Quarterly Update (January 1 to March 31, 2008)

Tue, May 6, 2008

OVERVIEW

The Center has had a terrific first quarter. Some highlights:

  • On January 28, our national program covering Congress and federal government went live at The Washington Independent, with a superb team of reporters including Spencer Ackerman, formerly of the New Republic and The Nation, covering national security; Holly Yeager, formerly of the Financial Times covering the 2008 presidential election; and Mary Kane, of Newhouse Newspapers, covering middle-class economics.
  • 08_Q1_report.pngOur direct online audience has boomed. In the last quarter of 2007, our sites recorded 392,000 readers. In the first quarter of 2008 we welcomed 788,000 readers, an increase of 101%. This was a function of two events, the Iowa caucuses, which drove enormous traffic to our Iowa site, and the launch of the The Washington Independent (TWI). TWI has quickly seized public attention, due to the quality of its stories: it welcomed 347,000 readers in its first 60 days.
  • All these stories translated into strong earned media, as television, radio, and newspapers picked up the stories emanating from our network: 38 million impressions were generated offline in the first quarter.
  • Consistent with our commitment to building the nation’s premier independent online news network in the public interest, we’re well on the way to recruiting seasoned editors to helm our news sites: We welcomed Steve Perry, formerly of Minneapolis’ City Pages, to edit Minnesota Monitor, and Cara DeGette, a founding editor with the Colorado Springs Independent to edit Colorado Confidential.
  • CIM Fellows in Colorado received nine awards for excellence in reporting from the Society of Professional Journalists.
  • The Center laid the ground for its newest program, in New Mexico. Details on that program, which launched in April 2008, will be forthcoming in our second quarter’s report.
  • The New Yorker magazine published a story on the future of the news business as newspaper revenues collapse, and cited the Center as a promising nonprofit solution to the problem of shrinking news sources.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

CIM Fellows produced 2,483 items in the first quarter of 2008; these were a mix of re-ported stories, blog posts, and expert commentary. Every week, a certain number of these stories stand out for breaking original news. Starting on February 5 of this year, the Center began collecting these stories into weekly reports. Rather than reproduce them all here, we invite you to click and follow the links to each week’s report:
• February 5 update.
• February 12 update.
• February 20 update.
• February 26 update.
• March 4 update.
• March 11 update.
• March 19 update.
• March 26 update.

EARNED MEDIA HIGHLIGHTS

The 38 million media impressions on TV, radio and newspapers included a mix of local media in the states where we operate (Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota and New Mexico) and national media. Our Fellows were cited 100 times in the media; an additional 54 times our Fellows’ stories were cited without attribution (a common practice); our Fellows appeared on TV and radio 33 times. Outlets included:

Albuquerque Tribune, Al Jazeera English, American Journalism Review, Bemidji Pioneer, BBC Evening News, BBC World Service Radio, CBS4 Denver, Cedar Rapids Gazette, CNN International, Colorado University Advocate, Colorado Springs Independent, Denver Post, Des Moines Register, Dickinson Press, The Economist, Fort Collins Coloradoan, Fort Collins Now, Fox 5 Las Vegas, Grand Forks Herald, Grand Junction Sentinel, Greeley Tribune, Harper’s Magazine, Iowa City Press-Citizen, Jamestown Sun, KBDI-TV, KCRG, KOA-AM Steve Douglas Show, KWWL, Lansing State Journal, Minnesota Matters on Air America Minnesota, Metro Magazine, Minneapolis Star Tribune, MinnPost, The Nation, The New Yorker, The New York Times, North Denver News, Petoskey News-Review, Reason Magazine, Rocky Mountain Chronicle, Rocky Mountain News, Sky News, The State News (Michigan State University), Univision, Washington Note, West Central Tribune, Wired Magazine, Wisconsin Public Radio, WJML, WMKT, Worthington Globe.

Click here for a pdf of this report.


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