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Key links:
Primary website:
examiner.com
Primary Twitter:
@examinercom

Editor’s Note: Encyclo has not been regularly updated since August 2014, so information posted here is likely to be out of date and may be no longer accurate. It’s best used as a snapshot of the media landscape at that point in time.

Examiner.com is a Denver-based network of aggregated local websites with posts written by thousands of freelancers.

Examiner.com, which was founded in 2006 and reinvented in 2008, produces search engine-friendly articles, often locally based, that are typically made up of aggregated parts from other websites, often building on widely searched-for topics. Its unedited articles are written by 40,000 freelance contributors.

Examiner.com is a part of the Clarity Digital Group, which is owned by billionaire entrepreneur Phillip Anschutz, who also owns the Weekly Standard, Washington Examiner and San Francisco Examiner.

Examiner.com increased significantly was among the web’s fastest-growing news sites in 2009, largely based on its success in appearing near the top of Google searches. It now operates in more than 100 cities in the United States and Canada.

Examiner.com has drawn criticism for its writers’ low pay, which is based on pageviews and advertising clicks, as well as its lack of editorial oversight. Its writers have also been accused of plagiarism. In April 2011, it responded to that criticism by producing a white paper about its content quality that proposed offering quality-based incentives for writers.

In 2009, Examiner.com bought NowPublic, a Vancouver-based global citizen journalism site launched in 2005, for about $25 million. The two outlets continue to maintain separate sites, and NowPublic laid off several staff members in early 2010. NowPublic sold stories and photos to the Associated Press from 2008 to 2009, before it was purchased by Examiner.com.

In December 2011, Examiner.com began providing content for CBS Local Digital Media sites.

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Primary author: Mark Coddington. Main text last updated: March 21, 2013.
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Crosscut is a nonprofit news site that covers politics, the arts, and culture in the Pacific Northwest, with an emphasis on analysis over breaking news. The site was launched in 2007 by Seattle Weekly founder David Brewster. It is based in Seattle and has seven staff members and about 40 freelancers. The site specializes in…

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