Pete Stidman

A small group of community newspaper reporters, web developers, graphic designers and I have been working on a new idea called the Alliance for Community Journalism. In the past few months we have put together the beginnings of an organization that would work towards fulfilling a number of goals, most prominently supporting locally-owned and owner-operated community newspapers, educating new reporters and exploring new ways to improve the interaction between local media sources and their readers, such as “citizen journalism.”

One of our early projects is simply meeting people and getting reporters together to hang out and talk. That's what's happening at JJ Foleys this Friday at 6pm. Call it a learning phase. We’re just in it to make new friends and listen to what’s going on out there.

A more ambitious undertaking of ours is the Boston Bee project, a web-based project that is already underway. That one is under wraps for now, but will become public in the next few months. To hear more about it feel free to ask us at the event at JJ Foleys this Friday night or give me a call at 617-620-1989.

Other members of ACJ have begun looking into grants that could fund our first workshops for reporters. Some of these will be aimed at Boston youth, others would focus more on reporters already in action. That’s it in a nutshell right now, as I said, we’re just coming out of the shell so anything is possible.

We’re always looking for new people to help us build this thing, just email or call if you’re interested.