CJR's Guide to Online News Startups
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Results
Organizations filtered by 2010.
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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... -
Feb 13, 2012 04:17 PM
ARLnow.com
Community, crime, and culture news for a D.C. suburb
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ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA — Shortly after noon on Aug. 25, 2010, Dimas Pinson was waiting for the Orange Line train at the Virginia Square Metro station in Arlington, Va. when he heard someone shout, "Get off the tracks!" A man suffering from an epileptic seizure had fallen onto the tracks across the platform and was unresponsive. As a train appeared in the tunnel, Pinson, a retired Marine Corps... -
Jan 11, 2012 04:06 PM
Brown Line Media
An independently owned network of three sites reporting on Chicago's North Side
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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 29, 2010 03:47 PM
Capital (New York)
Observer vets hope to "do well by being good"
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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 26, 2012 01:55 PM
Connecticut Health Investigative Team
Far-reaching niche investigations for the Nutmeg State
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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... -
Jan 5, 2011 04:17 PM
FairWarning
Consumer-oriented investigative journalism
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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... -
Oct 25, 2011 04:50 PM
First Arkansas News
News, musings, and pre-television radio serials
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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... -
Feb 3, 2011 05:14 PM
Florida Center for Investigative Reporting
A pioneer bilingual investigative nonprofit
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MIAMI, FLORIDA — When the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting (FCIR) received a $100,000 grant from the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation in September of 2010, it marked the launch of Florida's first nonprofit bilingual online investigative reporting organization. Located at the International Media Center at Florida International University, FCIR is emerging as a leader in investigative news and an innovator... -
Mar 5, 2012 11:56 AM
Homicide Watch
Reinventing the homicide beat for the digital age
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WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA — Mico Briscoe. Black. Male. 18. Shot on November 26, 2011. Marcellus J. Darnaby, aka "Boom." Black. Male. 32. Shot on June 15, 2011. Lucki Nancy Pannell. Black. Female. 18. Shot on February 19, 2011. These are just a few of the 152 homicides currently listed on HomicideWatchDC.org. In the coming... -
Feb 23, 2011 06:32 PM
Honolulu Civil Beat
A journalistic "civic square"
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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
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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... -
Jan 4, 2011 01:20 PM
Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting
Filling the reporting gap in Maine's state capital
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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... -
Feb 2, 2012 02:47 PM
Milford Live
Hyperlocal news for a small town in Delaware
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MILFORD, DELAWARE — Dave Burris and Bryan Shupe grew up in Milford, Del., and later crossed paths while working on Republican campaigns. Burris had experience running a digital lifestyle magazine called Coastal Sussex Weekly and wanted to start a hyperlocal news site for Milford. He thought Shupe, who had become disillusioned by the negativity in politics and was ready to move on, would... -
Dec 29, 2010 03:17 PM
NJ Spotlight
Trenton's statehouse startup
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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
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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 04:44 PM
Ocean Beach Bulletin
Hyperlocal news for San Francisco's western edge
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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
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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... -
Jun 29, 2011 12:03 PM
PatersonPress.com
Hard news meets hyperlocal in Paterson, N.J.
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PATERSON, NEW JERSEY — PatersonPress.com, a hyperlocal news site for Paterson, N.J., brings an old-school mentality to a new era of journalism. Editor Joe Malinconico said that traditional, shoe leather reporting is what makes Paterson Press shine. That's also what won the site two New Jersey Society of Professional Journalists awards only eight months after it launched. Paterson Press launched in October 2010... -
Dec 21, 2011 11:43 AM
Plains Daily
Right-leaning reporting for North Dakota
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FARGO, NORTH DAKOTA — Plains Daily debuted in March 2010, the brain child of North Dakota conservative talk-radio host Scott Hennen, who was previously best known around the state for interviews with former vice president Dick Cheney and presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann, among others. Bachmann has been a particularly vocal supporter, calling him the "voice of today's Tea Party patriots,"... -
Aug 16, 2011 11:54 AM
Planet Princeton
One reporter goes from freelance to Facebook to hyperlocal
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PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY — When friends and readers complained to Princeton-based reporter Krystal Knapp that they couldn't find her stories on NJ.com, a combined web presence for papers owned by Advance Publications in New Jersey, she decided to start her own site serving the city she loves. Knapp was, and continues to be, a freelancer for The Times of Trenton, but she wanted... -
Feb 2, 2012 11:12 AM
Plymouth Daily News
Hyperlocal news for "America's hometown"
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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 21, 2011 03:25 PM
Portland Afoot
Portland-based transportation advocacy
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PORTLAND, OREGON — In a culture where the car is often the primary mode of transportation, the web/print hybrid Portland Afoot has set out to inform Portland citizens about the wide world of transportation alternatives. After leaving his job as a reporter for The Columbian in Vancouver, Wash., founder Michael Andersen felt that he could attract a devoted audience for a new journalism venture... -
Dec 20, 2011 12:06 AM
Prairie Village Post
Hyperlocal news for three small Kansas City suburbs
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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... -
May 20, 2011 12:13 PM
Remapping Debate
An NYC-based site that seeks to throw a wrench in conventional wisdom on public policy
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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... -
Jan 9, 2012 12:15 PM
RiverheadLocal
Local news and web advertising for Riverhead, Long Island
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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... -
Dec 1, 2011 04:52 PM
SanFranPreps.com
Exhaustive high school sports reporting for San Francisco
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SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA — Like more than a few newspapermen before him, Jeremy Balan was less than impressed with the play many of the stories from his beat--high school sports--were getting in the newspaper. When Balan moved to San Francisco in 2009, he was even more disappointed, but this time with everyone else. After years of cutbacks, the San Francisco Chronicle had reduced its high... -
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... -
Dec 12, 2011 12:09 PM
TBD
D.C. arts, culture, and events listings from a once-anointed champion of the local web
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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... -
Dec 12, 2011 11:24 AM
The Austin Bulldog
An investigative reporter in the Texas capital
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AUSTIN, TEXAS — In January of 2011, Ken Martin, the founder, editor, and publisher of The Austin Bulldog, an independent nonprofit investigative news website, got a tip from a prospective Austin city council candidate that council members were holding private meetings. The Texas Open Meetings Act prohibits private meetings for the purpose of deliberating on public business. And yet, on four... -
Oct 27, 2011 02:56 PM
The Bay Citizen
Local civic journalism in the national spotlight
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SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA — In early 2009, San Francisco philanthropist Warren Hellman grew concerned about the cutbacks in local newsrooms and what he saw as a decline in professional, original reporting in the area. He convened an advisory group to explore the possibility of creating a new journalism outlet for the Bay Area. At the time, there were rumors that Hearst was considering closing The... -
Jan 17, 2011 11:46 AM
The Daily Caller
Tucker Carlson and co.'s political reporting startup
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WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA — "My politics are relatively well known," conservative media personality Tucker Carlson told CJR in February of 2010, not long after he and former Dick Cheney aide Neil Patel launched political news site The Daily Caller. "But this site is not a pure distillation of my politics. My views are not interesting enough to sustain the company we're... -
Oct 26, 2011 11:36 PM
The Florida Current
Exhaustive statehouse reporting and research in the Sunshine State
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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 24, 2011 11:35 AM
The Florida Independent (Defunct)
Legislative watchdogging and more
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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 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... -
Aug 10, 2011 01:05 PM
The Iowa Center for Public Affairs Journalism
Investigative reporting for the Hawkeye State
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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.... -
Oct 24, 2011 04:57 PM
The Ithaca Independent
One man among the gorges
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ITHACA, NEW YORK — The major daily paper of Ithaca, N.Y., the Ithaca Journal, is, like eighty-two other daily papers in America, part of the Gannett chain. Over the last decade or so, Ithaca resident Ed Sutherland, who writes business news for computer blog Cult of Mac, started to notice a change in the paper. Over time, much of the content in the... -
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... -
Sep 4, 2012 12:24 AM
The Outer Banks Voice
Online-only news for the North Carolina coastline
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NAGS HEAD, NC — In August 2011, when Hurricane Irene menaced the Eastern seaboard, The Outer Banks Voice was less than a year old. Drawing its name from a 200-mile ribbon of North Carolina's coastline, the online-only news source fed frequent updates to residents of this vulnerable area during the storm. The coverage was local, but clicks came from far and wide--many from... -
Mar 21, 2011 05:20 PM
This Land Press
Place-based literary journalism in and about Oklahoma
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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... -
Nov 1, 2012 10:24 AM
TRVL
A free iPad travel magazine
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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... -
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... -
Jun 14, 2011 09:53 AM
Watershed Post
News and environmental reporting for the Catskills
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DELHI, NEW YORK — The Watershed Post, an online news source for five counties in upstate New York, made a splash last fall with its real-time coverage of widespread flooding that swept one woman to her death in the Neversink River. Its editors call this back country in the Catskill Mountains a "news desert," mostly bereft of local media coverage,... -
Mar 27, 2012 01:19 PM
West Philly Local
Hyperlocal news and events for 50,000 Philadelphians
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PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA — Just across the Schuylkill River from Center City Philadelphia, Western Philadelphia--or "West Philly," as the locals call it--is home to about 50,000 people, many of whom are students or professors at the University of Pennsylvania or Drexel University, both of which in the neighborhood. While Philadelphia media outlets run stories on West Philly as part of their broader coverage of the metro area,... -
Nov 21, 2011 11:38 AM
Yadkin Valley Sports
High school sports news for eighteen schools in central North Carolina
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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...
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
- 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
- The Kickstarter Chronicles Watching homicides in DC and a good dam love story in NC
