Posted by jessdrkn on December 6, 2009
Location: Corona Del Mar, California 
Focus: news from a Southern California beach community, in Orange County: “Our mission is to provide solid news coverage of the village of Corona del Mar in a timely, fair and accurate [manner]; mostly original reporting; links to Orange County Register (daily paper of record) for other local news; blogroll of links to civic groups and municipal resources
Started: March 2009
Staff: Founder Amy Senck, see below, is a Corona Del Mar resident, freelance writer and a former newspaper reporter
Funding:
Site: coronadelmartoday.com
From About:
Corona del Mar Today was born out of the desire to bring daily journalism coverage to our community, which is small enough to be overlooked by bigger publications but interesting enough to need its own voice.
Its founder, Amy Senk, was educated at the University of Missouri, where she earned her bachelor’s degree in journalism in 1989. She spent several years as a beat reporter in Kansas City before moving to California in 1992. She has lived in Corona del Mar since 2000 and is a freelance writer and journalist.
Sample stories: “Quiet Woman [restaurant] holding auction today”; “Stolen watch returned after savvy police work”; “Local football team going to youth superbowl”; photo gallery of Christmas Walk
Posted in California | Tagged: advertising, California, Corona del Mar, hyperlocal | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jessdrkn on November 4, 2009
Location: Nassau County, New York (Long Island) 
Focus: news and information covering Hempstead, Uniondale, Roosevelt, and Garden City municipalities; heavy multimedia; sections include news, business, politics, sports, features, and religion
Started: February 2009
Staff: student project of Hofstra University School of Communication undergraduate and graduate journalism program led by Assistant Professor Mo Krochmal
Funding: university
Site: nassaunewslive.com
From About Us
Located in Dempster Hall, Nassau News Live starts with the goal of creating a trusted serious news website and fostering new connections between Hofstra and the people living in the surrounding communities while enhancing the education of journalism students with the opportunity to work in a 21st Century news organization.
Students will collaborate to produce and report area news in real time with a combination of pressure-tested live blogging and live video webcasting as well as multimedia interactive news packages, information graphics and digital and still photography.
Sample Stories: “Supporters, Staffers of Nassau County Democratic Party Celebrate, Wallow, and Wait on Election Night”; “Mayor Hall discusses Village of Hempstead’s waning recession”; “Restaurant servers finding a tough economy”; “Unofficial Nassau County election results”; “Nassau County high school football playoffs announced”
Posted in New York | Tagged: academia, community news, Hofstra University, hyperlocal, Long Island, multimedia, Nassau County, New York, student project | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jessdrkn on October 11, 2009
Location: Seattle 
Focus: municipal, neighbhorhood news in West Seattle neighborhoods, including accidents, crime, local information; links to West Seattle bloggers; calendar listings; traffic cams; public forums; collaborates with Seattle Times on community coverage
Started: 2005 as casual community observation blog; 2007, news concentration, began accepting advertising
Staff: 2-person startup - co-publishers Tracy Record, editor, and Patrick Sand, business development director (“the sales guy”); 6 contributing reporters
Funding: advertising
Site: westseattleblog.com
From About
We started this in late 2005 with the intention of it just being a little place where we could spout our observations about what’s happening in our rapidly changing community. In the early months, it was a lot more personal, written first person, with a lot more opinion. Then something unexpected started to happen — we began to hear from West Seattle residents looking for information they couldn’t find anywhere else, particularly during the December 2006 windstorm and ensuing days of powerlessness, when thousands of us were sitting in cold dark homes without any official information on when our electricity would be restored. That was a turning point for us, toward a focus more on community news and information, updated frequently, and throughout 2007, and now on into 2008, that focus intensifies day by day.
Sample stories: “Update: Car hits pole, SW Barton closed west of Westwood Village”; ”Video: Human, canine volunteers finish up new Westcrest feature”; “Next chance to help library supporters fight more budget cuts”
Posted in Washington state | Tagged: advertising, blog, hyperlocal, neighborhood, newspaper collaborations, seattle, washington | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jessdrkn on September 23, 2009
Location: Grand Rapids, Mich. 
Focus: hyperlocal, citizen-journalism news site for Grand Rapids; open-sourced; coverage categories include news, politics, communinty life, sports, opinion
Started: Sept. 15, 2009
Staff: 4: Publisher Laurie Cirivello, Citizen Journalism Coordinator Denise Cheng, Content Facilitator Drew Storey, New Media Planner George Wietor; online solicitation to be a citizen reporter for the site; Project of the Grand Rapids Community Media Center, which runs non-profit WYCE-FM (88.1), the Wealthy Theatre, GRTV and Livewire cable access television, according to Grand Rapids Press report
Funding: non-profit: grants and support from the Grand Rapids Community Foundation, Knight Foundation, Slemons Foundation
Site: therapidian.org
From About page
The Rapidian is a citizen journalism project intended to increase the flow of local news and information in the Grand Rapids community and its neighborhoods.
By providing tools, training, platforms and support, we hope to empower neighborhood residents to report the news from the inside out. We are an outlet for Grand Rapidians to become more than just content consumers but also providers by becoming citizen journalists.
We are currently in our beta phase and appreciate any feedback from our participants to make the most user friendly site possible.
Sample stories: “Social networking on the rise”; “Park(ing) Day 2009: A photo essay”; “Community rowing program unites different schools into a crew”; “ArtPrize piece catches fire in Cathedral Square”; “Health care demonstration”
Media mentions: Grand Rapids Press online article 9/15/09: “Grand Rapids citizen journalism site The Rapidian launches”
Posted in Michigan | Tagged: citizen journalism, Grand Rapids, hyperlocal, Michigan, non-profit | Leave a Comment »
