CJR's Guide to Online News Startups

1. Results

   Organizations filtered by 2005$mt:Include module="Sort - Between HTML"$>

2. Mar 24, 2011 12:11 PM

   Boise Guardian

   Pugnacious reporting on Boise's institutions

   By Chris Benz

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

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3. Feb 23, 2012 05:33 PM

   Charlottesville Tomorrow

   Nonprofit news on growth, development, and local politics

   By Caitlin Kasunich

   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...

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4. 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...

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5. May 12, 2011 03:45 PM

   CTNewsJunkie

   Giving the good stuff to Connecticut's political insiders

   By Alex Fekula

   WINDSOR, CONNECTICUT — Like many married couples, Christine Stuart and Doug Hardy share a weekly ritual. Unlike most married couples, theirs involves obsessing over state politics. Stuart and Hardy spend their Thursday nights preparing the "Friday Night Fix." The "Fix" is a weekly e-mail roundup of Connecticut political news, covering everything from the state's most recent budget battle to the fate of a particular piece of...

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6. Aug 8, 2011 11:49 AM

   Deadspin

   Gawker Media's sports news success story

   By Erik Shilling

   NEW YORK, NEW YORK — For Deadspin, the impish sports wing of the Gawker empire, the presence of a pink gorilla at a hotel meeting between Tommy Craggs, a Deadspin senior editor, and John Walsh, ESPN's executive vice president for content, must have felt like a crowning achievement. The site made its name most recently by publishing pictures of...

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7. Oct 31, 2011 03:15 PM

   Issue Media Group

   A network of feel-good local business news sites

   By Erik Shilling

   DETROIT, MICHIGAN — It's been six years since Paul Schutt and Brian Boyle founded Detroit-based Model D, a business news website that orients itself toward the positive side of the job loss-plagued Motor City. The site was the first of what would turn into Issue Media Group, a network of nineteen city-based websites, from Tampa Bay to <a href=http://www.yongestreetmedia.com...

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8. Oct 6, 2011 05:15 PM

   MediaStorm

   Multimedia outlet meets production house

   By Lauren Kirchner

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

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9. Recently Updated: Jun 28, 2011 01:18 PM

   New Haven Independent

   Connecticut-based leader in nonprofit community news

   By Arvin Temkar

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

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10. Mar 24, 2011 03:12 PM

    Peach Pundit

    Conservative local political commentary from the founders of RedState

    By Chris Benz

    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,...

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11. 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....

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12. Mar 25, 2011 02:41 PM

    Rio Grande Guardian

    An online-only news source for South Texas

    By Justin Yang

    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...

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13. Dec 30, 2010 02:23 PM

    TechCrunch

    The tech startup news news startup

    By Sean Gandert

    SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA — From the very beginning, TechCrunch was part and parcel with Web 2.0. Founded by Michael Arrington in 2005, the site began as a personal technology blog but rapidly transitioned into a full-scale publication, drawing in millions of page views a month by the end of 2007. Unlike most of his peers, Arrington didn't come from a journalistic background, instead studying...

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14. Jul 20, 2011 12:47 PM

    The Forum

    Local news for four small New Hampshire towns

    By Georgia Schoonmaker

    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...

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15. Jan 5, 2011 08:23 PM

    The Huffington Post

    The online news behemoth grows up

    By Michael Meyer

    NEW YORK, NEW YORK — As of the writing of this profile, the "BIG NEWS" header at the top of The Huffington Post's homepage reads: "Unemployment, Katie Holmes, Natalie Portman, Health, Lindsay Lohan, Smarter Ideas, More..." It's the mix of topics that might be floating around the head of a conscientious, politically astute fifteen year old--but given that HuffPost only recently entered the second...

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16. Jan 19, 2011 04:42 PM

    The Locust Fork News-Journal

    A one-man purveyor of mobile journalism performance art

    By Michael Meyer

    BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA — The Locust Fork News-Journal, like many websites, is wholly devoted to the quirks, whims, emotions, and talents of its founder--in this case, a former newspaper reporter and self-proclaimed champion of the "independent watchdog Web press" named Glynn Wilson. Unlike most sites (including many owned by the "corporate media" Wilson rails against) the News-Journal is stable and profitable--a testament to what can...

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17. Feb 8, 2012 07:43 PM

    TownSquareBuzz.com

    Community and sports news for a Dallas-Fort Worth suburb

    By Tom Marcinko

    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...

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18. Jul 25, 2011 04:00 PM

    Universal Hub

    A wicked smart Boston hyperlocal

    By Connor Boals

    BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS — What started as a simple online directory of businesses, restaurants, and other establishments serving Boston has grown into a full-blown hub of Beantown information. After a layoff prompted him to take his side project full-time, Adam Gaffin set about building Universal Hub into a hyperlocal news hub with an original Boston twist. If you want the day's biggest stories, stick...

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19. 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...

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