Colorado Sun
Colorado Sun is an online news outlet based in Denver, Colorado. It launched on September 10, 2018 to provide long-form in depth coverage of news from all around Colorado. It was started with two years of funding from blockchain venture capitalists at Civil and from a Kickstarter campaign.[1] The Sun is based in Denver but covers news from all of Colorado.[2]
History
Eight former employees of the Denver Post started Colorado Sun in response to multiple layoffs[3] at the Denver Post after the Post's acquisition by the private equity firm Alden Global Capital.[4]
Colorado Sun was initially started with a combination of financial and technical support from the Civil journalism platform[5] and a Kickstarter campaign that more than doubled its initial goals.[6] This combination provided Colorado Sun with two years of initial funding, and a subsequent grant from Wend Ventures provided two years of funding for educational reporting.[7] Colorado Sun does not accept advertising, so they expect to be self-supporting from subscribers and donors after the initial funding runs out.
Colorado Sun is one of a few digital news organizations that are pioneering the use of a new platform for journalism called Civil. Civil is an Ethereum-based blockchain platform on which journalists can independently found and run newsrooms.[8] News organizations as diverse as Colorado Sun, Popula,[9] Documented,[10] and others use Civil's blockchain platform to provide transparency, permanence, and other attributes that they hope will contribute to reliable news reporting.
References
- ↑ "Kickstarter: The Colorado Sun". https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/873054240/the-colorado-sun.
- ↑ "About Us". https://coloradosun.com/about-us/. "The Colorado Sun is a journalist-owned, ad-free news outlet based in Denver but which strives to cover all of Colorado so that our state — our community — can better understand itself."
- ↑ Chloe Aiello (June 16, 2018). "As hedge funds overtake media, the Denver Post leads a vocal revolt against ‘vulture capitalists’". https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/16/denver-post-reporters-vs-vulture-capitalist-hedge-fund-alden.html. "The Post has cut its staff about 70 percent since Alden and its founder Randall Smith took control in 2011, according to data from the Denver Newspaper Guild."
- ↑ Ben Markus (June 17, 2018). "The Colorado Sun To Launch With Former Denver Post ‘A-Team’ Stars And Tech Cash". http://www.cpr.org/news/story/the-colorado-sun-to-launch-with-former-denver-post-a-team-stars-and-tech-cash.
- ↑ "A community-owned journalism network based on transparency and trust". https://civil.co/.
- ↑ "Kickstarter: The Colorado Sun". https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/873054240/the-colorado-sun.
- ↑ Larry Ryckman (November 2, 2018). "Editor’s note: The Colorado Sun is growing — with an eye on education". https://coloradosun.com/2018/11/02/colorado-sun-hiring-education/.
- ↑ Matt Coolidge (December 1, 2017). "What is Civil". https://blog.joincivil.com/what-is-civil-95b7e5e09e62.
- ↑ "About Popula". https://popula.com/about-popula/.
- ↑ "Documented home page". https://documentedny.com/.
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