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

Mar 1, 2012 04:14 PM

55423.info

A community college-affiliated hyperlocal for Richfield, Minn.

By Leah Binkovitz

55423.info.png RICHFIELD, MINNESOTA — Mark Plenke, a journalism and communications instructor at Normandale Community College, created 55423.info during his recent yearlong sabbatical, envisioning the site as both a news outlet for the town of Richfield and a hands-on course for his students. Before launching the site (which takes its name from Richfield's zip code), Plenke conducted a survey of 43 community members at a...

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...

Jan 13, 2012 11:47 AM

Baltimore Brew

Hard news for Charm City

By Alex Fekula

baltimore.brew.png BALTIMORE, MARYLAND — After seventeen years as a staff writer and reporter at The Washington Post, Fern Shen opted to take a buyout amid significant downsizing at the paper. But she wanted to stay in the news business, and felt that Baltimore, the city she called home throughout her time at the Post, needed "more journalistic boots on the ground," as well as "something more...

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...

Aug 18, 2011 12:25 PM

Birthplace Magazine

News and reviews for the NYC hip hop scene

By Julia Pyper

NEW YORK, NEW YORK — Birthplace Magazine was created with a mission: to highlight the best of New York hip hop. The name comes from New York's status as the musical genre's hometown. Built on a solid foundation of ideas and expertise, the website has gained momentum, but now faces a number of marketing and editorial challenges before it can continue to expand....

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...

Dec 5, 2011 11:54 AM

Brownstoner

Covering (and riding) Brooklyn's real estate wave

By Maura R. O'Connor

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK — In 2004, a number of forces inspired Jonathan Butler to launch popular Brooklyn-based website Brownstoner.com. He was working at a hedge fund in Manhattan, a job that was losing its luster for him. A self-described real estate junkie, he had just submerged himself in the city's market for months and finally purchased a brownstone house in a quickly gentrifying...

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...

Oct 25, 2011 11:54 AM

Burnt Orange Report

A political news blog's move from undergraduate pursuit to progressive stalwart

By Tyler Jones

AUSTIN, TEXAS — In 2002, Republicans gained control of the Texas state legislature for the first time in over a century, allowing then-congressman Tom DeLay a chance to push for an unprecedented voter redistricting that would give Texas Republicans a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives. With few progressive watchdogs online in the Lone Star State, undergraduate students at the University of Texas stepped...

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...

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...

Feb 23, 2012 05:33 PM

Charlottesville Tomorrow

Nonprofit news on growth, development, and local politics

By Caitlin Kasunich

charlottesville.tomorrow.png CHARLOTTESVILLE, VIRGINIA — Although Charlottesville Tomorrow publishes a new story almost every day and has a close partnership with the local newspaper, it wasn't supposed to turn out that way. In early 2005, its founders simply wanted to launch a website that citizens could visit for objective, nonpartisan information on growth, development and local politics. "We set out to just be a community...

Nov 14, 2011 12:34 PM

ChicagoTalks.org

Student-reported, university-based community news

By Ian Fullerton

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS — Shortly after launching what is now ChicagoTalks.org in 2006, Barbara Iverson realized that the project's original vision of enlisting citizen journalists to cover neighborhood beats just wasn't materializing. Originally pitched as a "meta-placelog" that would cover news in all fifty of the city's wards, the site received its initial funding from the school and through a grant from the start-up...

Aug 1, 2011 11:53 AM

ClearHealthCosts.com

Guiding consumers through the health care marketplace

By Maura R. O'Connor

PELHAM, NEW YORK — Jeanne Pinder had a storied career in print journalism: she was born into a newspaper family and spent twenty-three years at The New York Times. But today Pinder is venturing into new territory by founding a start-up website that aims to bring transparency and accountability to the health care marketplace. ClearHealthCosts.com was launched in beta form by Pinder in...

Jan 28, 2012 01:39 PM

Colorado Public News

Health care coverage for Centennial State newspapers and television stations

By Alex Fekula

colorado.public.news.png DENVER, COLORADO — With layoffs at the Denver Post and the closing of the Rocky Mountain News in 2009, few places have lost as much reporting talent in recent years as the Mile High City. Ann Imse, a former reporter for the Rocky who had previously worked as a correspondent for the Associated Press during the collapse of the Soviet Union, saw the writing on...

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...

Jan 26, 2012 01:55 PM

Connecticut Health Investigative Team

Far-reaching niche investigations for the Nutmeg State

By Maura R. O'Connor

connecticut.health.investigative.team.png NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT — In 2010, award-winning journalist Lisa Chedekel published a story detailing how more than a dozen Connecticut doctors who had been sanctioned in other states for illegal or substandard practices were able to practice freely in Connecticut. She found that Connecticut rarely took action against doctors, even when their licenses had been censured in other states. When published in December...

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...

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...

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 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...

May 7, 2012 01:46 PM

Eye on Annapolis

Unadorned, up-to-the-minute news for Maryland's capital city

By Maura R. O'Connor

eye.on.annapolis.png ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND — Eye on Annapolis, a website covering Maryland's Chesapeake Bay and capital city of Annapolis, has forged a pragmatic model for local news coverage, carving out a niche for itself among the city's media by providing readers quick and frequent news updates. The site focuses on breaking news including traffic reports and crime, as well as a community calendar, coverage of...

Jan 5, 2011 04:17 PM

FairWarning

Consumer-oriented investigative journalism

By Colin Fleming

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA — As the Los Angeles Times newsroom braced itself for another round of buyouts in 2008, Myron Levin, an investigative reporter who had tracked corporate misconduct and lax government regulation for the paper for years, thought hard about what he wanted to do with his career. He took a few walks around the block, talked it over with some colleagues, and then finally...

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...

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...

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...

Jul 6, 2012 09:04 AM

Gossip Extra

Celebrity news goes local in South Florida

By Brian Patrick Eha

gossip.extra.png PALM BEACH, FL — Starting in 2004, Jose Lambiet had a near seven-year run as South Florida's go-to source for celebrity news and society gossip. He plied his trade for the Palm Beach Post in a column called "Page Two"--a deliberate homage to the New York Post's "Page Six." While other reporters skimmed the surface of breaking news, the Belgian-born Lambiet tapped his sources in the Palm...

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...

May 18, 2011 03:33 PM

GothamSchools

Original reporting on the largest school system in the country

By Arvin Temkar

NEW YORK, NEW YORK — As battles rage over education reform nationwide, one tiny New York news site reports on New York City's public school system--the nation's largest--with coverage that endeavors to be "fact-based, constructive, and non-ideological." GothamSchools reports on the nitty-gritty of the city's education system, from explaining how schools shut down to analyzing mayoral policies. <li...

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...

Jan 4, 2011 01:59 PM

I-News

Colorado investigative journalism with statewide import and local impact

By Colin Fleming

DENVER, COLORADO — On December 16, 2010, Laura Frank, the executive director of I-News (formerly known as the Rocky Mountain Investigative News Network), delivered her commencement speech for the University of Colorado's soon-to-be-defunct journalism school. Frank was optimistic about the future of the industry: "I now recognize you actually are embarking on this adventure at one of the most exciting times - perhaps...

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...

Mar 24, 2011 03:48 PM

Inside the Hall

The go-to site for Hoosier basketball fanatics

By Connor Boals

Inside.The.Hall.png BLOOMINGTON, INDIANA — What began as a couple buddies blogging about their passion for their alma mater has grown into a mecca for fans of Indiana University basketball. Inside the Hall is the perfect web resource for a region known for its devout basketball culture. Started by Alex Bozich, Ryan Corazza, and Eamonn Brennan in 2007 as a hobby, the site soon grew to...

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...

Jan 4, 2011 02:10 PM

Investigative Newsource

Investigative journalism for San Diego and beyond

By Colin Fleming

SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA — Investigative editor Lorie Hearn does it all. She runs the business, raises the funds, edits the stories, does the books, and dusts the office. She even brings the bagels and cream cheese. Hearn, a former editor for the San Diego Union-Tribune, now leads Investigate Newsource, formerly known as The Watchdog Institute, a three-person nonprofit investigative outlet run out of San...

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...

Jan 19, 2012 03:19 PM

Leimert Park Beat

A hyperlocal news site and social network for a neighborhood in Los Angeles

By Chasen Marshall

leimert.park.beat.png LEIMERT PARK, CALIFORNIA — Eddie North-Hager moved to Leimert Park, an 11,000-person neighborhood in Los Angeles, because it was the type of community in which he wanted to raise his family. And yet whenever he read anything about the area in the news, it seemed that he encountered endless versions of the same negative story. "If you would search for things about the neighborhood online,...

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!",...

Nov 7, 2011 03:26 PM

LocallyGrownNews.com

A network of news sites devoted to local food coverage

By Maura R. O'Connor

locallygrownnews.com.png ELON, NORTH CAROLINA — Journalist Michelle Ferrier has been involved in creating online communities for over ten years, and was the editor of MytopiaCafe.com, a now-defunct hyperlocal news offering by the Daytona Beach News-Journal. Although MytopiaCafe gained a devoted following of 3,000 users, Ferrier argued in a 2009 piece for Poynter that the site was doomed from the beginning. In retrospect, Ferrier felt...

Jul 13, 2011 12:54 PM

LymeLine

Hyperlocal news for two small Connecticut towns

By Mike Madden

OLD LYME, CONNECTICUT — Founded in 2003 by veteran publisher Jack Turner and now headed by news editor Olwen Logan, LymeLine had the humble beginnings one might expect for a site that covers two towns (Lyme and Old Lyme) with a combined population of fewer than 10,000. When Turner first decided to venture into the world of online journalism, paperless news had yet to...

Jan 4, 2011 01:20 PM

Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting

Filling the reporting gap in Maine's state capital

By Colin Fleming

HALLOWELL, MAINE — As the number of reporters covering Maine state government dropped from twenty in 1989 to fewer than ten today, a wife-and-husband duo, two old-school reporters, stepped up. In 2010, Naomi Schalit, a former reporter and producer at Maine Public Radio, and John Christie, former president and publisher of Central Maine Newspapers, launched the Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, a watchdog...

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 12, 2011 12:02 PM

My Edmonds News

A burgeoning news source and business in the Seattle suburbs

By Caitlin Kasunich

my.edmonds.news.png EDMONDS, WASHINGTON — Since graduating from Seattle University in 1979 with a journalism degree, Teresa Wippel's career has veered in and out of journalism, but she hopes that she's back in the fourth estate for good now. She started out working as a community newspaper reporter for a chain of Seattle-area weeklies and a small daily paper in Port Angeles, Wash., before becoming a staff...

Sep 16, 2011 11:16 AM

MyEugene

Community news and citizen journalism for Oregon's second city

By Leah Binkovitz

EUGENE, OREGON — Consider MyEugene your full-service hyperlocal news site in the second largest city in Oregon. If you're new to town and want to know where to buy dog food or recycle Styrofoam, just ask Jaculynn Peterson, MyEugene's founder and editor. Like many of MyEugene's readers, Peterson is not native to Eugene or the West Coast. But when she moved there in...

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...

Jul 5, 2011 02:37 PM

NEast Philly

Neighborhood news for working-class Philadelphia

By Alex Fekula

PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA — While still an undergraduate journalism major at Temple University, Shannon McDonald launched the hyperlocal NEast Philly, an online only news source that provides daily coverage for the Northeast section of Philadelphia. In the site's own words, NEast Philly offers "daily news, analysis, multimedia, columns and commentary on everything that interests the proud, working-class neighborhoods of The NEast." <li...

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 04:45 PM

Nevada News Bureau

Franklin Center-affiliated statehouse news for the Battle Born State

By Brendan Buhler

Nevada.News.Bureau.png HENDERSON, NEVADA — The Nevada News Bureau is a nonprofit organization launched in October 2009 to cover state politics and statehouse news and provide its work free of charge to other outlets in the Battle Born State. It was originally formed under the auspices of Citizen Outreach, a conservative nonprofit organization run by Chuck Muth, Nevada's leading conservative anti-tax activist. Elizabeth Crum, formerly Citizen...

Jan 4, 2011 01:33 PM

New England Center for Investigative Reporting

Hard-hitting investigations in and around the Boston area

By Colin Fleming

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS — In less than two years and with an annual budget of less than $500,000, the New England Center for Investigative Reporting has taken on the state division of banks and the Salvation Army. They've brought down a high-level public official, and had their work appear in publications across the state and in every medium imaginable. And they've...

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...

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...

May 23, 2011 02:55 PM

Obit Magazine

Making the most of the dead beat

By Lauren Kirchner

PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY — Obit, an online magazine launched in 2007 to examine life, death, and the transitions in between, isn't as dark as you might initially think. "What death can mean to the living and what living may have meant to the dead," reads a tagline on its masthead. "Death is only half the story. Obit is about life..." reads another. Far more...

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 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...

Mar 24, 2011 03:12 PM

Peach Pundit

Conservative local political commentary from the founders of RedState

By Chris Benz

Peach.Pundit.png ALPHARETTA, GEORGIA — With its simple design and lively comments section, Peach Pundit resembles many right-leaning political opinion blogs. What may set it apart is its pedigree: Clayton Wagar and Erick Erickson, both among the founders of conservative mega-site RedState, founded Peach Pundit in 2005 as a side project. The site covers Georgia state and local politics with a conversational flair, but,...

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,"...

Oct 31, 2011 11:46 AM

Plunderbund

Ohio state politics from a progressive point of view

By Alysia Santo

HAMILTON, OHIO — Like many political news sites, Plunderbund was born out of frustration. Ohio-based writer Eric Vessels had been disengaged from politics for years, but when President Bush was reelected in 2004, his apathy transformed into anger. "I realized I hadn't been an active part of doing anything to make the country go in the direction I wanted it to," says Vessels....

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...

Jan 3, 2011 05:17 PM

PopMatters

Pop culture criticism with an academic bent

By Sean Gandert

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS — Back when the Internet was still the sole purview of academics and nerds, journalist Sarah Zupko, then working in marketing at Tribune Media Services, founded a site catering to those specific audiences. That site was not in fact PopMatters, but it was a progenitor of sorts, providing web links for researchers studying pop culture. During the years that followed, Zupko's interests...

Dec 20, 2011 12:06 AM

Prairie Village Post

Hyperlocal news for three small Kansas City suburbs

By Tyler Jones

prairie.village.post.png PRAIRIE VILLAGE, KANSAS — On November 21, 2011, Kansas Governor Sam Brownback spoke to a group of high school students on the importance of being active in their government and community. Senior Emma Sullivan wasted no time in exercising her First Amendment rights when she tweeted: "Just made mean comments at gov Brownback and told him he sucked, in person. #heblowsalot." Brownback's communication staff flagged the tweet...

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...

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...

Jan 23, 2012 12:21 PM

redbankgreen

Hyperlocal news for Red Bank, New Jersey

By Erik Shilling

RED BANK, NEW JERSEY — On June 1, 2006, when John T. Ward and his wife Trish Russoniello launched redbankgreen, a hyperlocal news site for Red Bank, New Jersey, Ward says that he had little idea what to expect. With the help of Russoniello, a graphic artist, Ward had designed a bare-bones website on Typepad, and, the morning of the launch, e-mailed a...

Aug 23, 2012 02:45 PM

Richmond BizSense

An online-only business journal for Virginia's capital

By Brian Patrick Eha

richmond.bizsense.png RICHMOND, VA — Not long ago, Richmond, VA was one of the largest US cities without a business journal. That changed on January 1, 2008, the day that local online startup Richmond BizSense ran its first story. The site, which subsists almost entirely on local advertising and claims to have enjoyed three straight years of profitability, combines a web editorial strategy with a...

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...

Jul 28, 2011 03:16 PM

Rust Wire

Reporting on urban and social issues in the Rust Belt

By Anthony Badami

CLEVELAND, OHIO — Rust Wire, a collaborative media project which bills itself as "a voice for change in the Industrial Midwest," was founded in 2009 by Angie Schmitt and Kate Giammarise in order to challenge the notion that some economically enfeebled towns in the Midwestern United States "weren't worth saving." The site, which features original reporting and photography, first-person essays, and opinion...

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...

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...

Jan 25, 2012 12:56 AM

Sheepshead Bites

Hyperlocal stories by the seaside in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn

By Caitlin Kasunich

sheepshead.bites.png BROOKLYN, NEW YORK — Nearly four years ago, the late renowned Brooklyn blogger Robert Guskind pointed out in his coverage of the 2008 Brooklyn Blogfest the pressing need for hyperlocal news sites in the borough's least-covered communities. "While some neighborhoods like Carroll Gardens and Park Slope are written about at length, others, such as Sunset Park and Sheepshead Bay - where...

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...

Jan 3, 2011 06:03 PM

Slant

Omnivorous pop culture criticism

By Sean Gandert

WEEHAWKEN, NEW JERSEY — Founded in 2001 as an outlet for its editors' frustrations with their day jobs, Slant Magazine began humbly as a two-man online reviewing operation, with Ed Gonzalez writing about film and Sal Cinquemani writing about music. The two covered only a smattering of the biggest releases in each field, but as other writers began volunteering to work for the site,...

Dec 31, 2010 12:51 AM

Small Wars Journal

An information hub and blogging network for some of the biggest names in military thought

By Michael Meyer

WASHINGTON, DISTRICT of COLUMBIA — Although it's right to call Small Wars Journal a niche publication, doing so misrepresents the site's true influence. "Small wars," as the site uses it, is a kind of catch-all term for counter-insurgency, counter-terrorism, and other pervasive features of the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Although SWJ may have the narrow readership of a trade or academic journal,...

Apr 20, 2011 02:57 PM

Solutions

Colorado's source for health policy reporting and discussion

By Dohini Patel

DENVER, COLORADO — Solutions, launched on December 1st, 2010, is an independent, nonprofit news platform on health policy issues in Colorado and the Rocky Mountain West. Solutions draws its inspiration from the format and niche content of another local news site, Education News Colorado. According to Solutions editor Diane Carman, the site "avoids the political back and forth that traditional media covers...

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...

May 31, 2011 11:48 AM

Street Fight

A news source for the burgeoning hyperlocal industry

By Arvin Temkar

BOULDER, COLORADO — A site named "Street Fight" has to deliver action, and the brand new site dedicated to covering the hyperlocal industry expects to do just that-- though it's probably not the kind of action a teenager who stumbles onto the site after a Google search would expect. Hyperlocal is becoming big business. While the term usually refers to local news, Street Fight...

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...

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...

Mar 31, 2011 11:40 AM

The Bold Italic

Gannett's bold move in consumer-oriented journalism

By Kathy Gilsinan

The.Bold.Italic.png SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA — The Bold Italic is an experiment. Slickly designed but still in "beta," the Gannett-owned San Francisco website has an image-heavy layout, an alt-weekly feel, and a focus on helping its readers find new places to spend their free time. "It's not meant to replace anything" in the San Francisco print media, says Michael Maness, who, as Gannett's vice president of...

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...

Dec 14, 2011 02:12 PM

The Heavy Table

Food journalism and criticism for the upper Midwest

By Leah Binkovitz

the.heavy.table.png MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA — Food journalism is reaching a zenith of popularity and cool. Scores of people tune in to watch Anthony Bourdain search the world for something to eat. The New York Times's food critic leaves his post and readers across the country speculate over replacements. But the tide of foodie attention has also brought us endless comment chains on Yelp!, countless half-hearted blogs, and...

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...

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 <a...

Mar 24, 2011 12:07 PM

The Iowa Republican

Reporting-heavy partisan news

By Joel Meares

The.Iowa.Republican.png DES MOINES, IOWA — While serving as political director of the Republican Party of Iowa in 2007, Craig Robinson had one of those out-there, against-the-grain ideas that rarely survive the journey from imagination to reality. Republicans, he recalls, were having big problems in terms of media coverage. "It wasn't that we didn't have people in our state doing good stuff, it...

Dec 15, 2011 11:32 AM

The Lo-Down

News for New York's Lower East Side

By David Riedel

the.lo.down.png NEW YORK, NEW YORK — When husband and wife Ed Litvak and Traven Rice started The Lo-Down, a hyperlocal news site reporting on Manhattan's Lower East Side, it wasn't with the intention of creating a business. Litvak, a television news producer, and Rice, a filmmaker, took the site live in January 2009 after two years living in the neighborhood, and thought of it...

Apr 20, 2012 06:22 PM

The Local East Village

NYU student reporting for the NYT

By Maura R. O'Connor

east.vallage.local.png NEW YORK, NEW YORK — In 2009, The New York Times made drastic changes in its approach to local news. The year saw the closure of the papers City section, but also the launch of The Local. A web-based hyperlocal reporting initiative, The Local created two separate sections of nytimes.com: one devoted to the Brooklyn neighborhood of Fort Greene and...

Jun 30, 2011 11:50 AM

The Los Angeles Review of Books

A book review section for a post-print age

By Lauren Kirchner

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA — Tom Lutz, nonfiction author and creative writing professor, offers a startling statistic about the book business on his new website: "twenty times as many titles are published each year than were in 1980, and we have one twentieth of the serious book reviews." The Los Angeles Review of Books, an online magazine launched by Lutz in April 2011, is his...

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...

Jan 14, 2011 12:47 PM

The Rapidian

Grand Rapids-based citizen journalism

By Alex Fekula

GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN — Grand Rapids-based The Rapidian takes the concept of grassroots citizen journalism to heart. A community-wide project, operating under a for-us/by-us ethos, The Rapidian was created by the Grand Rapids Community Media Center, a nonprofit media and technology support organization for the Grand Rapids area. The Center began as a public access television station, and currently operates two television stations, a noncommercial...

Dec 31, 2010 01:06 AM

The Root

A strong online presence for the African American press

By Dohini Patel

WASHINGTON, DISTRICT of COLUMBIA — Founded in 2008, The Root continues a long tradition of black-perspective journalism in America, reporting on social, cultural, and political issues through an African American lens. With the Quincy Jones-founded Vibe folding in 2009 before its rebirth as a quarterly, and Essence and others toughing it out in a shrinking magazine market, there's been a...

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,...

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...

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...

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,...

Jan 5, 2012 11:22 AM

Urban Milwaukee

Reporting and advocacy on urban issues in the Cream City

By Paige Rentz

urban.milwaukee.png MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN — After merging two local blogs to launch a news site several years ago, web developers Jeramey Jannene and Dave Reid have a strong presence in downtown Milwaukee, serving up local urban news on their combined effort, Urban Milwaukee. Jannene and Reid do not shy away from writing with a very defined perspective. "We're not simply reporting; there's a level of...

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...

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...

Sep 29, 2011 11:02 AM

West Seattle Blog

Defining hyperlocal in both news and business

By Erik Shilling

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON — In a city that is known for its steady rain, it's not surprising that it was the weather that put West Seattle Blog on the map as well. The blog, which now averages more than 80,000 visitors per month according to Quantcast and is routinely cited in breaking news stories by the Seattle Times, started in 2005 merely as a...

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.]...

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...

Jan 4, 2011 03:45 PM

Yale Environment 360

In-depth environmental news, commentary, and analysis

By Brett Norman

NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT — Yale Environment 360 is an online magazine that publishes long-form environmental journalism by prominent reporters, academics, and policymakers. A nonprofit backed primarily by two heavyweight philanthropic foundations, e360, as it's known, isn't subject to the market pressures squeezing many outlets. That leaves its full-time staff of three to focus on producing in-depth news, commentary, and analysis--and, more recently, extended video...

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...