Even as CPS opens more new schools, children with special needs have a tougher time finding options. Placements in private therapeutic schools are scarce, and some charters are reluctant to enroll them.
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Report Ranks Local Sites
By: Alexander Russo / June 10, 2009
A new report (PDF) out from the Community Media Workshop ranks local sites that are providing public interest news, including some that include education coverage.
1. Chi-Town Daily News
6. WBEZ Chicago Public Radio
7. Chicago Parent
8. Catalyst Chicago
12. The Beachwood Reporter
14. Chicago Defender
15. District 299
16. The Chicago Reporter
I've got some questions about how the report was pulled together (CTDN seems an unlikely number one, and WBEZ seems like a mainstream not a niche site) but I'm glad there's some attention being paid and that this site was included.
Other links:
Study measures Chicago's non-traditional online news sources Tribune
Local Blogs Among Chicago's Top Niche News Sites Chicagosphere
Report Ranks Local Sites
Hey! Search engines are sending all District299 traffic over to the Trib hosted version and that's horrible. It's going to kill this blog. You've really got to drive traffic to this Catalyst-hosted version. Seriously, Alex.
Report Ranks Local Sites
hey, frank --
thanks for letting us know about this.
that's very kind.
keep working on the education coverage!
/ alexander
Report Ranks Local Sites
FYI, you can see the data from last month's Daily News traffic here: http://s3.amazonaws.com/cdnassets/assets/6258/Snapshot_2009-06-11_17-31-...
And check out Geoff's response here: http://www.chitowndailynews.org/Ravings_from_the_editor/Were_No_1,28381
For the record, there was a qualitative assessment of quality conducted as part of the methodology. There were a number of scales that were used to rank the sites, self reported traffic data being one of many.
Report Ranks Local Sites
keep digging. it's important to figure out how these new media entities "position" themselves/are positioned in the market. "quality" was not an element of this study, it seems.
Report Ranks Local Sites
someone named george schmidt asks a good question:
"I just double-checked to make sure, and according to Network Solutions Substancenews.net has been averaging well over 100,000 hits per month since February 2009. We re-tooled and re-launched seriously on January 1, 2009, and have been providing regular content since in conjunction with our print monthly. We don't do an e-mail feed, but simply allow anyone who wants to to come to us.
"I'm told that the Network Solutions data are considered among the most accurate in the Cyberworld.
"I was just curious how "media" were contacted for this study."
-- alexander