NewCastleNOW.org
A robust online weekly news site co-founded by former PTA officers to cover town and school news for the Chappaqua area in Westchester County, N.Y., which had lost its local newspaper.
Vermont Climate Witness
This project created a map-based interactive experience to track how residents see climate change affecting Vermont’s economy, from fall foliage and maple syrup to skiing. Tamarack Productions, a nonprofit environmental awareness organization, worked with the Vermont Natural Resources Council to develop content and create Google Map mash-ups to help users visualize weather data and real-time weather indicators. The project became inactive after a couple years.
NeighborMedia
An innovative citizen journalism initiative spearheaded by Cambridge Community Television that empowers local residents to bring attention to issues in their Cambridge, MA, community that they deem newsworthy. NeighborMedia’s citizen journalists, based in various Cambridge zip codes, combined web and television media to promote community events, alert neighbors to proposed development, and explore difficult issues like violence and racism. NeighborMedia content is available for viewing on the web at ccvcambridge.org/neighbormedia and on CCTV’s community cable channels.
Greater Fulton News
Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of Mass Communications worked with the Fulton Hill Neighborhood Resource Center to help local residents produce stories, photos, audio, video for a website covering Fulton Hill, a low-income neighborhood in Richmond, VA. The university eventually turned the site over to the community, but it is now inactive.
The Eminent Domain
TheEminentDomain.org was a news, information and networking resource for New Yorkers working to influence the shape of their neighborhoods and make sure that development projects were an asset to their communities and not a force for displacement and destruction. The site was a project of the Pratt Center for Community Development and sought to focus on projects in Harlem (Manhattan), Coney Island (Brooklyn), and Kingsbridge Armory (the Bronx). The site is now inactive.
Bilingual Interactive Environmental Journalism
A Spanish language newsletter and website. launched by the Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada-Rena. sought to highlight issues of importance to the Latino population in North Lake Tahoe. The site focused on environmental, employment, economics, housing, and community cohesion issues. Several Latino residents wrote regularly for the publication, which was distributed in the Kings Beach and Incline Village communities. Is has been inactive since late 2009.
Saint Paul City Newsdesk
The St. Paul Neighborhood Network cable-access television created a news page for citizen journalists to cover neighborhood and municipal news for use by media outlets throughout the Twin Cities. Network stories, videos and radio pieces were published on the cable-access website and on the Twin Cities Daily Planet site. The initiative is now inactive.
Anansi’s Web
The Central District Organization in Gary, IN, worked to build a news and information city hotline, accessed via web, phone, mobile text messaging and mailing lists to supplement available media. Content was generated by students and young professionals and coordinated by young professionals who have returned to Gary to live. The site is inactive.
News Desk on Access SF
To train San Francisco nonprofits to produce a monthly community news program and video blogs with a neighborhood focus for Access SF cable access television. Five special interest desks produced stories targeting youth, LGBT issues, arts and culture, age and disabilities, and multi-lingual stories. The project ended when Access SF went out of business.
Northwest Community Radio Network Collaborative Newscast
This initiative launched an hour-long, weekly newscast culled from the best public affairs programming produced by more than 40, often-isolated community, college and independent radio stations throughout the Pacific Northwest. Seattle-based Reclaim the Media used the newscast to anchor a new content-sharing network that helped to expand the pool of regional news and programming for local audiences. Because of lack of funding, the project became inactive.
