The Voice of the O.C. California's latest non-profit news venture

Posted by Helena Humphrey on September 15, 2009 at 12:04 PM

The Los Angeles Times has reported that a group of residents from Orange County, California, are set to launch a non-profit news website by the end of the year. The project's initiators, who include retired state lawmakers, lawyers and newspaper reporters, hope that the Voice of the O.C. will act as a platform for watchdog, investigative and local journalism - areas particularly affected by newspaper job losses in recent years.

Joe Dunn, a former Democratic state senator who will chair the outlet's board of directors, commented that the new website aims to bridge the apparent gap between national and local news coverage, a symptom of staff cuts at the Orange County Register and the L.A. Times.

According to the L.A. Times, Dunn and the other founding members looked to the Voice of San Diego, a non-profit online news outlet praised for its coverage of "nitty-gritty issues such as water, crime and health care", for inspiration and advice on their own start-up.

Founded in 2004, the Voice of San Diego now employs 11 reporters, and is supported by a combination of foundation support, individual donations, and advertising. In recent months their readership has soared to just over 60,000 visitors per month, according to Quantcast.

The Voice of San Diego is just one success story in a string of many non-profit news organisations cropping up internationally. The arguments in favour of these organisations are manifold and make a reasonable case for the model being applied to cover gaps in reporting; particularly in the reporting of local news.

However, it should not be forgotten that although non-profit news enterprises do not seek to make money, they do come at a cost. With a starting budget of $140,000 from the Orange County Employees Assn., The Voice of the O.C. will be forced to source an initial $600,000-a-year budget from foundations and private sources. Dunn said: "We want to make sure that we have enough money to get up and going and then keep it alive on a sustained basis" adding "It's the only way you can do investigative reporting." And such fund-raising initiatives do not always succeed, as demonstrated by the Chi-Town Daily News, which just announced that its team is looking to move to a for-profit venture.

The team of staff at the Voice of the O.C. is to be headed by Former Register investigative reporter Norberto Santana Jr. and work on hiring six to eight reporters is currently underway.

Source: Los Angeles Times