It’s been an interesting week on the New Orleans news media scene — alliances, partnerships, collaborations, competition — and it’s left people a bit confused. The short explanation, from The Lens’ perspective, is that we want to continue to expand our cooperative efforts to get our reporting to as many people as possible, on whatever […]
Author Archives: Steve Beatty
Steve Beatty is the publisher and chief executive officer of The Lens. He worked as an editor for The Times-Picayune for 15 years, leaving New Orleans just before Katrina to take a position as an editor at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and quickly rising through the ranks to be an editor of the newspaper
Posted inGovernment & Politics
UNO to create major newsroom, drawing work from The Lens
Working through WWNO-FM, the University of New Orleans will create a new nonprofit newsroom before the end of the year, the school announced this morning. As previously announced, The Lens and NolaVie.com have been in talks with WWNO since late last year about a collaborative relationship, and both nonprofit operations will be contributing to this […]
Posted inInvestigations
Forum set to let community have a say in changing news coverage
An upcoming symposium will let community members learn about the sea changes in journalism nationwide and then let them tell the region’s news gatherers what kind of news they want — and how they want it delivered. The goal is to have readers, viewers and listeners help chart a new course towards a model of […]
Posted inInvestigations
Four online newsrooms form cooperative to strengthen and promote journalism
The Lens is joining a coalition of online publishers in New Orleans to promote each other’s work, with the goal of offering readers a wider array of news and information. The New Orleans Digital News Alliance brings together The Lens, My Spilt Milk, NOLA Defender and Uptown Messenger. These initial members will highlight work of […]
Posted inInvestigations
The Lens teaming with WWNO, cultural nonprofit site NolaVie to broaden coverage
To bolster WWNO-FM’s news-focused format change, which begins today, the station is forming a reporting collaboration with The Lens and NolaVie.com. The joint effort brings together experienced journalists to increase local news coverage on broadcast and digital platforms at a critical point in the renewal of our city, region and community. The three nonprofits began […]
Posted inInside the News Room
The Lens takes 1st-place awards at annual journalism competition
The Lens brought home three first-place awards at Saturday nights’ Excellence in Journalism Awards sponsored by the Press Club of New Orleans. The Lens won the top honors for: Best Local News Website. Second place was nola.com; third was wwltv.comBest Investigative Story in Print, for this story by reporter Matt Davis on moonlighting deputies and […]
Posted inInside the News Room
Open Society Foundations renew and increase funding for The Lens
We’re proud to announce a continuing and increased grant from one of our major donors, the Open Society Foundations. The Lens was founded in 2009 as the city’s first nonprofit newsroom with a grant from Open Society, and it has supported us at an average of $160,000 over the past three years. It is generously […]
Posted inGovernment & Politics, Inside the News Room
In chasing down stories, are we furthering the agendas of others?
This evolving feature of The Lens will feature some behind-the-scenes looks at our staff and our decisions, as well as remind you of our upcoming events. When we received a tip that City Councilman Jon Johnson owned a rundown Lower 9th Ward property that had received a taxpayer-financed loan for renovation – yet hadn’t been […]
Posted inGovernment & Politics
Johnson and Hedge-Morrell continue City Council stalemate
Continuing a legislative stalemate, two members were absent from a specially called New Orleans City Council meeting Wednesday morning, preventing the four members present from conducting council business. Those present are concerned that city business, from the mundane to the important, will continue to be stalled if Council members Jon Johnson and Cynthia Hedge-Morrell don’t […]
Posted inInside the News Room
A new look, but the same solid reporting from The Lens
Welcome to the redesigned site of The Lens. We hope you like what you see here, and we want to hear your thoughts on the effort — positive or negative. Please email Managing Editor Steve Beatty at sbeatty@TheLensNola.org. We’ll do our best to incorporate your feedback to make this site the best it can be.