CJR's Guide to Online News Startups
-
Please choose from the following categories to sort the News Startups listings.
Learn more about the database, and how you can help us improve it: click here.
CJR's Guide to Online News Startups FAQ
Add to the Database
If you'd like to recommend an organization for inclusion in CJR's Guide to Online News Startups, let us know via email here. If you operate a news outlet and would like your organization to be included, click here.
-
Feb 23, 2012 05:33 PM
Charlottesville Tomorrow
Nonprofit news on growth, development, and local politics
Continue reading
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... -
Jun 20, 2012 12:52 PM
Chicago Phoenix
Chicago LGBT media goes digital (and grows up)
Continue reading
CHICAGO, IL — Gay media in Chicago has struggled in its search for identity. In recent years, two of the city's most prominent LGBT publications, Gay Chicago Magazine and the Chicago Free Press, shut down after transitioning from the traditional "bar rag" format, with content centered on entertainment and sex culture, to a more issue-related news and features focus. Some observers speculated that revenue problems... -
Nov 14, 2011 12:34 PM
ChicagoTalks.org
Student-reported, university-based community news
Continue reading
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
Continue reading
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... -
Sep 19, 2011 12:31 PM
CNET
The tech news and reviews pioneer
Continue reading
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... -
Jan 28, 2012 01:39 PM
Colorado Public News
Health care coverage for Centennial State newspapers and television stations
Continue reading
DENVER, COLORADO — With layoffs at the Denver Post and the closing of the Rocky Mountain News in 2009, few places have lost as much reporting talent in recent years as the Mile High City. Ann Imse, a former reporter for the Rocky who had previously worked as a correspondent for the Associated Press during the collapse of the Soviet Union, saw the writing on... -
Mar 24, 2011 03:31 PM
Columbus Underground
Entertainment and events coverage with a civic bent
Continue reading
COLUMBUS, OHIO — Launched in 2001, Columbus Underground was founding editor Walker Evans's answer to a lack of online resources for Columbus's nightlife scene. A devoted fan of his city, Evans grew the site from a social calendar to a resource that helps the local community stay informed on just about everything Ohio's capital city has to offer. With 2.1 million visits and 8.5... -
Jul 21, 2011 05:46 PM
Common Language Project
In-depth human rights reporting and multimedia storytelling
Continue reading
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... -
Jan 26, 2012 01:55 PM
Connecticut Health Investigative Team
Far-reaching niche investigations for the Nutmeg State
Continue reading
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 30, 2012 03:48 PM
Connecticut Watchdog
Hard-hitting consumer protection reporting
Continue reading
EAST LONGMEADOW, MASSACHUSETTS — The best businesses have a compelling origin story, and George Gombossy's consumer protection website, Connecticut Watchdog, started with a doozy. As of 2009, Gombossy had worked at the Hartford Courant for forty-one years: first as a reporter, then business editor, then as "The Watchdog," a consumer protection columnist. His picture hung on the side of "every bus in Hartford"... -
Feb 6, 2012 03:36 PM
Corona del Mar Today
A one-woman news operation for a wealthy Newport Beach, Calif. neighborhood
Continue reading
CORONA DEL MAR, CALIFORNIA — When former newspaper reporter Amy Senk decided to get back into journalism, she wasn't sure how to begin. "When I was reporting, we barely had Internet or e-mail," she says. Senk left her job at the Contra Costa Times in the mid-1990s and focused on raising a family. When her husband was diagnosed with an aggressive blood cancer in late... -
Dec 8, 2011 04:11 PM
CountyNewsLIVE.com
A fast-growing news network for rural Missouri
Continue reading
HERMANN, MISSOURI — Although the homepage of Gasconade County's CountyNewsLIVE.com has the look and feel of a simple, straightforward blog, it is actually the first of three frequently updated Missouri-based hyperlocal news websites founded by writer and publisher Jeff Noedel. Launched in March 2008, the Gasconade County site primarily covers rural Hermann, Missouri, a small agricultural town that attracts tourists with its nearby... -
Feb 20, 2012 01:54 PM
Cronkite News
Arizona State University's student-reported website and news wire
Continue reading
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... -
May 18, 2011 12:59 PM
Crosscut.com
Robust nonprofit local news coverage for Seattle
Continue reading
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON — David Brewster couldn't have been the only Seattle citizen concerned about the potential demise of one of his local papers, but back in the mid-aughts, he was ahead of the curve. In 2006, Brewster, a thirty-five-year veteran of the local media landscape and the founder of alternative newspaper Seattle Weekly, was phasing out of his role as director of Town Hall Seattle, a... -
May 12, 2011 03:45 PM
CTNewsJunkie
Giving the good stuff to Connecticut's political insiders
Continue reading
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...
—advertisement—
Click for Google Map of News Sites by State
Join the Database
If you operate a news outlet and would like your organization to be included:
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
