Use this form to send "New Era Media New Era Colorado Foundation" to a friend.

Your E-mail:

Your Name:

To:

Subject:

Message:
You've been sent a story from New Voices (http://www.j-newvoices.org/): New Era Media New Era Colorado Foundation http://www.j-newvoices.org/1008/ A Boulder, Colo., foundation will start a blog site covering Colorado news and politics aimed at young people. Initial content will come from 10 citizen contributors (ages 17-30), who will research, develop and post stories. CONTACT INFO Steve Fenberg Executive Director New Era Colorado Foundation 720-565-9317 E-mail Twitter Website   A Boulder, Colo., foundation will start a blog site covering Colorado news and politics aimed at young people. Initial content will come from 10 citizen contributors (ages 17-30), who will research, develop and post stories. Community contributions will also be invited. In addition, the site will develop feeds that can be posted to Facebook profiles and other social networking applications. Check back for future news and updates.   • May 2010         New Era News Launches, Gets National Attention May 2010 New Era News, a blog for young people to read and write about politics, launched in March and is off to a running start. Right away, both the Huffington Post and the popular blog Jezebel drove traffic to a story called “Can Feminists Wear Aprons?“ - a cultural piece exploring the popularity of aprons and their intersection with modern feminism.  NewEraNews.org’s Steve Fenberg Discusses Site’s Launch from J-Lab on Vimeo. Kristen Painter, the story’s author, was thrilled with the attention:  “People are actually reading your stuff and New Era has done a really good job of utilizing social media to drive traffic to the site.“ The story got close to 15,000 hits and 300 comments, said Painter, a journalism graduate student at the University of Colorado at Boulder - and at the bottom was a link to the New Era News. This kind of cross-posting has helped build the site’s name recognition and reputation quickly, explained Steve Fenberg, executive director of New Era Colorado Foundation.  The Boulder-based organization aims at increasing political engagement of young voters and is the driving force behind the blog. “Our traffic is a lot higher than we thought it would be,“ Fenberg said. “The first month we had over 6,500 unique visitors.“ Getting the site launched wasn’t easy, reflected Fenberg.  Deciding what the site would look like and its functionality took a lot of time.  New Era hired Quilted, a small design cooperative based in Boston and Berkeley, to build the site.  “We wanted it to be very personal so that people saw the writers as one of their peers,“ he said. “Little things help, like having an Avatar of the person’s face.“ The site’s main contributors are ten student interns and two editors, but members of the community can also get involved. “We wanted it to be very participatory,“ Fenberg said. “So you can just click ‘create an account’ and actually start writing and submitting content.“ Editors review everything before it appears on the site and select stories for the front page. Although New Era News does not pay contributors, Fenberg said they haven’t had trouble keeping the site fresh since interns participate for school credit and there is great enthusiasm for the blog. “A lot of people want to be published and we are a non-profit and are not exploiting free labor. We are providing an outlet and letting it be a learning experience for everyone,“ he said. Painter, author of the popular apron story, blogs three to four times a week. Although she is one of the more experienced writers on staff, she points out that New Era News is supportive of new writers. “It’s a really easy environment,“ she said. “And it’s really conducive to writing about what you want to write about but also asking you to step outside some of the things you would normally report.“ New Era News attributes much of their success to the blog’s unique content and perspective, Shad Murib, the site’s editor, said. “We hope that we can find a good niche that people are able to come back to and they realize that there is a group of people who are interested in journalism - in both consuming it and producing it,“ he said. Fenberg said finding that identity is key. “I think it’s important to identify a very specific need before you go about building the site and the personality of the site,“ Fenberg said. “Once you have that need in mind it’s easier to know what your mission is and where you’re going.“ Although New Era Colorado Foundation is a non-partisan political awareness group, Fenberg admits that some of the pieces on the blog are left-leaning. As New Era News moves forward, Fenberg says their next major goal is to diversify the voices represented. “It is an area where we do have to be careful because we’re talking about politics and it’s hard to write about politics without some kind of opinion coming through,“ he said. “But we want it to be as open and as diverse as possible.“ Regardless, he is happy with where they’ve come in just a few months. The main lessons Fenberg learned also makes good advice for future start-ups: “Expect things to arrive that you didn’t plan for and be flexible and go for it.“ —Lori Grisham