Focus: hyperlocal information for 30 neighborhoods in the northeast corner of Philadelphia

Started: November 2008

Staff: founded by Shannon McDonald, while a student at Temple University; contributing writers

You don’t have to be an experienced writer to contribute to the site. We want active, involved residents with a passion for their neighborhood. Are you a block captain? A stay-at-home parent with active kids? Someone who loves to socialize and try new things? Do you like taking photos of things you see in your daily routine? NEast Philly is a place for people to read about and experience the real Northeast Philadelphia.

Business: started online, print magazine planned for spring 2010

Site: neastphilly.com

From About:

NEastPhilly.com is the online home of Northeast Philadelphia. Launched in November 2008, NEastPhilly is maintained by a collection of local residents who live and breathe Northeast Philadelphia. The site offers daily news, analysis, multimedia, columns and commentary on everything that interests the proud, working-class neighborhoods of The NEast. NEastPhilly.com is the only place for daily news exclusively about the Northeast.

Sample posts: “News briefs from the Lawn Crest Community Association”; “Contractor dies near Frankford workspace”; “Real NEastate: Selling to another Seller” (a Q&A about selling a home in the neighborhood); “”Diamonds stolen from Franklin Mills Mall” a linked report to the Philadelphia Inquirer; “Man killed by train identified”

Location: Philadelphia  

Focus: “Technically Philly is a site covering the community of people who use technology in Philadelphia”

Started: February 2009

Staff: Founded by Christopher Wink, Sean Blanda and Brian James Kirk, who formed the company Technically Media. Wink, Blanda and Kirk run the site, editing and contributing stories. They have one ad sales rep.

Funding: advertising, sponsorships, see their advertising rates in their online ad kit

Site: technicallyphilly.com

From About

From the small group of programmers working on the next big Web application to large businesses that employ hundreds, the Philadelphia technology community is growing. Sometimes, it’s hard to keep track of all of the start-ups, organizations, venture capitalists and businesses that are working to make Philadelphia thrive.

Technically Philly will be there to help you stay on top of all of the news that affects our technology community with a Philadelphia-first mind set, and we will let you know when the next event is happening in your neighborhood. In fact, the three editors of Technically Philly have never even set foot in Silicon Valley.

Sample posts: “TNT: The ballet wants you to take your phone out. No, really”; “Friday Q&A: Catching up with Steve Welch, candidate for congress”; “City of Philadelphia to buy municipal WiFi network from Network Acquisitions”; “Walnut Street Apple store now hiring”

Focus: news and opinion in the city, “In-Depth News, Analysis & Commentary for the Philadelphia Region”; sections include “Publius” for opinion; and “VoxPop” for first-person essays

Started: December 2009

Staff: Editor Tom Ferrick, a print newspaper veteran; web designer;  graphics designer; and 11 story contributors listed on the site launch.

Funding: non-profit — a project of the Public Media Lab

Site: phlmetropolis.com

From About Us:

Underlying the thinking behind Metropolis is that this region has an abundance of smart, engaged people who care about the area and its future, whose definition of citizenship includes more than just voting and griping about the status quo.Through their unselfish acts, through their volunteer work and their political and civic engagement, they contribute in ways that reverberate far beyond their neighborhoods. Collectively, they serve as the soul and conscience of the Philadelphia region. They are its engines of change.

This website is designed to serve these active and aware citizens, people who have a need to know what is happening in the region that affects them, their families, their neighborhoods and their communities.

Sample stories: “The Frankford Story: In a Free Fall” about a dying neighborhood, part of two-part series;  “Police pact inked”; “Special Report: Violence at South Philly High”; “Time to tax natural gas” (opinion piece); “Another ‘F’ for Philly” brief about weak education system

Focus: revitalization and lifestyle stories from the U.S. rust belt region — metro areas around Great Lakes including Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Youngstown, Cincinnati, Detroit, Milwaukee, and Buffalo; categories include “economic development”, “good ideas”, “editorial”, and “real estate”; also running the Big Urban Photography Project

Started: February 2009

Staff: editors are Angie Schmitt (in Cleveland) and Kate Giammarise (in Pittsburgh), who used to be reporters at the Toledo Blade. Ms. Schmitt is a graduate student in Urban Studies/Public Policy at Cleveland State University, according to the site. Ms. Giammarise is Pittsburgh-based journalist who covers the steel industry; there are eight contributors from around and outside region

Funding: self-funded to start; considering grants

Site: rustwire.com

From About:

This site is intended to consolidate thoughtful, constructive stories about post-industrial cities across the Rust Belt. It was developed by two former newspaper reporters with ties to five Rust Belt cities, and it is maintained with help from half a dozen others from across the region.

Our aim present a balanced, realistic view of our cities, the challenges they face and the assets they maintain.

Sample stories: “A summer of Rust Belt road trips…”; “Pittsburgh: The Paris of Appalachia” Q&A with “Paris of Appalachia” book author; “[Braddock Mayor] Fetterman named to Atlantic’s ‘Brave Thinkers’ list; “Why Detroit will survive”; “What Las Vegas can learn from the Rust Belt”

Focus:  news and information from 27 neighborhoods in the city; a “Multimedia Urban Reporting Lab” project by Temple University’s journalism department. Similar to University of  Southern California’s Intersections: The South Los Angeles Reporting Project.

Started: March 2009

Staff: project co-directors are Linn Washington, director of News-Editorial sequence in the Temple University journalism department, and Christopher Harper, an associate professor in the department. Journalism students contribute content. 

Funding:

Site: http://sct.temple.edu/blogs/murl/

From About

[Multimedia Urban Reporting Lab] is the cornerstone of the Department of Journalism’s mission to better tell stories in the under-covered and under-served neighborhoods of Philadelphia. Students tell the stories that represent the diverse voices of the multicultural and multinational Philadelphia neighborhoods. Each semester MURL students concentrate their news coverage in a targeted Philadelphia neighborhood, and then service it with topical information and service news from the community–issues from the school lunch and the missing stop signs–to the people who seek to maintain a livable community. This MURL brand of news provides a form of hyper-local coverage missing from our urban communities: journalism street by street.

Stories: “Gravediggers raise money for Laurel Hill Cemetary”; “Olney: A Look at the 35th Police District”; “Feltonville: Three Children and Woman Killed”; “Fishtown: Vegan anyone?”; “Mantua: Farming Provides Locals with Fresh Produce”

Focus: community news blog; town meetings, school boards, some sports

Started: June 2006

Employees/Writers: Founded by Bill Bostic, the site’s main contributor. He is a former stringer for the Harrisburg Patriot-Ledger daily newspaper; some posts bylined by others

Funding: Site chosen to receive $25,000 grant over two years from J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism; some local small business sponsors

Site: linglestownpa.blogspot.com

From bio page: Bill Bostic, Linglestown Gazette’s publisher and editor, grew up in Dillsburg, Pa., and got his start in journalism as a teenager reporting on Little League baseball for the town’s weekly newspaper.

During the 1990s, Bostic worked as a stringer for The Patriot-News (Harrisburg, Pa.), covering a local government beat in four Dauphin County communities, Hummelstown and East, South and West Hanover townships.

Bostic caught the bug for blogging following the pay-raise scandal that rocked Pennsylvania politics in 2005, and published a blog called One-Man Think Tank that garnered considerable attention.

Sample posts: “Reporter’s notebook: CD School Board”; “Linglestown Future Stars headed to semifinal game”; “CD board hires new district head”