fire at a major sewage treatment plant led to millions of gallons of untreated sewage being dumped into the Hudson and Harlem rivers. Most New York news outlets focused on the immediate fallout from the leak at the North River Wastewater Treatment...

Dec 29, 2010 03:17 PM

NJ Spotlight

Trenton's statehouse startup

By Lauren Kirchner

TRENTON, NEW JERSEY — NJSpotlight.com, which CJR profiled in September 2010, is a policy-focused news site based in the Trenton, N.J. state house. Launched in early 2010 by two former Newark Star-Ledger reporters, John Mooney and Tom Johnson, the site focuses on issues relating to the state budget, environmental and energy legislation, education policy, and health care. "We are nonpartisan, independent, policy-centered and community-minded," says...

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...

Oct 24, 2011 04:44 PM

Ocean Beach Bulletin

Hyperlocal news for San Francisco's western edge

By Alex Fekula

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA — San Francisco is home to one of the largest urban beaches in the country, Ocean Beach. The surrounding neighborhoods, the Sunset and the Richmond District, resemble suburban sprawl more than a city, and are comprised mostly of families, surfers, and those seeking a quieter, less urban-intensive lifestyle. The Ocean Beach Bulletin provides hyperlocal coverage for this part of town,...

Mar 24, 2011 12:49 PM

Oklahoma Watch

An investigative nonprofit for the Sooner State

By Brendan Buhler

Oklahoma.Watch.png NORMAN, OKLAHOMA — Oklahoma Watch is a nonprofit investigative reporting website launched in December 2010 under editor Tom Lindley, a veteran of the state's two major daily papers, the Oklahoman and the Tulsa World--credentials that Lindley says got him the job, as the two papers share resources with Oklahoma Watch and the editors of both papers sit on its executive board. Lindley says Oklahoma...

Sep 20, 2011 02:23 PM

Open Media Boston

Boston news and progressive commentary

By Evan MacDonald

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS — About five years ago, Jason Pramas identified what he calls a "metropolitan news vacuum" in Boston. He noticed that local news outlets were focusing more on beats like entertainment and sports than on local issues like labor strikes, social injustice, and community news. At the time, Pramas was a Ph.D candidate in public policy at the University of Massachusetts-Boston with an acute...

Mar 24, 2011 11:45 AM

Ozarks Unbound

One man (and three contributors) in the wide world of northwest Arkansas

By Sam Eifling

Ozarks.Unbound.png FAYETTEVILLE, ARKANSAS — The challenges have been twofold for Christopher Spencer, the veteran reporter who founded Ozarks Unbound after he was laid off from his gig at the Morning News of Northwest Arkansas. The first, simply, is revenue. The second is establishing a journalistic brand when there's only one of him (with three contributors) cranking out news about northwest Arkansas, a metro region of...

Jun 29, 2011 12:03 PM

PatersonPress.com

Hard news meets hyperlocal in Paterson, N.J.

By Arvin Temkar

PATERSON, NEW JERSEY — PatersonPress.com, a hyperlocal news site for Paterson, N.J., brings an old-school mentality to a new era of journalism. Editor Joe Malinconico said that traditional, shoe leather reporting is what makes Paterson Press shine. That's also what won the site two New Jersey Society of Professional Journalists awards only eight months after it launched. Paterson Press launched in October 2010...

Oct 31, 2011 01:49 PM

Pegasus News

News, entertainment, and local information for the Dallas-Fort Worth area

By Tyler Jones

pegasus.news.png RICHARDSON, TEXAS — Pegasus News was made to cover an event like the state fair of Texas. Both are large-scale, interactive, and can fry something up for everyone. Over 2.5 million people attend the fair each year, the largest in the country, and from the end of September to the event's conclusion three weeks later, Pegasus News adds a special homepage tab directing...

Mar 25, 2011 03:05 AM

Philadelphia Neighborhoods

Award-winning student journalism from Temple University

By Daniel Denvir

Philadelphia.Neighborhood.png PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA — Philadelphia Neighborhoods is a news website reporting on the city's poor and working class neighborhoods, produced by undergraduate journalism students at Temple University. The site is part of Temple journalism's Multimedia Urban Reporting Lab, which emphasizes two things deemed important for future journalists: hyper-local reporting and the ability to tell stories via text, photos, and video. <ul...

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,"...

Aug 16, 2011 11:54 AM

Planet Princeton

One reporter goes from freelance to Facebook to hyperlocal

By Leah Binkovitz

PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY — When friends and readers complained to Princeton-based reporter Krystal Knapp that they couldn't find her stories on NJ.com, a combined web presence for papers owned by Advance Publications in New Jersey, she decided to start her own site serving the city she loves. Knapp was, and continues to be, a freelancer for The Times of Trenton, but she wanted...

Mar 25, 2011 03:02 AM

PlanPhilly

Reporting on urban planning and Philadelphia's changing neighborhoods

By Daniel Denvir

PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA — PlanPhilly is a news website providing in-depth coverage of the city's built environment. The site was launched in 2006 to cover the planning process for the Delaware River waterfront. PennPraxis, a planning consultancy at the University of Pennsylvania School of Design, asked journalist Matt Golas, former metro editor at The Philadelphia Inquirer, to come in and give them some advice. He...

Mar 24, 2011 03:43 PM

Prince of Petworth

Purveyor of D.C. local news and oddities

By Alex Fekula

WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA — For the Prince of Petworth, a good stroll is the preferred way to travel. In his pre-blogging days, Dan Silverman would take long walks through the streets of Washington, D.C. and observe intriguing urban phenomena: a compelling bit of graffiti, a notable piece of architecture, a curious new business. Soon, however, merely observing such spectacles proved to be insufficient; so...

Oct 11, 2011 10:00 AM

Progress Illinois

A labor-backed site providing original news and analysis beyond the mainstream

By Nicolas Zimmerman

progress.illinois.png CHICAGO, ILLINOIS — While the genesis of Progress Illinois dates back to 2006, the left-leaning news and commentary site officially launched in March 2008, riding a wave of national interest in Illinois politics propelled by then-senator Barack Obama's unlikely bid for the presidency. The spotlight on Illinois intensified further that year with ex-governor Rod Blagojevich's descent from up-and-coming progressive politician to perpetual punch...

May 20, 2011 12:13 PM

Remapping Debate

An NYC-based site that seeks to throw a wrench in conventional wisdom on public policy

By Isaac Olson

NEW YORK, NEW YORK — Armed with flexible hypotheses rather than fill-in-the-blank assumptions, the public policy focused e-journal Remapping Debate aims to cut through the all-too-common political smokescreen to expose the true motivations behind--and the aftereffects of--top-level decision making, political or otherwise. Be it digging into the true cost of social security or taking a well-rounded look at proposed healthcare reform, Remapping Debate, launched...

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...

Jan 3, 2011 05:34 PM

Salon

The general interest online magazine has learned to get specific

By Sean Gandert

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA — Just because Salon is the oldest general interest publication on the Internet doesn't mean that it's been standing still. Founded in 1995 as a web journalism alternative, producing articles as intelligent and well-written as its peers in print, the website's path has been bumpy, but it is still recognizably the same outlet that first appeared over fifteen years ago. The...

Jun 3, 2011 11:38 AM

Seattle PostGlobe (Defunct)

Seattle-centric reporting and aggregation, and a place for former Post-Intelligencer staffers to practice their craft

By Alex Fekula

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON — [Editor's Note: The Seattle PostGlobe announced that it would cease publication on July 29, 2011. Sally Deneen, the site's co-founder and news curator (and the journalist interviewed for the profile below), wrote about the decision here. This profile was originally published on June 3, 2011.] When the Seattle Post-Intelligencer laid off nearly all its staff and went online-only in March of...

Dec 31, 2010 12:24 AM

Slate

The Internet's old guard general interest publication has never slowed down

By Sean Gandert

NEW YORK, NEW YORK — "Slate's overall mission is to create really intelligent, witty, durable web journalism; [that mission] has been more or less the same since 1996," says David Plotz, the site's editor. Slate is perhaps best known as one of the first publications to prove that a high-quality editorial product could exist and thrive online, but it didn't earn that reputation...

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...

Sep 12, 2011 02:32 PM

Stateline.org

Filling a reporting vacuum at statehouses nationwide

By Jeremy White

Stateline.otg.png 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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Oct 27, 2011 02:56 PM

The Bay Citizen

Local civic journalism in the national spotlight

By Lauren Kirchner

bay.citizen.png 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...

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....

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...

Mar 24, 2011 04:14 PM

The Dagger

Sharp local reporting for Harford County, Md.

By Alex Fekula

The.Dagger.png 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...

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...

Mar 24, 2011 10:39 PM

The Daily Yonder

Local rural news on a national level. Yes, you heard right.

By Chris Benz

Daily.Yonder.png 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...

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...

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...

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....

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

The.Iowa.Independent.png 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

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...

Jan 19, 2011 04:42 PM

The Locust Fork News-Journal

A one-man purveyor of mobile journalism performance art

By Michael Meyer

locust.fork.news-journal.png 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...

Oct 21, 2011 10:57 AM

The Manomet Current

Hyperlocal news for two Plymouth, Mass. neighborhoods

By Alex Fekula

manomet.current.png 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...

Oct 31, 2011 02:50 PM

The Natomas Buzz

Hyperlocal news for a Sacramento, Calif. community

By Maura R. O'Connor

the.natomas.buzz.png 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...

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...

Sep 4, 2012 12:24 AM

The Outer Banks Voice

Online-only news for the North Carolina coastline

By Chase Scheinbaum

the.outer.banks.voice.png NAGS HEAD, NC — In August 2011, when Hurricane Irene menaced the Eastern seaboard, The Outer Banks Voice was less than a year old. Drawing its name from a 200-mile ribbon of North Carolina's coastline, the online-only news source fed frequent updates to residents of this vulnerable area during the storm. The coverage was local, but clicks came from far and wide--many from...

Mar 24, 2011 04:42 PM

The Post

Social media gurus of South Dakota

By Justin Yang

The.Post.png SIOUX FALLS, SOUTH DAKOTA — The Post, a story co-op site in which a team of volunteers and staff create and publish content, was founded by Heather Mangan in 2009 to cover stories that were not being covered by traditional media. Published by 9 Clouds, Inc., a social media marketing and consulting firm in Sioux Falls, The Post has created an Internet...

Sep 21, 2011 11:39 AM

The Sacramento Press

An ad network helps pay the bills for local news

By Caitlin Kasunich

SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA — Before October 2008, Ben Ilfeld and Geoff Samek, the founders of The Sacramento Press, had no journalism experience. In college, Ilfeld had studied economics and political science, while Samek had studied computer science. What the Sacramento natives did have in common, though, was a desire to develop a new website emphasizing reader discussion around local news and events. Before long,...

Oct 12, 2011 11:51 PM

The Saginaw Valley Journal

A for-profit campus news source

By Alex Fekula

UNIVERSITY CENTER, MICHIGAN — Pinned to the bulletin board at the editorial offices of the Saginaw Valley State University-based Saginaw Valley Journal is an article entitled "Leggings Aren't Pants!" An opinion piece featured in a rival campus-run newspaper, the article acts as a constant reminder for the Journal's editorial staff of "what not to do." Looking to provide the SVSU community with a...

Sep 15, 2011 11:13 AM

The San Francisco Appeal

An online newspaper for the Bay Area

By Julia Pyper

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA — Eve Batey, editor and publisher of The San Francisco Appeal, thinks it's important to stick to the journalism basics. She says that a clean layout, good writing, and quality reporting are what drive a successful publication. SF Appeal has dubbed itself "San Francisco's Online Newspaper." The content is almost entirely locally focused--San Francisco news, culture and entertainment, food, weather,...

Mar 2, 2012 10:00 AM

The Sanatoga Post

A one-man news network in Pennsylvania

By Erik Shilling

the.sanatoga.post.png SANATOGA, PENNSYLVANIA — When Joseph Zlomek decided to go back into the news business in August 2008 and launch The Sanatoga Post, he drew inspiration from nostalgia. Zlomek had fond, decades-old memories of the Eagle Bulletin, a small weekly based in Fayetteville, N.Y., a suburb of Syracuse, near where he was raised. The paper, Zlomek says, was regularly the hottest read among townsfolk....

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...

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...

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...

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...

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,...

Oct 26, 2011 05:27 PM

Village Soup (Defunct)

A small media chain blends print and digital local journalism

By Lauren Kirchner

village.soup.png ROCKLAND, MAINE — [UPDATE: On Friday March 9, 2012 Village Soup president Richard M. Anderson announced the closure of all Village Soup publications. The statement did not make clear how the closure would affect the nine independent news organizations which use the Village Soup platform under licensing agreements. Anderson was not immediately available for comment. We'll post further updates to this story when...

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...

Mar 25, 2011 03:09 AM

VTDigger.org

Deep coverage for the Green Mountain State

By Daniel Luzer

VT.Digger.png 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...

Jun 14, 2011 09:53 AM

Watershed Post

News and environmental reporting for the Catskills

By Brett Norman

DELHI, NEW YORK — The Watershed Post, an online news source for five counties in upstate New York, made a splash last fall with its real-time coverage of widespread flooding that swept one woman to her death in the Neversink River. Its editors call this back country in the Catskill Mountains a "news desert," mostly bereft of local media coverage,...

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...

Oct 31, 2011 10:00 AM

West Orlando News Online

Left-of-center community news for Orlando, Fla.

By Paige Rentz

west.orlando.news.online.png ORLANDO, FLORIDA — For Keith Longmore, it's a point of pride that the Tea Party has targeted West Orlando News Online, the left-of-center local news site he publishes in Orange County, Florida, for a service it provides to locals hit hard by the foreclosure crisis. According to Longmore, posting information and links to help readers apply for government assistance programs is all in...

Apr 17, 2012 12:47 PM

Worthit2u.net

Bringing online news to rural Georgia

By Tyler Jones

worthit2u.net.png SYLVESTER, GEORGIA — Matt Medders was too young to be the chairman of the Worth County Commissioners, and Sherry Walls knew it. Although beating the incumbent by 208 votes, Medders was a few months short of meeting the legal requirement that the commissioner for the rural county in southwest Georgia be at least 27 years old. Before she could break the story for the weekly Sylvester Local...

Jan 5, 2011 07:19 PM

WyoFile

Enterprise reporting for the Equality State

By Alex Fekula

CASPER, WY — [UPDATE: On September 5, 2012, the Knight Foundation announced that WyoFile was yet again a recipient of its Community Information Challenge Grant. The site received $62,000 from Knight and an equal amount from the Wyoming Community Foundation. It will hire one full-time reporter dedicated to the Wyoming Legislature and one part-time minority reporter, who will cover the Wind River Indian Reservation.]...

Oct 31, 2011 02:26 PM

YubaNet

Online news stretching the Sierras

By Tyler Jones

NEVADA CITY, CALIFORNIA — "The legacy media don't see this area as a market," says Pascale Fusshoeller, editor and co-founder of YubaNet in Nevada City, California. When looking at a map of the Sierra Nevada, one can understand why. The Range of Light, as John Muir described it, stretches 400 sparsely populated miles along California's Central Valley, containing the...