Focus: “Everybody has a hand in thinking”; a neighborhood blog — community events coverage, crime updates

Started: June 2008

Staff: founded and edited by resident Laura Adams; contributor solicitation

Funding: no apparent traditional funding (advertising, grants)

Site: villagethinker.wordpress.com

From About:

The Village Thinker is a community news resource. The Village Thinker is the new media.  It is an Internet news source, but it isn’t an electronic newspaper. Yet.

Print is dead, I went to the funeral almost 10 years ago.  It was nice, CNN sent a beautiful wreath.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t considered news.  Most likely because it coincided with the christening of the Internet as the New Media.

The Village Thinker exists because we have no unfiltered crime and gang-related news in our community, and people are tired of reading propaganda that is sanitized for our protection.   Or for the protection of the people who need to cover up what they did wrong.  We are tired of being kept in the dark.

The Village Thinker is underground news, because even a small town needs an underground media outlet.

Sample posts: “Second bank robbery this month”; “Crimewatch committed to continuing the struggle”; “IFPTI receives substantial funding in 2011 Federal budget”; “Ann J. Kellogg students Stomp for Peace”

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: 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”

Focus: Community “News,” “People,” “Schools” pages; some crime blotter information; births, deaths, awards, etc. announcements are user-generated, free

Started:

Writers/Employees:  Edited by Ben Burnes, Sheila Young Tomkowiak and Nancy Dell Derringer. Site includes staff photographer, Web programmer and copy editor; 9 reporter/contributors; 4 interns; 2 volunteers. Area politicians contribute columns

Funding: non-profit; advertising

Site: http://grossepointetoday.com/

GrossePointeToday.com is a non-profit community website for news and information about the Grosse Pointes and its residents. The site is still under development so please bear with us as we work out the technical difficulties. Meanwhile, take a look around and see what we have going so far. Let us know what you think we should include.

Sample posts: “Column: Woods recall campaign ignites a battle of the tweets”; “Cadieux parking gets ‘positive traction’”; “A fine July 4 in Moscow (Vermont)”; “Detroit dive team takes the plunge to clean a sunken car graveyard”; Local schools coverage: ”ULS athletes pick up year-end honors”

Other: Site selected in 2009 to receive $25,000 grant over two years from J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism. Announcement here.