CJR's Guide to Online News Startups
-
Results
Organizations filtered by 6-10 Editorial Staff.
-
Dec 29, 2010 12:02 AM
Alaska Dispatch
Enterprise reporting from the Last Frontier
Continue reading
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 8, 2011 12:17 PM
Ars Technica
The old guard of tech news, mixing context, the long view, and a sense of humor
Continue reading
NEW YORK, NEW YORK — Since its founding in 1998, Ars Technica has grown to become a trusted, go-to source for news, reviews, and information about scientific advancements, technological breakthroughs, video gaming, tech policy, gadgetry, software, hardware, and everything in between. However, Ken Fisher, the site's Massachusetts-based founder and editor-in-chief, claims Ars Technica's success as one of the oldest and largest tech-focused websites isn't... -
Jan 5, 2011 08:00 PM
Baristanet
Conversational hyperlocal news for New Jersey's Essex County
Continue reading
MONTCLAIR, NEW JERSEY — There's something about the smell of steaming coffee grinds that sets the curious journalist in everyone... percolating. Coffee-guzzlers have always used cafes as something of a casual newsroom, a place for gossiping and sharing tidbits about everything from daytime soaps to national politics. And that was the starting point for Debbie Galant and Liz George, the editors, founders, and owners of the... -
Jan 4, 2011 10:35 PM
Bleacher Report
A sports news behemoth where fans do the writing, reporting, and search engine optimization
Continue reading
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA — Since its launch in 2008 after two years of development and beta testing, Bleacher Report has become a major player in online sports media. A unique combination of social networking and sports reporting, the Web site attracts a rapidly growing audience of about sixteen million unique visitors a month, according to the company. It provides Web content to partners like The Los... -
May 27, 2011 11:50 AM
Broward Bulldog
Nonprofit investigative journalism for Broward County, Fla.
Continue reading
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... -
Feb 7, 2012 12:22 PM
California HealthCare Foundation Center for Health Reporting
A health newswire for the California press
Continue reading
ALHAMBRA, CALIFORNIA — The California HealthCare Foundation's Center for Health Reporting aims to produce investigative journalism "without an agenda" and publish these stories in various print, broadcast, and web news outlets across the state. Acting as an independent news organization located at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, the center, founded in 2009, runs CenterforHealthReporting.org, where visitors can... -
Mar 24, 2011 11:55 AM
CapeCodTODAY.com
A hyperlocal (and entrepreneurial) news pioneer
Continue reading
CAPE COD, MASSACHUSETTS — CapeCodToday, one of the first hyperlocal news websites in the nation, and reports on all things Cape Cod. Topics the site covers include politics, arts and culture, business, education, and sports. Walter Brooks, founder of CapeCodToday, is a veteran journalist with over half a century of experience. Prior to establishing the site, Brooks wrote for The Village Voice, the New... -
Dec 29, 2010 03:47 PM
Capital (New York)
Observer vets hope to "do well by being good"
Continue reading
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... -
Jan 28, 2012 01:43 PM
CHARLIE Magazine
Perfecting the local online glossy in Charleston, South Carolina
Continue reading
CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA — "When you start something, what your role ends up being is quite different than what you imagined it to be," says Caroline Nuttall, founder of CHARLIE, a local culture magazine based in Charleston, South Carolina. Originally a publicist, Nuttall founded the website in 2009, and expanded it successfully to a niche market, profitability, and a part-time staff of... -
Jun 20, 2012 12:52 PM
Chicago Phoenix
Chicago LGBT media goes digital (and grows up)
Continue reading
CHICAGO, IL — Gay media in Chicago has struggled in its search for identity. In recent years, two of the city's most prominent LGBT publications, Gay Chicago Magazine and the Chicago Free Press, shut down after transitioning from the traditional "bar rag" format, with content centered on entertainment and sex culture, to a more issue-related news and features focus. Some observers speculated that revenue problems... -
Mar 24, 2011 03:22 PM
Delaware First Media News
Nonprofit news in text, audio, and video
Continue reading
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... -
Oct 24, 2011 11:00 AM
Eleven Warriors
News and commentary on Ohio State football
Continue reading
PATASKALA, OHIO — Jason Priestas was a lonely Ohio State football fan when he moved to Chicago seven years ago with his wife. He was only a six hour drive from Columbus, but he felt like he was living on the opposite end of the globe. So, in August 2006, he did what many tech-savvy fans do: he started a blog. Five years and several... -
Dec 8, 2010 03:40 PM
FactCheck.org
A "consumer advocate" for voters
Continue reading
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 03:38 PM
Gapers Block
Chicago's first city-wide news and culture blog
Continue reading
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS — Today, Gapers Block is a smartly designed Chicago blog with everything you'd expect to see on a web-specific and geographically focused publication: there's an events calendar, as well as tabs for food, arts, music, and politics. But if Gapers Block looks typical, that's only because of its own influence on the "city blog" genre. When it launched in 2003, Gapers Block... -
Jan 5, 2011 01:35 PM
GlobalPost
A new news agency helping to fill the gaps in foreign reporting
Continue reading
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
Continue reading
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 23, 2011 06:32 PM
Honolulu Civil Beat
A journalistic "civic square"
Continue reading
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... -
Jul 26, 2011 08:20 AM
Innovation Trail
Public radio takes to the web to cover upstate New York's transitioning economy
Continue reading
ROCHESTER, NEW YORK — Fifty years ago the economy of upstate New York was rooted in industry and manufacturing, but in recent decades these sectors have dramatically declined. In the 1980s alone, hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs were lost, according to the Albany Times Union. "Rochester, Buffalo, Syracuse were heavy industrial areas," says journalist Juan Vazquez. "A lot of the economy was based on... -
Jul 11, 2011 03:48 PM
Inside Facebook
Data-heavy news and analysis of the Internet's hottest property
Continue reading
PALO ALTO, CALIFORNIA — As the social networking behemoth Facebook shapes the way people think about everything from privacy to public relations, and as rumors continue to circulate about a possible 2012 IPO that could value Facebook at over $100 billion, the site Inside Facebook, which analyzes the company's growth, has become increasingly relevant. Internet media entrepreneur Justin Smith started Inside Facebook in... -
Jan 5, 2011 07:50 PM
LiveScience
Science news at light speed
Continue reading
NEW YORK, NEW YORK — LiveScience cranks out a high-volume mix of newsy and fun science curios in its efforts to chase after the fickle attentions of Internet wayfarers. Readers are voting approval with their clicks--an impressive three million-plus uniques per month--and the site, with a full-time editorial staff of five, has the relatively rare distinction of being profitable. As part of a... -
Mar 15, 2013 11:47 AM
Midway Messenger
A university startup for a small town in Kentucky
Continue reading
LEXINGTON, KY — Sometime during one of his daily commutes between his home in Frankfort and his job in Lexington, where he teaches journalism at the University of Kentucky, Al Cross had an idea. Between the two cities lies the aptly named Midway, a town with a census population of 1,647 that, at the time, was covered solely by the Woodford Sun,... -
Mar 28, 2012 12:23 PM
Mint Press News
A privately financed international news startup in Minnesota
Continue reading
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;... -
Recently Updated: Jun 28, 2011 01:18 PM
New Haven Independent
Connecticut-based leader in nonprofit community news
Continue reading
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,"... -
Jan 5, 2011 06:00 PM
Oakland Local
Susan Mernit & co. cover their corner of the Bay
Continue reading
OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA — Born from the community outrage that followed a local police-on-civilian killing caught on cell phone and spread across the Internet, one-year-old Oakland Local hopes to grow its professional reporting in 2011, while keeping its street-level perspective on the sometimes dangerous California port city it covers. Founder Susan Mernit edits and publishes the Local with an editorial staff of eight--none of whom... -
Jul 18, 2011 11:55 AM
paidContent
Covering the business of digital media since 2002
Continue reading
NEW YORK, NEW YORK — In 2008, when Guardian News & Media bought Rafat Ali's ContentNext Media, Ali wrote that the acquisition marked the "2.0 phase" of his company. It was an aptly webby phrase from the man who six years earlier founded ContentNext's flagship site, paidContent.org, with the aim of obsessively covering the economics of the then just-emerging world... -
Oct 31, 2011 01:49 PM
Pegasus News
News, entertainment, and local information for the Dallas-Fort Worth area
Continue reading
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... -
Dec 29, 2010 04:40 PM
Pitchfork
The prolific online music reviewer/kingmaker
Continue reading
CHICAGO, IL — Founded in 1995 as an Internet alternative to traditional music fanzines, Pitchfork has become a force within the music industry every bit as vital as Rolling Stone or Spin. While somewhat controversial due to its highly opinionated reviews, Pitchfork has a reputation for being able to spot new talent and bring them to a much wider audience. Bands such... -
Mar 25, 2011 03:02 AM
PlanPhilly
Reporting on urban planning and Philadelphia's changing neighborhoods
Continue reading
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... -
May 20, 2011 12:13 PM
Remapping Debate
An NYC-based site that seeks to throw a wrench in conventional wisdom on public policy
Continue reading
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
Continue reading
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... -
Jul 21, 2011 12:18 PM
Sports Gab Network
A network of over seventy sports blogs with a special focus on the NFL
Continue reading
MOUNT LAUREL, NEW JERSEY — An increasingly large player in the world of sports fan blogs, the Sports Gab Network has been one of several such news sites in the past couple of years to give many of the traditional online sports news sites a run for their money. The site was founded with just one contributor in 2006, when an NFL blog written... -
Sep 12, 2011 02:32 PM
Stateline.org
Filling a reporting vacuum at statehouses nationwide
Continue reading
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... -
Jan 5, 2011 06:08 PM
Streetsblog
Public transportation reporters/advocates in NYC, DC, LA, and SF
Continue reading
NEW YORK, NEW YORK — Transport-obsessed site Streetsblog--which focuses on everything from bike lines to subway fare hikes--was born, appropriately, in transport-obsessed New York City. Originally launched in 2006 by Aaron Naparstek, it has since branched out to cover transportation in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C. Streetsblog has its origins in the advocacy movement, focusing on local... -
Oct 25, 2011 11:47 AM
Texas Watchdog
A government watchdog for the Lone Star State
Continue reading
HOUSTON, TEXAS — The audience that reads Texas Watchdog's reporting may not be familiar with the news site or the organization behind it, but that's okay by TW. "Being online, half our visitors, quite frankly, don't know who Texas Watchdog is, and they don't care who Texas Watchdog is," says Trent Seibert, the site's founder and editor-in-chief. All that matters is the quality... -
Aug 9, 2011 10:58 AM
The Big Lead
From independent sports blog to corporate flagship
Continue reading
NEW YORK, NEW YORK — The Big Lead first entered the consciousness of the sports media world around 2006, when then-Kansas City Star sports columnist Jason Whitlock trashed a series of colleagues in a flame-throwing interview that, for a few days at least, lit up the Internet. Less than a year after that the site received a bigger, if more unlikely,... -
Jan 5, 2011 08:37 PM
The Chicago News Cooperative
Newspaper-style journalism for the Chicagoland area
Continue reading
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... -
May 25, 2011 01:04 PM
The Connecticut Mirror
Former Courant staffers step up to fill the state's hard news gap
Continue reading
HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT — A tiny, talented, maybe-a-bit-too-earnest team of ex-Hartford Courant staffers is trying to plug the glaring gaps in Connecticut's political coverage at CT Mirror, a sober-minded news startup that chases the sorts of in-depth, investigative political stories that the state's depleted legacy news organizations no longer have the resources to pursue. Working from the state capitol since January 2010, the nonprofit, non-partisan,... -
Oct 24, 2011 11:24 AM
The Faster Times
Creative revenue earning from an online publication/writers' collective
Continue reading
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... -
Oct 26, 2011 11:36 PM
The Florida Current
Exhaustive statehouse reporting and research in the Sunshine State
Continue reading
TALLAHASSEE, FLORIDA — Florida statehouse politics has found a new home in The Florida Current, a news site that aims to provide concise, neutral, and accurate reporting on politics and policy in the Sunshine State. Originally billed as The Florida Tribune, the site began as an arm of LobbyTools, a Tallahasse-based legislation tracking and data curation service for... -
Mar 12, 2012 01:58 PM
The New York World
Accountability journalism from recent Columbia J-School alums
Continue reading
NEW YORK, NEW YORK — Last October 18, the day The New York World went live with a mission to expand journalism education and hold local and state governments accountable, editor Alyssa Katz posted a story by World reporter Sasha Chavkin about a private bus line in Brooklyn that ran a city bus route under a franchise agreement. Despite being open... -
Sep 15, 2011 11:13 AM
The San Francisco Appeal
An online newspaper for the Bay Area
Continue reading
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,... -
Jan 5, 2011 03:54 PM
The Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis University
The first university-based investigative nonprofit
Continue reading
WALTHAM, MASSACHUSETTS — In 2004, former Washington Post reporter Florence Graves founded The Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis University, thereby creating the very first university-based investigative nonprofit. In less than seven years, The Schuster Institute has snatched up more than ten awards and had its work published everywhere from Foreign Policy to Good Housekeeping. It is also one of the few American... -
Oct 26, 2011 05:27 PM
Village Soup
A small media chain blends print and digital local journalism
Continue reading
ROCKLAND, MAINE — [UPDATE: On Friday March 9, 2012 Village Soup president Richard M. Anderson announced the closure of all Village Soup publications. In a story announcing that the company's properties would be sold at auction, the Bangor Daily News reported that Village Net Media, the Village Soup parent company, faced two outstanding loans from the First National Bank of Damariscotta. The initial... -
Jan 5, 2011 05:30 PM
voiceofsandiego.org
A nonprofit news innovator in Southern California
Continue reading
SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA — Exposing the darker side of a sunny beach city, the six-year-old news site Voice of San Diego is having a larger influence than its small size might suggest. With 170,000 unique visitors a month, the nationally renowned nonprofit has an annual budget of $1.2 million (mostly from grants), a slim staff of fifteen, and a content-sharing deal with NBC... -
Oct 26, 2011 06:13 PM
Washington Independent Review of Books
Serious-minded reviews of books across the literary spectrum
Continue reading
WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA — When newspapers across the country have to cut costs, their book sections inevitably end up on the chopping block. David O. Stewart, president of the Freedom to Write Fund, which is dedicated to education and public advocacy on behalf of writers, says that he and the other members of the Fund became concerned about shrinking book review sections and the... -
Jan 4, 2011 03:26 PM
Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism
Investigative reporting for the Badger State
Continue reading
MADISON, WISCONSIN — In just under two years, the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism has broken over twenty-five major stories, ranging from the increased dependence on immigrant labor in the dairy industry to the stories behind the alarmingly high Native American suicide rates. The two-person team, led by executive director Andy Hall out of an office at the University of...
CJR's Guide to Online News Startups
Sort the Database
Choose from the following categories to drill into the Online News Startups.
—advertisement—
Click for Google Map of News Sites by State
Join the Database
If you operate a news outlet and would like your organization to be included:
Editor's Spotlight On...
Startups covering high school sports
- Republic Tiger Sports Extensive sports coverage for a school district in Missouri
- San Fran Preps Exhaustive high school sports reporting for San Francisco
- Yadkin Valley Sports High school sports news for eighteen schools in central North Carolina
Startups covering state politics
- The Arizona Guardian Niche political news for a state everyone's watching
- Quorum Report A pioneer in niche online coverage, reporting on Texas politics since 1998
- CTNewsJunkie Giving the good stuff to Connecticut's political insiders
Startups run by married couples
Recent CJR.org posts about the future of news
The News Frontier
- Hello to Symbolia New iPad-only comics journalism magazine launches today
- The Kickstarter Chronicles Fiction, in serialized and small forms
- The Kickstarter Chronicles Beauty pageants for seniors and case law books for zombies
- The Kickstarter Chronicles A few words to the wise
- ICYMI: tweet chats Building a community 140 characters at a time
- CJR Audio: investing in local news startups Talking shop with investor/ publishers Alice Rogoff (Alaska Dispatch) and Vincent LoVoi (This Land Press)
- The Kickstarter Chronicles Printing the Internet and updating an office
- The Kickstarter Chronicles Punching up community radio in Iowa and punching out Mike Tyson in 8 bits
