Planning your next visit to Baruch? Log on to East20sEats.com before you arrive to get the scoop on the neighborhood’s food news, from street vendors to specialty grocery stores to fine dining restaurants. Described as a “hyperlocal news website,” this collaborative site—developed by the Weissman School’s Department of Journalism and the Writing Professions—features reviews, multimedia, and an interactive map with information on more than 300 restaurants and food businesses in the East 20s, all written and maintained by Baruch students, faculty, and staff.
The East20sEats.com project invests in sustainable, low-cost journalism and, according to Professor and Director of the Harnisch Collaborative Future of Journalism Projects Geanne Rosenberg, tasks its working group with exploring revenue generation through new journalistic media. Professors Craig Stone and Vera Haller each played integral roles in the development of the site, making decisions about its platform and content with this goal in mind. Stone serves as the project’s technology director, and Haller is editor in chief.
East20sEats.com owes its existence to a grant from Ruth Ann Harnisch (LHD [Hon.] ’11) and William Harnisch (’68, DCSc [Hon.] ’11) to advance journalism studies and encourage collaborations that enrich journalism.
Rosenberg explains the choice of the experimental project’s subject and platform: As Baruch’s neighborhood, the East 20s was an obvious focus location, and the subject of food, well, needs no explanation. “The hyperlocal news model covers small, defined communities and is made possible at low cost because of the Internet. It’s a model that is gaining traction as a news source within communities,” explains Rosenberg. Launched in April 2011, the site is updated throughout the year.
The plan during the 2011–12 academic year is to begin promoting paid advertisements on the platform in addition to experimenting further with building an online community. The site already welcomes contributions from third parties.
So break out your smartphone during your next visit to a local eatery and snap a picture or write a quick review. You’ll be doing your part to participate in sustainable journalism.
—Adrienne Preuss (’07)
Attention Journalism Alumni: Baruch boasts over 700 journalism program alumni. Did you major or minor in journalism or work on any Baruch publication? If you are interested in staying in touch with fellow journalism alumni, please contact us at [email protected].