Late last year, NEast Philly, the hyperlocal site for Northeast Philadelphia that I own and edit, was awarded an Enterprise Reporting Fund grant from J-Lab.
A handful of Philadelphia publications were given $5,000 grants to collaborate with other news organizations to produce in-depth reporting.
Work began for NEast Philly in January with the start of Temple University’s Spring 2011 semester. With reporting from Web Editor Christopher Wink and four Philadelphia Neighborhoods journalists, we put together more than 10 articles, several videos and some interactive pieces — all to examine and explain government funding to Mayfair, a Northeast Philadelphia neighborhood, during and after the three-decade reign of powerful former Pa. State Rep. John Perzel, who lost his seat in the November 2010 election and faces a corruption trial this fall.
You can check out the landing page here, which includes multimedia coverage and the link to all the stories. Kudos to Jim Smiley of the Frankford Gazette for designing the page, which will be updated as Perzel goes to trial. The page includes an interactive timeline and “key players” feature.
Shannon Wink 