I’ve talked often about the work of INN (Institute for Nonprofit News) regularly here on PublishhPress. INN is a fascinating organization because they’re building a community of innovative publishers including many start-ups. And those publishers almost all use WordPress. In fact, INN has long encouraged their members to move to WordPress, even running their own…
Last year, we covered Block Club Chicago, which is a WordPress-based news start-up. They’ve now reached their 5th birthday and have one of the most inspiring stories in new U.S. journalism. I dug into the Block Club Chicago story this week and realized I had missed a related development. Block Club’s success is backed by…
This week a small story led me to discover a big story about WordPress’ dominance in online publishing. The small story was about the launch of “Flow”, a new brand that’s part of She Media. First, I went to the main SHE Media website, where you’ll find sub-brands such as SheKnows, BlogHer, and STYLECASTER. All…
I’ve talked about the work of INN (Institute for Nonprofit News) regularly here on PublishPress. They are doing a superb job of building a community of new publishing start-ups. The INN has a new innovation called the Rural News Network. This is a WordPress-powered hub for local news sites, almost all powered by WordPress too….
Global Press has an interesting and very different business model from anything else we’ve covered here at PublishPress. Yes, they are WordPress-powered and innovative. But rather than being a traditional publisher, they are building independent news bureaus. Each bureau is staffed by local, women reporters, in some of the world’s least-covered places. They have journalists…
Chris Hardie is a software engineer with a deep interest in journalism. Chris worked for Automattic for five years and recently completed a master’s degree in journalism. Last week, Chris combined these two passions by acquiring Western Wayne News in Wayne County, Indiana. The paper has a WordPress site and a weekly printed edition. It…
Vince Dice is the editor of Gig Harbor Now, a nonprofit news organization in Gig Harbor, near Seattle. His publication is celebrating its first birthday this week and he has interesting story to tell, that sums up many trends with local news in 2022. For many years, Vince was connected to a newspaper called “Gig…
For several years, I’ve been blogging here on PublishPress about the explosion in local news publishers. Initially that was driven by a gut-feeling that something exciting is in the early, formative stages. These publishers are mostly non-profit, mission-driven, and powered by WordPress. There’s now data to back that up: The Institute for Non-Profit News is…
Earlier this year, I wrote about Mississippi Today which is a success story for non-profit newsrooms. This week, they’ve launched a new sister organization in New Orleans called Verite. Both Verite and Mississippi Today are going to be part of a network of mission-driven, local news organizations called “Deep South Today”. I’ve been blogging about…
For five years now, the Institute for Nonprofit News has produce an annual report on the nonprofit news sector. Their 2022 report shows that independent local news is growing strongly. Here are 3 key points from the report: Since 2017, more than 135 nonprofit news outlets have launched. The number of newsrooms in the INN Network…