WHERE SMALL LEADS BECOME BIG STORIES

With the disappearance of hometown publications, local stories that have national impact go unseen and unheard. Simply put, under the existing journalistic framework, culturally significant local stories are often stifled.

As recipients of the Google Innovation Fund, Okayplayer was tasked with innovating around these issues and their effects.

From this, The Byline Project was born.

47%

Of newsroom staff have been cut nationwide.

1,800

Newspapers have closed. The surviving newspapers lack investigative reporting resources.

3 Million

People living in local news deserts, without access to critical information relevant to their community.

The Byline Project is a digital platform that empowers local storytellers to report on issues affecting their communities by connecting journalists to financial support from a broader digital audience.

“We’ve heard loud and clear from journalists across North America that there is a huge need for bootstrapped and under-funded publishers and journalists to be more empowered to produce quality local journalism that represents the whole of their communities. This is what makes the Byline Project really stand out,”

- LaToya Drake, Head of Media Representation at Google.

The process begins with the initial step of receiving pitches from writers, photographers, and creators. The moment a story goes live, the online community can financially support the content they find valuable through direct-to-reporter tipping.

FREE OPEN-SOURCE
SOFTWARE DESIGNED
FOR LOCAL NEWS
PUBLISHERS.

The Byline Project can be installedvia any WordPress platform, for free.

With The Byline Project, Okayplayer hopes to plant the seeds for an innovative community-driven local news landscape on our own pages, while giving you the tools to do the same on yours.