The Chicago Reporter’s website will receive a much-needed facelift this year with a generous grant from the Open Society Foundations.
Staff has begun testing the site, and the public launch could happen late fall or early winter as we continue to celebrate our 40th anniversary year of investigating race and poverty.
The goal of the project is to improve the look and feel of the website but, more importantly, how the website operates.
It will be easier to find data, videos and stories, relate to those writing them, and communicate with the Reporter community. There will be more things to look at. We know that investigative journalism isn’t just about the stories; it’s about all of the pieces, including blogs and multimedia and interaction with our readers.
Here’s just some of what you’ll get with the new website:
- A mobile friendly site, so that users can view the Reporter website easily on their preferred mobile device and share content.
- A mobile app that allows users to access some key Reporter data.
- A multimedia landing page, with all new video and photo galleries.
In the coming months, we will build on the site to add comprehensive data that users can interact with.
We’re also looking at ways to translate the website into Spanish, but we haven’t found a way to automate it with a tool that has the accuracy we require, so we’re still working on that.
In the meantime, make sure to sign up for our e-blasts at chicagoreporter.com so that you’re among the first to know about the launch.
Thanks for your continued support of the Reporter.