Interviews with WordPress Publishers Covering LGBQT Issues

The Institute for Nonprofit News has just published interviews with 3 WordPress-based sites that cover LGBTQ issues. Click here to read the interviews.

Here’s a list the three sites. They’re all non-profits, and a couple of these launched very recently.

  • Yes Magazine: This is the most established publisher of the three. Their focus Explanatory journalism on environmental, economic, and social justice. They also have a printed magazine in addition to their WordPress site.
  • Prism Reports: Aims to record the experiences of people most impacted by injustice and started in 2019.
  • The Buckeye Flame: Covers Ohio’s LGBTQ population, and launched in 2020.

This quote below stood out to me. It explains why publishers like this are needed, and why journalists are launching these new publications:

“The idea is for us to use journalism to disrupt some of the really toxic and frankly, inaccurate narratives that are out there about our communities, and also to really uncover the injustices that are happening, and lift up the truth of what’s happening,”

Rappler Fights to Keep Producing Philippines News

WordPress-powered publisher Rappler is in the headlines itself this week as it fights to stay online. The Philippine government has ordered the site to shut down.

Rappler is a Philippine news website founded by Filipino journalists including Maria Ressa who won the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize. Rappler comes from the root words “rap” (to discuss) + “ripple” (to make waves). You can read their story and mission here.

Ressa shared the prize with a Russian journalist. They were the first working journalists to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 80 years. They won for their brave coverage of bad government in their home countries.

The Rappler started as a Facebook page in 2011 and evolved into a website on the next year. For years they have covered the corruption of President Rodrigo Duterte despite his fierce attacks on any journalists who disagreed with him. The Rappler team have a timeline of the government’s efforts.

Rappler

Patagonia Regional Times Provides WordPress-Based Local News in Arizona

The Patagonia Regional Times is a non-profit publisher that focuses on the Arizona communities of Canelo, Elgin, Patagonia and Sonoita in Santa Cruz County.

They have been publishing printed and digital newsletters on a monthly schedule since 2009. Their motto is “If we don’t tell these local stories, who will?”

and have just launched a WordPress site at PatagoniaRegionalTimes.org. The site is hosted by Newspack and they use Donorbox

They publish a list of their donors every year and a sizeable chunk of their revenue goes to supporting the monthly print publication that is distributed to newsstands and local merchants.

Matt Mullenweg Wants WordPress to Remain the Dominant Publishing Platform Over Arc XP

Matt Mullenweg, the co-founder of WordPress, likes to pick a good honorable fight against closed, proprietary technology platforms.

Matt is now choosing to pick a very valid fight against the fast-growing Arc XP platform. Dan Froomkin describes the start of Arc XP today:

The Post started licensing its technology to other news organizations in 2016, and its digital publishing division, Arc XP, is now a booming business employing a staff of 300 that is continuously rolling out new functionalities. It powers more than 2,000 sites for media organizations and non-media brands that can afford its hefty price tag. 

Matt responded on Twitter with a recommendation that users look at the open source Newspack product instead. Newspack is an entirely open source product. All the code is available on Github.

I disagree with some of Matt’s stances, but this one is 100% accurate. No good can come from major newspapers standardizing on a Jeff Bezos platform, and WordPress is the best and logical alternative. Arc XP has a big backer, but WordPress is the dominant choice for publishers and should remain so. Almost all exciting new publishers are launching on WordPress. Check out the previous posts here in KinshiPress for lots of great examples.

With WordPress, publishers can own their content, own their platform, and do it all for a vastly lower price than with Arc XP.

In addition to Newspack, you’ll find a lot of developers working hard to improve WordPress as a publishing platform. Check out PublishPress for publishing workflow plugin, Leaky Paywall for an eCommerce option, Multicollab for editorial comments, and many more.

MundoNow Is a Huge WordPress-Based Hispanic Publisher

Mundo Hispanico was the name of a massive media platform in the USA that focused on Spanish-language news. The company has been around for over 40 years and grew thanks to their print editions.

The company has just rebranded to MundoNow so they that they can more easily reach Latinos who are prefer to use to use English. The most recent census showed that only 28 percent of Latinos in the U.S. are Spanish-language dominant.

MundoNow is powered by WordPress, using one unified site for both languages. See more on the rebranding.

MundoNow is powered by WordPress

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