Focus: News and information about Sacramento, California’s capitol city. Information categories include Front Page, Business, Culture, Politics, Sports, and Sunday Best.

Started :2008

Staff: co-founded by Geoff Samek, and Ben Ilfeld, who is the chief operating officer; six other employees include an editor in chief, a managing editor, three staff reporters, and a sales manager.

Business: Castle Press LLC, for-profit, advertising supported; heading toward profitability

From About Us:

The Sacramento Press will be the most comprehensive, local news source and information center for the Sacramento Metropolitan Area.

We are a strictly online newspaper. Our writers are primarily volunteer Community Contributors.

We combined the best tools on the web and built an outstanding platform from scratch. This platform enables people to tell stories about their neighborhoods and have thoughtful conversations about these stories. Then our editors place the best content on the front page and section pages to highlight great work.

[...]
We are a for profit business, but we consider ourselves a public trust. The original concept of the corporation was a balance between allowing people to join together for a common goal with some profit potential and demanding that the corporation provide a public service to the nation. In our case, we will provide valuable services to the neighborhoods of Sacramento while showing that this kind of community journalism can be profitable.

Sample stories: “Mayor’s Team Chooses K Street Developers”, “Farm stand coming to McKinley Park”, “Beer Pong champs hail from Sac”, “Second Saturday=Lots to do”, “Utilities measure sparks debate”

Here’s an interview with Geoff Samek by Bill Densmore, at the Journalism That Matters un-conference in Detroit in June 2010 (I also attended).

Focus: “It’s like being there”; local and neighborhood news coverage

Started: September 2008

Staff: launched by publisher Mary Morgan and editor Dave Askins (wife and husband team). Ms. Morgan is a former reporter with the Ann Arbor News, which went from print to mostly online-only model.

Site: annarborchronicle.com

From About

We launched The Ann Arbor Chronicle to fill a void – to create a daily news site that reflects and embraces the energy, oddities, and character of our community. Every day we encounter eccentric, enterprising, or regular people doing the remarkable or even the routine. Ultra-local events within easy arm’s reach – whether it’s a pickup softball game, a client meeting in a coffee shop, a spontaneous political caucus, a school play – that’s the lens through which The Chronicle sees topics like entertainment, economic development, government, education. …

The word of the year for 2007 was locavore, someone who eats food grown in their region, probably by people who live somewhere close by. We’d like to extend this notion to someone who craves news and information grown locally in some sort of metaphorical compost of community interaction. We want these locavores to crave The Chronicle.

Stories: “Library nears deal on newspaper archives”; “More candidates vie for state house, senate”; “Downtown planning process forges ahead”; “Sheriff suggests ways to add deputies in Scio”

Media Mentions: Poynter Q&A with publisher Mary Morgan; “WordPress, Twitter, the Elks Club: 10 new routines at a news start-up” article from Nieman Journalism Lab

Focus: “News & Opinion Weekly”; community news and information; extensive municipal boards coverage; sections include Front Page, Photo Gallery, Letters to the Editor, Op-Ed, Town, Government, Schedules & Agendas, Sports, People, Volunteer Ops

Started:

Staff: 4 — editor, managing editor, copy editor and advertising director; approximately 130 contributors

Funding: advertising

Site: newcastlenow.org

Sample stories: “Town board will hire consultant to assess town-wide real property revaluation”; “Teen drinking party results in arrest of Chappaqua dad”; “Bridge construction update, some nighttime closings to move big materials”; “Greeley Boys Varsity Soccer – League Champions!”; bulletin: “Lost toy poodle: Simone”

Focus: “News of the Great Nearby”; “…a daily guide to local and Northwest news, and a forum where writers and citizens with many points of view can report and discuss local news”; non-breaking news, aggregated news, topics, from other online media sources; original content; blogs; regional coverage includes Washington, Oregon, Alaska, Idaho, British Columbia, Montana; content categories include arts/living, business, politics, science/environment

Started: April 2007 (as LLC, then converted to non-profit December 2008)

Staff: founded by civic leaders, investors; content generated by ”contract writers, freelancers, prominent figures in the community or in a given field, and normal folks and specialists who have something to report or something to say,” according to the site; more than 40 contributors; paid freelancers; contributor solicitations

Funding: non-profit according to site, 501c3 status with IRS is “pending” as of November 2008 (could be outdated info); started as Crosscut LLC then converted to Crosscut Public Media; from About Us, revenue sources: “annual memberships, donations from individuals, grants and foundation support, and advertising sponsorships. In the future, we expect to produce some events, such as conferences, that will also generate income. This model resembles public broadcast, except there is no government money in the mix.” 

Site: crosscut.com

From About Us

Crosscut is a daily guide to local and Northwest news, and a forum where writers and citizens with many points of view can report and discuss local news. News coverage as traditionally practiced by mainstream media outlets coexists with advocacy journalism and opinion. Crosscut is a general-interest news site, with coverage ranging over politics, business, arts and lifestyle, and the world of ideas. It does thoughtful and fresh analysis of the important issues of the day, not routine breaking news.

Sample stories: “King County’s running out of cuts”; “Real radio is found in Bellevue” (posted to a Crosscut blog); “A taste of the next mayor’s diet”; “What would Jane Jacobs do about the viaduct?”; “Seattle schools’ next hot potato: Student assignment plans”; “Are we happier in the West?”; “Obama science goes schizophrenic on salmon restoration”