Journalists Launch InvestigateWest

A group of journalists has gone it alone and set up a website dedicated to investigative journalism.

The team behind the nonprofit InvestigateWest previously worked at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, which went online-only in March this year.

Now they are calling the shots at their own news organisation, which is focusing on issues affecting healthcare, social justice and the environment in the western US and Canada.

According to the press release announcing the launch, InvestigateWest will distribute its text, video and online content via a syndicate service and through partnership deals with other media groups.

“InvestigateWest is a new model of public service journalism that seeks to fill the void rapidly developing in investigative coverage,” said Rita Hibbard, executive director and editor.

“Our goal is to produce journalism that empowers citizens and changes institutions. We will measure our success by the impact of our stories.”

InvestigateWest is funded by a mix of individual donations, contributions from companies and a grant from the Fund for Investigative Journalism.

The nonprofit group is also a founding member of the new Investigative News Network, which partners together more than 20 groups dedicated to investigative journalism.

Users Decide Blog’s Top Stories

Users are in control of a city blog as they contribute the content and vote on it to create the homepage.

New York-based bloggers submit their posts to NYC.is, where visitors can then rate articles to promote them to the homepage.

Links to the most popular articles are distributed via email and social media sites such as Twitter.

According to NYC.is, “when you decide what’s on the front page, local news stops being boring”.

Site founder Susannah Vila told Editor & Publisher that the recommendation element makes her blog stand out in the crowd.

“The idea of democratising local media is the crux of the project.

“If it were not for the front page/upcoming design, the site would not be different enough from other projects in this space to make it worthwhile.”

Orwell Prize Reveals Blogger Shortlist

The six bloggers shortlisted for the inaugural Orwell Prize for blogging have been announced, reports Press Gazette.

Awarded for excellence in political journalism, the Orwell Prize presents awards for books and journalism and has included the blogs category for the first time this year.

Selected from a longlist of 83, the shortlist includes writers with blogs hosted by mainstream media platforms as well as one-man-band full-time and part-time bloggers.

The nominees are:

The People’s Republic of Mortimer - Party political blog (Conservative Liberal Democrat) from Alix Mortimer.

Guardian Politics Blog - By Andrew Sparrow, the Guardian’s senior political correspondent.

Three Thousand Versts of Loneliness – Created by a liberal unionist from Northern Ireland blogging under the name of Chekov.

Iain Dale’s Diary – Party political blog (Conservative) from Iain Dale.

Night Jack – By blogging policeman Jack Night.

BBC Newsnight Idle Scrawl – Blog from Paul Mason, economics editor for the current affairs programme.

The prize director, Jean Seaton, said that this kind of recognition is particularly needed at the moment: “It is especially important, when the newspaper industry is writing headlines about itself daily of job losses and falling profits, to celebrate some of the best examples of journalism."

The prize winners will be revealed at a ceremony in London at the end of next month.

Subscription Model Tested In Denver

Ex-staffers from the Rocky Mountain News could be back on their old beats if a venture to fund a website with subscriptions proves a success.

Three entrepreneurs are behind the attempt to create a news website – In Denver Times – to replace the gap left by the closure of the Rocky last month.

Video introduction to In Denver Times.


According to Associated Press, the site would be funded by reader subscriptions and advertising revenue.

Some 50,000 annual subscriptions costing $4.99 (£3.43) is the target figure for the investors if the website is to be up and running by May.

These subscribers would then receive extra content in the shape of mobile feeds, access to interactive features etc.

About 30 journalists and editors from the Rocky Mountain News would be hired by the website if subscription targets are met.

One of these former Rocky reporters in line to get a job with In Denver Times is Tillie Fong.

She said: “I want to be a journalist. This is ‘what I want to be when I grow up,’

“When the Rocky closed, it was traumatic, shocking. It was a hard blow. It was a death. This is sort of like a phoenix.”

If you want to know more about the creation of In Denver Times, a video is available of the press conference announcing its goals.

The first website to rise from the ashes of the Rocky Mountain News was I Want My Rocky, which features blog posts and reports from former journalists at the newspaper.

Patch Launches NJ Hyperlocals

New Jersey residents are spoiled for choice with hyperlocal news coverage as another three sites are launched.

Just a couple of weeks after the New York Times went live with its community news sites in New Jersey, the newly-created Patch.com unveiled its websites covering Maplewood, South Orange and Millburn.

According to Lost Remote, each Patch platform is “deeper than NYT’s effort, featuring a business directory, video and data mapping, to name a few”.

The sites also offer interactive events listings and announcements, searchable directories of local restaurants, local facts sections and links to schools and colleges in the area.



According to its About Us page: “Patch is a new way to find out about, and participate in, what’s going on near you.

“We’re a community-specific news and information platform dedicated to providing comprehensive and trusted local coverage for individual towns and communities.”

Funded by private investors the Polar Capital Group, Patch.com is managed and staffed by media professionals and has plans to become a nationwide network in the future.

Laid-Off Staff Create News Site

Journalists from the now defunct Rocky Mountain News are still reporting the local news via their own website.

Created and managed by former Rocky reporters, I Want My Rocky is described by Poynter Online as a “nascent local news site” and is currently a non-profit operation.

As well as publishing news stories, it also acts as a gateway linking to a variety of blogs and websites run by the newspaper’s ex-staffers.



For example, former assistant sports editor Steve Foster is one of the site’s creators who has just launched a blog covering the state’s baseball team – Inside The Rockies – along with two other sports journalists from the Rocky.

And former transport beat reporter Kevin Flynn is publishing stories on I Want My Rocky as well as planning to launch his own blog.

Foster told Poynter that the action of ex-staff shows their belief that they have something to offer the community, with or without the newspaper brand.

He said that when the Rocky was up for sale, its workers were constantly told “that the newspaper has no value. It has negative value; it’s worth only what someone is willing to lose on it.

“I believe I have value. There’s reporters who have real value.”

Flynn added that contributing his stories to the website is providing him with something to do – even if it is unpaid at present.

He said: “I’m not necessarily a free agent forever, but for right now, in this situation, it feels good to have something to do.”

Flynn added: “I had a busy day. And when you’re suddenly unemployed, having a busy day is a good way to feel good about yourself.”

The transport reporter is also upbeat about the future of I Want My Rocky, and hopes it may be able to function in the future as an aggregator of profit-making local news blogs.


The Rocky Mountain News closed at the end of February after a buyer could not be found for it.

According to Editor & Publisher, its website attracted over three times its average page views on the final day.

Nonprofit Future For Watchdog Journalism?

Could the future of investigative journalism be Web-only stories produced by nonprofit independent outfits?

That’s the issue discussed in a recent New York Times article that chronicles the rise of small not-for-profit news groups which are popping up in some of America’s big cities.

According to the NYT, these operations dedicate themselves to investigating local issues and are funded by grants, donations both big and small, and the odd bit of advertising.

The Times points out that these corporations resemble public service broadcasters in their financial structures but are usually managed and staffed by unemployed refugees from the print media world.

And it’s a perceived gap in investigative reporting from traditional news sources that is driving the growth of these nonprofit watchdog websites.

One such example cited by the NYT is the VoiceofSanDiego.org, which was part-founded by retired local entrepreneur Buzz Woolley when he became frustrated at the lack of coverage of corruption among the city’s public figures.

Woolley said: “Information is now a public service as much as it’s a commodity.”

“It should be thought of the same way as education, health care. It’s one of the things you need to operate a civil society, and the market isn’t doing it very well.”

And the online newspaper makes its position clear in its mission statement: “To consistently deliver ground-breaking investigative journalism for the San Diego region.

“To increase civic participation by giving citizens the knowledge and in-depth analysis necessary to become advocates for good government and social progress.”

Visit the NYT to see the full article.

Graduate Starts Own News Site

A journalism graduate has launched an independent news website covering north Staffordshire.

Matt Taylor runs the Radical Press from his living room and says he hopes the website will provide an alternative view to the mainstream press.

The majority of the stories are sourced and written by Taylor himself and he also has voluntary contributors and guest columnists.

Taylor currently funds the operation through money earned as a bar owner but is looking to make it pay for itself in the future by attracting local advertisers.

He told Holdthefrontpage.co.uk: “The site is a good thing and much needed in Staffordshire.

“The Sentinel has a monopoly on the press and we needed another source of news, not only an alternative but something independent that provides a source of debate.”

Taylor also confirmed that he hopes to expand his site’s coverage in the future to include central Staffordshire and south Cheshire.