A lost job sparks a local news startup

Meet the entrepreneur who is building trustworthy journalism in Romania Alex Enășescu launched a newsletter and website focused on news about his hometown, Iasi, Romania, in 2021. We began a conversation on Substack when he commented on one of my posts. I thought his story would inspire other digital media entrepreneurs. This interview was done […]

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Credibility and quality find a market in Ecuador

GK has survived and thrived with a model of in-depth story-telling Isabela Ponce and José María León met on Twitter more than a decade ago when it was still “a nice place where you could meet people,” Isabela recalls. From that meeting, they began to exchange ideas and collaborate. What emerged from this partnership in […]

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salesperson

How NOT to finance a news startup

Layoffs and cutbacks at big digital news sites show that less is more — usually One of the biggest mistakes that many news startups make is to burn through their cash before establishing a solid revenue base. And actually, they’re no different from other startups in this regard: They want to gain market share rapidly […]

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Reasons for optimism #11: A Spanish watchdog

If any publication shows the public demand for trustworthy journalism, it’s this one Ignacio Escolar and his colleagues at elDiario.es have succeeded in producing high-quality journalism “in spite of everything” for the past 10 years. Those words are in fact part of the slogan of the publication he co-founded in Spain, elDiario.es: “Journalism in spite […]

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Two local news startups enter Cleveland market

Veteran journalists tap overlooked stories to woo readers, funding support Local news panel at Maple Heights branch of Cuyahoga County Public Library March 15, sponsored by the Society of Professional Journalists. From left, Sam Allard, Axios Cleveland; Helen Maynard, Signal Cleveland; Troy Smith, Axios Cleveland; and Mark Naymik, Signal Cleveland. The future of quality journalism […]

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In science journalism, what’s a fact?

Rigorous methods help distinguish pseudoscience from trustworthy information Both scientists and journalists sometimes have the uncomfortable experience of seeing their research and conclusions challenged by startling new information. If you are a true scientist or journalist, you view the new information with an open mind. And then you test it. You attempt to prove it […]

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25 years ago, I discovered the Internet

Before Google and Facebook, high-speed fiber-optic service opened up the world A potentially embarrassing exercise is to read articles you wrote a few months or years ago. Sometimes it’s because you made predictions that were way off base. I was recently browsing through some old columns I wrote when I was publisher of the Baltimore […]

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