New Websites startups

Bilingual reporting by Latino college journalists

EL PASO, TEXAS — Borderzine.com director Zita Arocha founded the site at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) with two goals. "One is to tell the unreported stories of the [U.S.-Mexico] border region, which mainstream media doesn't do very well, " says Arocha, a senior lecturer in journalism at UTEP. The second is to create "a pipeline" into the journalism profession...

A political news blog's move from undergraduate pursuit to progressive stalwart

AUSTIN, TEXAS — In 2002, Republicans gained control of the Texas state legislature for the first time in over a century, allowing then-congressman Tom DeLay a chance to push for an unprecedented voter redistricting that would give Texas Republicans a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives. With few progressive watchdogs online in the Lone Star State, undergraduate students at the University of Texas stepped...

Making the move from blog to nonprofit news site

DALLAS, TEXAS — Shawn Williams was in pharmaceutical sales for nine years before starting his personal blog in 2006. The blog was about South Dallas, an area of more than 500, 000 people. He says he first started the blog to try to combat negative images of the African American community that he saw in the mainstream media. When he was let go from his job...

News by a former USPS employee turned reporter in the Dallas-Fort Worth area

GRAND PRAIRIE, TEXAS — "I'm a reporter. I am not a journalist, " says Grand Prairie Reporter founder Bob Fitch. "I don't want to degrade the craft of journalism. I can't write and paint a picture with words." Fitch's writing style is utilitarian and not nearly as bad as he claims, but he does try to keep stories on the Reporter at 250 words...

Multimedia community news for San Antonio, Texas

SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS — This spring, San Antonio residents will vote on a five-year, 6 million bond package intended to upgrade the city's infrastructure. The package includes 140 projects across the city, such as improvements to parks, sidewalks, and drainage facilities. Until they go to the polls on May 12, citizens who want to learn details about these projects can visit NOWCastSA.com, an...

News, entertainment, and local information for the Dallas-Fort Worth area

RICHARDSON, TEXAS — Pegasus News was made to cover an event like the state fair of Texas. Both are large-scale, interactive, and can fry something up for everyone. Over 2.5 million people attend the fair each year, the largest in the country, and from the end of September to the event's conclusion three weeks later, Pegasus News adds a special homepage tab directing...

A pioneer in niche online coverage, reporting on Texas politics since 1998

AUSTIN, TEXAS — Harvey Kronberg and his team at the Quorum Report are true Internet news frontiersmen. Kronberg, who has been covering Texas politics since 1989, purchased The Quorum Report, then a print-only political newsletter, in 1998, and within a year had turned the Report into an all-web news operation. Although he admits that he had to be convinced to go to the web...