Staffers from the news startup NJ Spotlight spend a lot of time at the New Jersey statehouse covering the intricacies of state policymaking. (Credit: mtstradling/Flickr/Creative Commons License)
This is the first of a two-part series looking at the growing variety of journalism startups and the business models that are powering them. The second part, which you can read here, examines for-profit news outlets, with a particular focus on the mobile video service NowThis News.
Cameras flash in the New Jersey statehouse. It’s early January, and in a back corner of the Assembly chamber, the Trenton press corps sit in three close rows of chairs as they await Gov. Chris Christie’s State of the State address. The aftermath of Hurricane Sandy is all anyone expects the governor to talk about. [Read more…]
The Texas Tribune shows why non-profit online journalism matters
The Texas Tribune showed late Tuesday night and very early Wednesday morning how an online non-profit news organization can drive coverage of a story and leave legacy media to talk, literally, about muffins.
During one of the most climatic moments in Texas political history, The Texas Tribune owned the story, buoyed by its live YouTube stream of the Texas Senate in a tense countdown to the midnight end of a special session that included a 10-hour filibuster by new social media darling Sen. Wendy Davis and the debate about a controversial abortion bill.
More than 180,000 people were watching the live stream, taken from the Senate feed, when raucous pro-choice supporters verbally overcame senators as the session came to a close and Tuesday turned to Wednesday.
It wasn’t immediately clear if the measure passed. What was clear, and made apparent in many congratulatory tweets, was that The Texas Tribune won by producing compelling public-interest journalism.
The coverage was riveting and a lot of people were watching. [Read more…]