CJR's Guide to Online News Startups

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Oct 25, 2011 11:47 AM
Texas Watchdog

A government watchdog for the Lone Star State
By Timothy Bella
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...
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Apr 27, 2012 01:03 PM
The American Independent News Network

A nonprofit news network refocusing in a bid for national relevance
By Erik Shilling
WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA — When the American Independent News Network launched nearly six years ago as the Center for Independent Media, its goals were small. The nonprofit news organization was one of several that launched around the same time, including ProPublica, MinnPost.com, and Voice of San Diego, mostly in response to the ebbing fortunes of newspapers and a...
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Jan 30, 2012 03:07 PM
The Arizona Guardian

Niche political news for a state everyone's watching
By Tom Marcinko
PHOENIX, ARIZONA — Arizona exports political news like other states produce oranges or cheese. When Democratic media consultant Bob Grossfeld and a handful of veteran journalists launched the Arizona Guardian web-based news service in January 2009, they were well aware they were setting up shop in a state with a lively political scene. And that was before Arizona's headline-making "show-me-your-papers" immigration bill, the...
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Dec 12, 2011 11:24 AM
The Austin Bulldog

An investigative reporter in the Texas capital
By Caitlin Kasunich
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...
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Jan 4, 2011 04:37 PM
The Awl

NYC-based cultural witticism from two Gawker alumni
By Alex Fekula
NEW YORK, NEW YORK — The team at New York City-based The Awl has some advice for anybody waiting on some seed funding to launch their dream startup: don't wait. The Awl launched in early 2009 when founders Choire Sicha, Alex Balk, and David Cho set out to start their own site with little-to-no financing beyond their personal savings. It wasn't much, but "there...
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May 10, 2011 04:29 PM
The Batavian

Small town news and innovation in local online advertising
By Justin Yang
BATAVIA, NEW YORK — The Batavian began as an experimental project by GateHouse Media, a newspaper publisher with properties in twenty states. The company wanted to launch a community-oriented news website, and chose Batavia, N.Y. because of its proximity to the company's Fairport, N.Y. headquarters; an added bonus was that The Daily News, the local paper for Batavia and Genesee County, lacked...
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Oct 27, 2011 02:56 PM
The Bay Citizen

Local civic journalism in the national spotlight
By Lauren Kirchner
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...
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May 26, 2011 01:28 PM
The Beachwood Reporter

A belligerently informed take on Chicago media, sports, and culture
By Armin Rosen
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS — In 2006, after fifteen years as a print journalist, including six years as a political reporter with Chicago Magazine, Steve Rhodes took the biggest gamble of his career. Frustrated with what he viewed as the magazine's obliviousness towards the Internet, he quit his job and threw all of his financial and journalistic resources behind his own online magazine, The Beachwood Reporter....
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Aug 9, 2011 10:58 AM
The Big Lead

From independent sports blog to corporate flagship
By Erik Shilling
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,...
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Mar 31, 2011 11:40 AM
The Bold Italic

Gannett's bold move in consumer-oriented journalism
By Kathy Gilsinan
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA — The Bold Italic is an experiment. Slickly designed but still in "beta," the Gannett-owned San Francisco website has an image-heavy layout, an alt-weekly feel, and a focus on helping its readers find new places to spend their free time. "It's not meant to replace anything" in the San Francisco print media, says Michael Maness, who, as Gannett's vice president of...
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Mar 15, 2012 11:41 AM
The Brooklyn Ink

Student reporting on Brooklyn and beyond
By Tom Marcinko
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...
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Jan 5, 2011 08:37 PM
The Chicago News Cooperative

Newspaper-style journalism for the Chicagoland area
By Alex Fekula
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...
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May 25, 2011 01:04 PM
The Connecticut Mirror

Former Courant staffers step up to fill the state's hard news gap
By David Downs
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,...
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Mar 24, 2011 04:14 PM
The Dagger

Sharp local reporting for Harford County, Md.
By Alex Fekula
BEL AIR, MARYLAND — Harford County, Maryland-based journalist Brian Goodman wanted to start a band. He had a name picked out: The Dagger. After plans for the band fizzled, Goodman decided to take the name and start a local news blog instead. The journalistic ensemble known as The Dagger officially debuted in April of 2007, and has since evolved into a popular alternative news resource...
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Jan 17, 2011 11:46 AM
The Daily Caller

Tucker Carlson and co.'s political reporting startup
By Michael Meyer
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...
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