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You've been sent a story from New Voices (http://www.j-newvoices.org/): NewCastleNOW.org Christine Yeres, Project Leader, NewCastleNOW.org http://www.j-newvoices.org/117/ To create a weekly cyber newspaper built from citizen-generated content for the the Chappaqua area in West Chester County, N.Y., which has lost its local newspaper. CONTACT INFO NewCastleNOW.org 11 Apple Tree Close Chappaqua, NY 10514 (914) 861-2136 E-mail Web site To create a weekly cyber newspaper built from citizen-generated content for the Chappaqua area in Westchester County, N.Y., which has lost its local newspaper. The project is spearheaded by local volunteers under the auspices of the Friends of the Chappaqua Library. Check back for future news and updates. • August 2008 • March 2008 • November 2007     NewCastleNOW from J-Lab on Vimeo.2007 grantees Ann Marie Fallon and Christine Yeres talk about building a reputation for their site. They serve as publisher and managing editor, respectively. This interview took place April 5, 2008 at the New Voices 2007 Grantee Meeting at the Hilton Garden Inn in Washington, D.C. Bringing Home the BaconAugust 2008 NewCastleNOW.org is a site rich in content and advertising, with more than 15 local businesses investing in homepage ads, an impressive achievement for a one-year-old hyperlocal Web site.  That might translate into about $40,000 in income in their first year of operation, but the editors admit they are just too busy to count.  Who’s responsible for raking in the revenue?  “My neighbor John,” says project leader Christine Yeres, suggesting that a homegrown venture in a small town can rely on the kindness of neighbors. Girl Scout exhibit on display at New Castle Town Hall.”We’re publishing every Friday, still up all night Thursday, mainly because we choose to live family lives on weekends,” says Yeres, taking a breath from an all-nighter to send us a quick e-mail update. The advertising revenue could liberate Yeres and her founding partners, Ann Marie Fallon and Susie Pender, from the intensity of the deadlines.  “It would be really great to be able to pay a few people to mind certain features we’d like to offer, like always providing town government meeting agendas each week, or the sports round up, relief from which would free us to do the stuff only we can do:  talk to people, dream up and sniff out stories and see how they connect to other stories.” The editors are proud of their coverage of school board elections.  They’ve urged residents to wake up and pay attention.  The site has covered more mundane issues like tree removal, leash laws, real estate transfers.  But the heart of NewCastleNOW is its section called “People,” which celebrates the winner of the citizen of the year award, the soldier just back from Iraq, the retiring teachers, the residents performing at Carnegie Hall or raising money to combat diseases, the Girl Scouts receiving honors, the athletes competing in triathlons, the people who make Chappaquans feel proud of where they live. 57 Contributors and Counting ...March 2008 The three musketeers of NewCastleNow.org - Christine Yeres, Anne Marie Fallon and Susie Pender - can hardly believe the pace they’ve had to keep to put out their weekly hyperlocal edition. “It’s tons of work from Tuesday night through Thursday night into Friday morning around 4 a.m.,” says Yeres, “But then we’re free to live our lives until the following Tuesday afternoon.” Dear Editors, Looking back at the news in ‘07 brings to mind the lyrics of the Beatles’ “A Day in The Life” - “I heard the news today, oh boy!” - sung with a heavy hearted sigh. But wait!  There is a shining star, NewCastleNOW.org! You do a fabulous job in keeping us abreast of local news, opinions and events. And for me, there’s no question that by being better informed, I feel more a part of my community. Just wanted to say many thanks! ~Sharon Rosen Lopez NewCastleNOW.org has become a vibrant, thriving local fixture, attracting 57 citizen content contributors.  Remarkably, they’ve raised enough revenue through advertising from realtors and local businesses to cover their costs. But even there, Yeres admits she hasn’t had a moment to actually calculate the receipts. NewCastleNOW.org has clearly filled a void in the community, becoming an All Things Local Considered for Chappaqua. Stories about leash laws and emergency drills, the chamber orchestra and the Cub Scouts, are coupled with regular features such as a column by local librarians and weekly police, ambulance and fire department blotters.  The site now features dynamic slide shows of everything from the ceremony honoring the retiring police chief to high school students who spent their spring break rebuilding New Orleans. The site’s prominent links to local weather, traffic and train information are a critical and savvy service to commuters. Meanwhile, the editors are navigating the tricky terrain of being citizen journalists who cover the place where they live. “The three of us are involved in various issues and are quite opinionated ourselves,” explains Yeres. “But we try to cover fairly those issues we feel strongly about and believe that the advantage to us of knowing the issues from very close up - even from inside - is greater than the difficulty of remaining balanced in our coverage. And we’re pretty confident that what people want is not just straight coverage of all news, but for us to pick and choose what’s important and present it to them in an interesting way.” Dear Editor, As long-time residents here and after raising our four children in the school system, your presence is long overdue.  Thanks to all the folks who are taking time to cover so many topics in such an objective way. We really needed you. Keep up the excellent work. ~Vera and Bob Bruno Even so, NewCastleNOW.org’s attention to hot issues like education and development has made some officials a bit nervous. “We did what we said we would, and have acted in a rather newspaperly way,” says Yeres. “We solicit articles from residents, accept pitches from anyone but don’t promise that we’ll publish, and write quite a bit of the copy ourselves. We’ve resisted soliciting instantaneous online opinion and we like it this way: people write letters, and they think about what they write.” While NewCastleNOW.org has had great success getting residents to participate, they’re still on the lookout for more, as evidenced in a recent shout out to readers: “Calling all Sports Nuts! We want your sports news. Games, stories, scores, news!” Even without extensive sports coverage, it’s clear that NewCastleNOW.org has a winning team that is making many touchdowns for its community. What do we want? New Castle News! When? Now!November 2007 The NOW in NewCastleNOW stands for News & Opinion Weekly, an online newspaper that’s bursting with local content. The site actually got launched over the summer thanks to a news nudge from the New York Times. Managing Editor Christine Yeres tells the story: “We had advance warning that our Web address would be mentioned in the Times.  We wanted residents to meet with something more than ‘Under Construction’ when they visited, so for five days we worked to put together a sample NewCastleNOW.org.  A severe storm passed through the week before and there was plenty of damage; school children stranded on their buses, people in their cars, waiting for live wires to be subdued. We made the storm the focus of our front page - along with a story about the three of us, our J-Lab grant and our purpose.” Add an events calendar, a gardening advice column, an obituary of a beloved resident and voila: an online newspaper was born. To promote the new site, they set up a mock wooden farm stand with a striped canopy in the library lobby. In the basket where someone might find fresh produce, they put flyers advertising the Web site and announcing upcoming planning meetings to be held at the library two in the evening, two in the daytime. The promotional strategy bore fruit:  “The meetings drew every kind of person imaginable,” recounts Yeres, “from non-profits, churches, business; young and old, worker bees and aspiring writers, puzzle junkies, sports nuts.” Smartly maximizing free promotional opportunities, NewCastleNOW founders persuaded five prominent local writers to offer a free mini-course in citizen journalism, workshops which were listed at no cost in the high school’s Continuing Education booklet mailed to every home in town. “It feels like a barn-raising around here - in this town of both McMansions and more modest cottage homes, all equally without a news source for so long,” says Yeres. “We’re not just delivering news, but are making the place where people can find out from one another both what’s happening in our town (issues and events)and what others think.” The site invites readers to become writers:  “Familiarize yourself with NewCastleNOW.org.  Read it, and see if you’re moved to write it!  If you have an expertise or interest in writing for NewCastleNOW.org, either by consistently sending us events and calendar information about your non-profit, or by submitting feature articles of interest to the community, contact us.” Yeres predicts that managing the flow of people and content will be a challenge. “We think the secret around here is to look and behave very much like a newspaper and not overwhelm people. We’ll work with them to edit their work. And we have to learn to delegate.” “Whew!  Since we launched on October 5, it’s been a crazy-busy and very exciting ride,” says Yeres, who holds a daily conference call with co-conspirators Anne Marie Fallon and Susie Pender. Together, the three share editing responsibility for everything posted on the site. The weekly edition publishes Fridays before dawn.  “We come up with great stories each week from conventional sources like budget materials, police and ambulance blotters; and from odder perspectives too, such as op-ed pieces by a cowardly conservationist; a travel journal from a college graduate searching for isolated Jewish communities around the world; a woman promoting community farm markets. We’ve covered a controversial schedule change proposed at our local high school and the story of the cancellation of remaining dances by the principal.” Yeres expect NewCastleNow to develop a vibrant local sports section. “We found a guy who graduated from our high school and remembered aloud to me how much it meant to him and his friends in those days to be recognized in the local paper for their sports achievements.  And we’re pairing him with a woman soccer player who feels ‘enough with the kids!’ and wants to emphasize team sports for adults. Together, they’ll make a great section.” NewCastleNOW is aiming to partner with local cable access TV and the League of Women Voters so that the League’s written accounts of public meetings can be synchronized with cable-TV recordings, making it possible for people to find the parts most relevant to them.  They are working to recruit contributors from Millwood (the smaller, lesser-known, non-Chappaqua hamlet of New Castle) and are inviting the town’s “constructive needlers” to write opinion pieces. NewCastleNOW is planning to meet with the local chamber of commerce to make a pitch for the online paper to play a larger role in downtown revitalization. The site is publishing an old official report on the subject that few residents ever read. Says Yeres, “We think that we can ‘re-gift’ this material by presenting it in manageable-size chunks with pictures and related stories, and revive interest and a town-wide discussion about solutions.” One local volunteer is pounding the pavement and the phones, promoting the site and selling ad space to businesses in the community.  And editors are keeping track of which articles are most read, using Google Analytics to see how readership is building.