CJR's Guide to Online News Startups
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Results
Organizations filtered by University.
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Mar 1, 2012 04:14 PM
55423.info
A community college-affiliated hyperlocal for Richfield, Minn.
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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... -
Mar 20, 2012 01:30 PM
Borderzine.com
Bilingual reporting by Latino college journalists
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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... -
Feb 7, 2012 12:22 PM
California HealthCare Foundation Center for Health Reporting
A health newswire for the California press
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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... -
Nov 14, 2011 12:34 PM
ChicagoTalks.org
Student-reported, university-based community news
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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
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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... -
Jul 21, 2011 05:46 PM
Common Language Project
In-depth human rights reporting and multimedia storytelling
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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... -
Feb 20, 2012 01:54 PM
Cronkite News
Arizona State University's student-reported website and news wire
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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... -
Mar 24, 2011 12:15 PM
CU-CitizenAccess
University-based reporting on poverty in central Illinois
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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... -
Mar 24, 2011 03:22 PM
Delaware First Media News
Nonprofit news in text, audio, and video
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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... -
Apr 10, 2013 02:51 PM
District
A student voice from the Savannah College of Art and Design
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SAVANNAH, GA — After beginning in 1995 as a weekly student-run print publication at the Savannah College of Art and Design, District relaunched as an online-only in 2008, becoming part of the early wave of student publications to scrap their print product. "We wanted to go digital because we felt like that was where the industry was headed, and all of our students... -
Dec 8, 2010 03:40 PM
FactCheck.org
A "consumer advocate" for voters
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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... -
Feb 18, 2011 12:29 PM
Great Lakes Echo
Sharp science news with a sense of humor
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EAST LANSING, MICHIGAN — Residents of the Great Lakes region have one publication to thank for their understanding of the menace that is the zebra mussel, clogger of power plant intake pipes. That publication is the Great Lakes Echo. A project of the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism at Michigan State University, the Echo aims to build environmental awareness of... -
Apr 5, 2011 01:06 PM
Intersections South Los Angeles
USC students report on their neighboring communities
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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
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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... -
Jan 3, 2011 06:21 PM
Investigative Reporting Workshop
Multimedia reporting in a university setting
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WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA — American University's Investigative Reporting Workshop is one of sixteen university-based investigative journalism centers, but the only one in the nation's capital. Founded in 2008 by Charles Lewis and Wendell Cochran, both veteran journalists and professors at the university, the Workshop produces original reporting and mentors the next generation of investigative journalists. This dual mandate creates a unique newsroom; undergraduate... -
Mar 11, 2011 03:51 PM
Lexington Commons
A voice for Lexington's nonprofit organizations
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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
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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... -
Mar 15, 2013 11:47 AM
Midway Messenger
A university startup for a small town in Kentucky
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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 24, 2011 12:53 PM
Neon Tommy
A student-run news site with a national reputation
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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... -
Jan 4, 2011 01:33 PM
New England Center for Investigative Reporting
Hard-hitting investigations in and around the Boston area
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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 25, 2011 03:05 AM
Philadelphia Neighborhoods
Award-winning student journalism from Temple University
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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... -
Apr 20, 2011 02:57 PM
Solutions
Colorado's source for health policy reporting and discussion
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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... -
Oct 27, 2011 02:56 PM
The Bay Citizen
Local civic journalism in the national spotlight
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SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA — [UPDATE: In May 2012, the Bay Citizen merged with the Center for Investigative Reporting, the oldest nonprofit investigative news organization in the United States and the parent of state-level investigative nonprofit California Watch. The merger allowed the organizations to expand their reporting resources, save money, and diversify their funding base. The merger brought together 75... -
Mar 15, 2012 11:41 AM
The Brooklyn Ink
Student reporting on Brooklyn and beyond
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NEW YORK, NEW YORK — At about 1:30am on Nov. 15, 2011, student reporters at The Brooklyn Ink received a tip that police would soon clear protestors from New York City's Zuccotti Park, the focal point of Occupy Wall Street. Rather than get their professors out of bed, the students jumped on the story, providing live coverage throughout the... -
Jul 5, 2012 03:13 PM
The Hechinger Report
Strengthening education reporting nationwide
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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... -
Apr 20, 2012 06:22 PM
The Local East Village
NYU student reporting for the NYT
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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
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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... -
Mar 12, 2012 01:58 PM
The New York World
Accountability journalism from recent Columbia J-School alums
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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... -
May 19, 2011 04:01 PM
The News Outlet
College students report local news for northeastern Ohio
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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... -
Jan 5, 2011 03:54 PM
The Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis University
The first university-based investigative nonprofit
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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... -
Jul 11, 2011 01:18 PM
Watchdog New England
A catalyst for investigative reporting in Boston and beyond
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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... -
Jan 4, 2011 03:45 PM
Yale Environment 360
In-depth environmental news, commentary, and analysis
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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...
CJR's Guide to Online News Startups
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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
