Contributors

Author

Writer, editor, and website builder Scott Rosenberg cofounded Salon.com in 1995 and served as its managing editor for six years. Today he runs MediaBugs.org, a public service for correcting errors in news coverage. Rosenberg is the author of Dreaming in Codeand Say Everything: How Blogging Began, What It’s Becoming, and Why It Matters.
 

Contributors 

Paul Bass is the editor of New Haven Independent, a community-driven online newspaper that publishes five days a week for New Haven, Conn., that he launched in 2005. In conjunction with the online paper, he serves as the executive director of the Online Journalism Project, which promotes business models for not-for-profit hyperlocal journalism. OJP also serves as fiscal agent for a number of nonprofit news startups and has launched the Valley Independent Sentinel to cover a nearby series of towns. Prior to launching New Haven Independent, Bass was an investigative reporter and editor for the the New Haven Advocate for 15 years.
 

David Boraks is founder and editor of DavidsonNews.netin Davidson, N.C., which launched in 2006, and recently expanded to include CorneliusNews.net covering a nearby town. He also is a part-time announcer and reporter for public radio station WFAE-FM in Charlotte. From 2001 to 2005, he covered the top U.S. banks for the daily American Banker in New York. In 2000, he was a senior correspondent for the online news service LocalBusiness.com. At The Charlotte Observer from 1993 to 2000, his duties included tech columnist, business writer and assistant features editor. He has also worked at The Hartford (Conn.) Courant and The China News in Taipei; Editor-in-chief of The Cambridge (Mass.) Chronicle, and The Waterbury (Conn.) Republican.
 

Glenn Burkins is the editor and publisher ofQcitymetro.com and QcityBride.com, the online news site and companion bridal site designed for African-Americans in Charlotte, N.C. He sells ads, sponsorships and business listings to support the sites, emphasizing a strong connection to the community. Before launching Qcitymetro.com in 2008, Burkins was the deputy managing editor at The Charlotte Observer. He also worked as a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, The Philadelphia Inquirer and St. Petersburg Times. He has served as an Africa correspondent, business reporter and White House correspondent.

Steve Buttry leads community engagement for the Journal Register Company and is the former director of community engagement at TBD.com, a hyperlocal news site for the Washington, D.C. area which launched in 2010. His experience in news spans more than 40 years, with positions at the Des Moines Register, Kansas City Star and Times and Minot Daily News. Before moving to Washington, Buttry worked for Gazette Communications as the editor of The Gazette in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He has also trained journalists and newspaper executives around the world and researched journalistic innovations for the American Press Institute.

Andrew Chavez is the director of digital media for the Schieffer School of Journalism at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth. He oversees the109, a local news site that covers the 76109 ZIP code, and advises the school’s digital operations. He also advises TCU 360, a student news website operated by Schieffer School students. Before coming to TCU, Chavez worked at the Fort Worth Star-Telegramas a part-time night police reporter.
 

Liz George is co-owner of Baristanet.com, a hyperlocal blogging and citizen journalism website based in Montclair, N.J. She works as a writer and editor and helps broaden Baristanet’s reader base, which currently reaches additional towns in Essex County. George also contributes to specialty magazines and the New York Daily News. She spent the beginning of her journalism career as an editor at Weight Watchers Magazine and has written about hyperlocal journalism for Nieman Reports and PressThink.
 

Don Heider is the Founding Dean and Professor at the School of Communication at Loyola University Chicago.  He previously served as Associate Dean at the University of Maryland and served as Graduate Advisor and Head of Broadcast Journalism while on the faculty at the University of Texas at Austin. He also served on the faculty at the University of Colorado at Boulder and the University of Mississippi. Before that Heider worked for 10 years as a photographer, reporter, producer and manager in television news. Heider has authored and edited four books and received five Emmy awards, a regional Edward R. Murrow, and a Tennessee Associated Press Award.
 

Andrew Huff is the editor and publisher of Gaper’s Block, an award-winning Chicago-centric news and events webzine he co-founded in 2003. He holds a journalism degree from Ohio State University and a certificate in medical writing and editing from the University of Chicago, and is an adjunct instructor in the journalism department at Loyola University Chicago.

Lance Knobel is co-founder of Berkeleyside.com, the local news site for Berkeley, Calif. He also works as a strategy advisor, where much of his work concentrates on the intersection of business, geopolitics and technology.

Scott Lewis is CEO of voiceofsandiego.org, one of the earliest non-profit investigative news sites which launched in 2005. In addition to heading the website’s business, fundraising and marketing strategies, Lewis also blogs on local politics in the San Diego area. He started covering the political beat for voiceofsandiego.org in 2005 and was awarded best column in San Diego by both the San Diego Press Club and San Diego Society of Professional Journalists in 2007. He previously worked at the Salt Lake City Weekly and San Diego Daily Transcript.
 

Mike Orren founded Pegasus News an online community news site for the Dallas-Fort Worth area, in 2005.  He also established PanLocal Media, which serves as publisher of a number of affiliate sites.  These sites won the Katie Award for best news website and an EPpy award for best entertainment website in 2008. Orren has worked as a publisher of American Lawyer Media’s Texas Lawyer and Associate Publisher of D Magazine. He left Pegasus News shortly after being interviewed for this project in order to consult for select media companies, retailers and nonprofits.

Howard Owens is publisher of The Batavian, a local online-only news site for Batavia and Genesee County in New York. He has worked as the director of digital publishing for GateHouse Media, and served as the VP of Interactive for the Bakersfield Californian. Owens has been in the news industry for more than 20 years. When he was director of new media for The Ventura County Star, the organization won the Online News Association’s General Excellence Award in 2004.

Barry Parr is the publisher of Coastsider, a community news site for coastal San Mateo County, andMediaSavvy, a blog about networked media. Parr is a former senior analyst at Forrester Research, covering media and advertising and has served as Ecommerce Research Director at International Data Corporation and Vice President of News at CNET.

Having failed at waitressing, politics and headhunting, Kat Powers found her calling in journalism, ultimately becoming the somewhat cantankerous editor of the Somerville Journal for almost a decade. Now she’s one of the managing editors atWickedLocal.com, running 19 of its community sites for its parent, GateHouse Media. 

Tracy Record is co-publisher and editor of West Seattle Blog, which was launched in 2005 as a hobby. It became a full-time professional, commercial news operation in 2007, and Record quit her job as assistant news director at Seattle’s KCPQ-TV to work on WSB full time. Record also spent two years working for Walt Disney Internet Group, including a position as the executive producer of ABCNews.com, following eight years at Seattle’s KOMO-TV, during which she became the station’s first new-media executive producer. Her 30+-year career has included a national Online Journalism Award and regional Society of Professional Journalists award, plus three regional Emmys.

Tom Warhover is an associate professor and chair of the print and digital news faculty at the Missouri School of Journalism. He also is the executive editor for innovation at the Columbia Missourian, a community newspaper edited by professionals and staffed by students. Before joining the university, Warhover worked at The Virginian-Pilot newspaper as a copy editor, designer, reporter, city editor and deputy managing editor.
 

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