CJR's Guide to Online News Startups

Results

Organizations filtered by pre-2000.

Jun 8, 2011 12:17 PM
Ars Technica

The old guard of tech news, mixing context, the long view, and a sense of humor
By Isaac Olson
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...
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Mar 24, 2011 11:55 AM
CapeCodTODAY.com

A hyperlocal (and entrepreneurial) news pioneer
By Dohini Patel
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...
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Jan 5, 2011 06:54 PM
Center For Investigative Reporting

Old-school investigative nonprofit takes to the web
By Colin Fleming
BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA — In the world of American investigative nonprofits, the Center for Investigative Reporting is the oldest and one of the best recognized. Founded in 1977 by a small group of investigative reporters, CIR has grown considerably since, amassing numerous awards. It now employs a full-time staff of twenty and works with an annual budget of over $4 million. CIR has broken stories...
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Sep 19, 2011 12:31 PM
CNET

The tech news and reviews pioneer
By Evan MacDonald
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA — Looking for the latest news on Dell or Hewlett-Packard, or trying to figure out whether to buy yourself an Apple iPad or one of its competitors in the tablet category? If you are, there's a good chance you're going to end up on CNET. CNET is a technology news website that offers tech product reviews, news, price comparisons, free...
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Jul 18, 2011 04:18 PM
E&E Publishing

High-cost subscription coverage of environment and energy policy and markets
By Maura R. O'Connor
WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA — Launched in 1998, E&E Publishing started with six employees producing high-priced subscription energy policy coverage out of Washington D.C. and has grown into an award-winning online news outlet with an editorial staff of forty-five and bureaus in San Francisco and New York City. Over the years, the company's readership has grown from roughly 1,000 to 40,000, and includes...
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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...
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Jan 4, 2011 05:17 PM
Grist

Irreverent online environmental magazine offers in-depth reporting with "secret sauce"
By Brett Norman
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON — Grist is an irreverent online environmental magazine that aggressively courts young readers, ad dollars, and philanthropic backers. Launched in 1999, the publication could be considered an octogenarian in web years, but maintains the tenor of a cheerful young rebel. To celebrate the nonprofit's tenth anniversary, Grist founder and CEO Chip Giller announced a "Screw Earth Day!" campaign, saying "too many people...
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Jan 5, 2011 04:06 PM
IGN

The web's definitive video game press
By Sean Gandert
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA — IGN, which began in 1996 as just another video game site in a flood of similar sites with a similar voice, has become one of the behemoths of Internet journalism, with over 13 million unique visitors a month and a staff size rivaling that of many newspapers. Its success is a model for how a Web site can tap a...
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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...
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Jan 5, 2011 04:38 PM
iWatch News (The Center for Public Integrity)

Twenty years' worth of investigative journalism for the public welfare
By Colin Fleming
WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA — The Center for Public Integrity celebrated its twentieth anniversary in 2010 with a YouTube video detailing its many accomplishments. The organization has won more than forty national journalism awards, pursued more than seventy major investigative projects, published sixteen books, and, perhaps most significantly, has been cited in print and electronic media more than 15,000 times. Now, the...
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Apr 3, 2012 02:28 PM
National Institute on Money in State Politics

Tracking political donations and their influence in all fifty states
By Maura R. O'Connor
HELENA, MONTANA — Edwin Bender believes that building a database is like writing a really good story. "What fascinated me about being a journalist was getting down and taking evidence and saying 'this is what I see,'" says Bender. "When I first started building databases it was like reporting a story. Standardizing names and sorting them, finding out who worked for a bank when they...
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Sep 26, 2011 11:27 AM
New America Media

A news wire (and much more) for America's ethnic press
By Lauren Kirchner
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA — In 1969, historian Franz Schurmann and journalist Orville Schell founded Pacific News Service to provide an alternative news source about U.S. military actions abroad. Four decades later, a descendant of that project continues the mission of supplementing the American mainstream press with news it wouldn't get otherwise--but this initiative seeks to inform by crossing linguistic, rather than geographic, borders. <!-- OPEN...
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May 20, 2011 01:35 PM
OpenSecrets.org

Exhaustive reporting on money in politics
By Daniel Luzer
WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA — In 1983, Senators Frank Church (D-Idaho) and Hugh Scott (R-Pa.) founded the Center for Responsive Politics in order to "track money in politics and its effect on elections and public policy." This government watchdog eventually gave birth to OpenSecrets.org, a searchable database of campaign contributions and a center for investigative journalism about money in politics. <!-- OPEN CLOSE top...
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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...
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Dec 29, 2010 04:40 PM
Pitchfork

The prolific online music reviewer/kingmaker
By Sean Gandert
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...
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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...
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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...
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Jan 3, 2011 05:34 PM
Salon

The general interest online magazine has learned to get specific
By Sean Gandert
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA — Just because Salon is the oldest general interest publication on the Internet doesn't mean that it's been standing still. Founded in 1995 as a web journalism alternative, producing articles as intelligent and well-written as its peers in print, the website's path has been bumpy, but it is still recognizably the same outlet that first appeared over fifteen years ago. The...
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Dec 31, 2010 12:24 AM
Slate

The Internet's old guard general interest publication has never slowed down
By Sean Gandert
NEW YORK, NEW YORK — "Slate's overall mission is to create really intelligent, witty, durable web journalism; [that mission] has been more or less the same since 1996," says David Plotz, the site's editor. Slate is perhaps best known as one of the first publications to prove that a high-quality editorial product could exist and thrive online, but it didn't earn that reputation...
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Sep 12, 2011 02:32 PM
Stateline.org

Filling a reporting vacuum at statehouses nationwide
By Jeremy White
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...
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Jun 1, 2011 12:33 PM
Theme Park Insider

News and reviews for theme park enthusiasts
By Alex Fekula
PASADENA, CALIFORNIA — Since Disneyland opened in 1955, Americans and pleasure-seekers the world over have flocked to the variety of theme parks that now occupy mega-park epicenters like Orlando, Florida. and Anaheim, California. With options ranging from Universal Studios to Disney World to Busch Gardens, the vacation planning process can at times seem daunting. Pasadena-based Theme Park Insider aims to take the edge off...
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Oct 26, 2011 05:27 PM
Village Soup (Defunct)

A small media chain blends print and digital local journalism
By Lauren Kirchner
ROCKLAND, MAINE — [UPDATE: On Friday March 9, 2012 Village Soup president Richard M. Anderson announced the closure of all Village Soup publications. The statement did not make clear how the closure would affect the nine independent news organizations which use the Village Soup platform under licensing agreements. Anderson was not immediately available for comment. We'll post further updates to this story when...
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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...
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