there’s this struggle in my head. Is the world ending, or is it a nice day and I’m getting coffee? Obviously, it’s not a binary thing, but living this way is sometimes brain-scrambling. It’s not like the constant doom and gloom of Twitter was making me a better climate activist. Instead I’d be paralyzed. Twitter incentivizes you to live in this... See more

“Why are the tiny, overworked immigrant outlets pulling off what we’ve been trying to do for a decade?” The answer isn’t mysterious. These outlets had no choice. They operate inside communities, not at the edge of them. And when life gets confusing — and life is very confusing right now — people don’t look for content. They look for a guide.

“The solution to helping support a healthy ecosystem for writers and journalists is not a beautiful CMS or the blockchain or any other gimmicky thing,” he said. “It’s the entire support structure.”

Six years later, Jeff Jarvis wrote a frustrated post on his blog Buzz Machine. Hurricane Sandy had just devastated his New Jersey neighborhood. He needed to know which streets were passable, where power crews were actually working, which gas stations had fuel. His local news outlet published stories about the devastation but left the community on... See more

Editors are encouraged to participate in community life — attending festivals, visiting new restaurants — but the company also leans heavily on user-generated content and tips.

“In mature cities, the inbox is overwhelming,” Heafy said. “Often our staff are getting information ahead of traditional broadcast and newspaper outlets.”

Technology helps... See more