The mission is to ensure the future of independent local journalism and make the world a better place in the process. Publishing here is an entrepreneurial endeavor. The stories and the readers are yours, and so is most of every dollar a reader or a local business puts behind the work. We're building the platform to work so well that you can publish, run a publication, and reach your readers with zero friction.
The three steps above are the whole start, and the middle one is the good part. A vouch is a real person putting their own reputation behind you. For now that person is one of our founders, who reads your introduction and says yes. In time it will be someone in your own town who knows you. Publish after that and First Filing, the first of the gold stars, lands on your profile. From there you can connect a payout account so readers and local businesses can back the work, start a publication with a masthead and a team, sell an ad to a shop you know, or put stories and video behind a monthly subscription.
Your profile
A profile is a journalist's public byline page: name, photo, bio, website, and whatever sections tell their story. In profile settings, add sections from the list (Education, Experience, Areas of Expertise, Hometown, Languages, Awards, extra links) or create a custom one with any heading, and reorder them. Everything is optional and everything shown is public. Upload a resume or type a quick summary and we draft the sections for review before anything is saved; the document is read once and deleted.
The same page is where a Premium member claims a handle, the @name on their profile link and what lets other writers mention them. The profile is where a press pass points and where readers land from a shared link. If you're brand new: profile first, vouch second, publish third.
Location
A journalist's work appears in feeds by where it's published, so readers in that community find it. The Primary contributing location is the home base, set in profile settings: pick the community hub (the town center, city hall), not a home address, and keep it stable. A journalist who lives twenty miles outside a small town but covers it sets Primary to the town center, so their stories land in that town's feed.
Setting it asks for location permission, and the map opens where the journalist is so they can pick a center within 100 miles. Nobody has to set one to sign up, read, or follow. Someone who would rather not can say so from the same screen, with an optional note about why. Getting vouched for needs a location, and it can be set from the profile any time.
When publishing, a journalist picks where this piece appears:
- Area, about a mile wide, based on where they are. It asks for location permission once. The story lands in the neighborhood, not at their feet.
- Precise, the exact spot, published with the story. For reporting from the scene: a crash site, a storefront, an event address. Never anywhere they wouldn't want on a public map.
- Primary, the community from their profile. For writing about home while traveling.
Readers see a place name like "Santa Fe, NM" and a pin at the precision chosen. Location only shapes how new readers discover the work; anyone who reads a journalist sees everything they publish.
Weather on your feed. A journalist's own feed can carry the weather box readers see on the location feed, for the Primary location: tonight and tomorrow from the National Weather Service, plus any active alert. It is off for a person unless you switch it on, on your profile page under Your front page, where a miniature of your own front page shows what readers would get. Your town is already on your profile; turning this on shares nothing finer than that.
Publishing
Stories are the heart of it: written local news and journalism. Beyond stories, a journalist can publish events, classifieds, resources, coupons, public notices, obituaries, initiatives, spotlight requests, polls and surveys, long-form video and podcasts, and live broadcasts. Which type fits what is in choosing a content type.
Writing a story. Open the story form. Formatting is deliberately simple:
bold, italic, links, section headings and bullets. Start a line with ## for a section
heading or - for a bullet, or use the Heading and Bullets buttons. Add photos with a credit (who took it) and a caption (what's in
it), and use the Sources & Notes footer to show where your information came from. Those
two habits are the first things the story integrity check
looks for, and the publish screen shows where you stand before you post. You can publish as
yourself or under a publication you belong to. When a story continues one you already
published, choose "This is a follow-up to…" and pick the earlier story; each links to the
other under the byline. Publishing requires being vouched for; drafting doesn't.
Mentioning a person or publication. In the body, type @ and a few letters of a name
or handle, then pick from the list; the name lands as a link and they get a notification
and one email. In the iOS and Android apps, tap Mention someone on the toolbar. Only
people and publications that have claimed a handle can be mentioned. Typed by hand,
@dylan shows as @dylan and [Dylan Crabb](@dylan) shows the name with the link behind
it. An email address or a web address containing @ is never a mention. Up to 20 different
people and publications count per piece. Editing a published piece never re-notifies
anyone. Both alerts have a switch at the bottom of Settings.
Placing photos and video. Everything in Media for Display appears on the published
piece, spread between paragraphs in tray order. To pin one to an exact spot, wrap a
description in double curly braces right in the text, {{the ribbon cutting}}, or use
the Place media button in the toolbar. A few words from the caption or file name are
enough. For a compact photo the text wraps around, add a size after a pipe:
{{mayor headshot | small}} (left, the default), {{mayor headshot | small left}}, or
{{mayor headshot | small right}}. Pinning works on stories, events, local resources,
initiatives, spotlights, public notices, obituaries, and alerts; classifieds, coupons, and
long-form video show media above the text. Pinned positions render on the web and in the mobile apps.
Adjusting a photo's framing. A photo shows up in more than one shape. Tap Adjust framing under it: Original is what the story, the feed, and print show; Square is the small tiles and car artwork; Share is the wide picture in a link preview. Square and Share follow the Original until you set them yourself. Framing is stored, not baked in, so you can change it any time and the original picture is never altered.
Polls and surveys. A poll asks one question with two to six options and a required closing date; results publish to everyone when it closes. A survey asks up to ten questions and the answers go only to the author, who gets aggregates and a CSV. Both are Premium membership features.
Video and podcasts. Upload through the long-form form: a file, a title, a description, and cover art (required for audio). It processes for a few minutes, then plays everywhere your other work does, in the audio player or the video player. A podcast can be either. Going live is its own thing: the broadcast guide.
The create canvas. When something happened and you have material (notes, photos, a voice memo, a flyer, a link) but not a finished piece, drop it all into the canvas. It reads what you gave it, suggests a type, fills the form, and you edit and publish through the same flow. Audio gets transcribed. The canvas is in limited beta; the regular forms do everything it does, by hand. Without beta access, opening the canvas takes you to the regular create page instead.
Republishing older work. For pieces that first ran in a print paper or on another site, open Archival options on the create form. Set the original publication date and the piece takes its place in feed history instead of appearing as new; the record keeps the date it was added here too. A custom byline credits an original author who isn't on the platform. A whole archive is handled per request through the feedback form.
Drafts and My Content. A draft exists the moment you open a create form and saves as you type; "All changes saved" at the top is the indicator. Nothing is visible to readers until you press Publish. Everything you've made, drafts included, lives in My Content: on the web it's the Your Work section of the side menu, with a Drafts row that opens straight to them, and in the apps it's under Settings. Analytics shows how it's doing.
The story integrity check
Every story gets one after it goes live: six things we look for on the page. It never blocks a story and it never scolds. Before publishing, the story form shows what a piece could still add; afterwards the result stays off the published page, which looks the same to everyone who opens it, its writer included.
The six, what each one means on the page, and how the check works are on the story integrity check.
Most of what we promote is journalism in the traditional sense. Creative and community work rooted somewhere real belongs here too: a song review, a photo essay, a column about a place. This check is also the first piece of how we choose what From Across My Local Press shows to towns with little posted yet.
Say what kind of piece it is
On the story form there is one line: What kind of piece is this? Pick Opinion, Review, Essay, Photo essay, Announcement, Reporting, or Something else. What you pick is what a reader sees, in that one word, right above your byline.
Reporting shows nothing, and neither does Something else. Most stories are reporting, and a word that appears on almost every story stops being read — which would make it invisible on the one that says Opinion, the story where a reader most needs it. So the label appears when it changes how a piece should be read, and stays quiet otherwise.
Change it whenever you like, before or after publishing; it is your word, not ours. The story integrity check makes its own guess about what kind of piece this is, and that guess stays internal — readers only ever see what you said.
When you get something wrong
Fix it in the open. Readers trust a source more for correcting itself than for almost anything else it can do — more than for checking facts before publishing, and by a wide margin.
Open your published piece for editing and you will find a Corrections box next to Sources & Notes. It is one block of text you write and rewrite freely, exactly like Sources & Notes. Add a correction starts a dated line for you — September 8, 2026: An earlier version of this story … — so you are not facing a blank space; finish it in your own words, and what publishes is what you wrote, never our wording. Something like: September 8, 2026: An earlier version said the meeting was Tuesday. It was Wednesday.
Readers see that text at the end of the story, under Sources & Notes, headed Corrections. Everyone sees the same page — there is no author-only panel on a published story, and the way back to the box is the ordinary Edit link.
Because it is one block, several fixes read the way you want them to. Two corrections on the same day can become one sentence; fixes on different days keep their own dated lines, oldest first, so the record reads the way it happened.
Correcting a story is the job, not a black mark. Nobody is scored on it and nothing is hidden because of it.
Say what AI did
Readers want to be told. In a study across ten newsrooms, 94% said a newsroom should disclose when it used AI. The same readers also trust a story less when all they get is a label: 42% trusted a piece less after seeing a bare AI disclosure, against 30% who trusted it more. What closes that gap is saying what the AI did, and that a person checked the work.
So there is no AI badge here. There is one line on the story form, What did AI do on this piece?, with four answers: nothing, fixed spelling and grammar, helped me edit, wrote a first draft. Pick one and, if AI touched the piece, tick the line saying you checked the facts and were the final editor. Your answer becomes one sentence at the bottom of the story, under Sources & Notes, and nowhere else. Nothing appears beside your byline and nothing appears on a feed card.
The four answers are separate because readers treat them differently. Asked how comfortable they were with each use, people said 55% for AI fixing grammar and spelling and 30% for AI rewriting a piece for a different audience. That is a wide gap for two things a single "AI helped" label would flatten into one. Saying "nothing" is a real answer and worth saying; it is the answer readers are most comfortable with.
Pictures are marked on the picture. On any photo you upload there is a checkbox, This picture was made with AI. Tick it and the credit line under that picture leads with "Illustration made with AI", followed by whatever credit you typed. That shows on the story page, in the full-screen view, and in print. A picture is a claim that something looked a certain way, and a reader forms that belief before they reach any footer. So the mark goes where they meet it. Making a realistic image where no photograph exists drew one of the lowest comfort levels of any use tested, 26%.
The integrity check reads both. A story that answers the question, or marks a picture, has said what AI did.
What leads the local feed
A town's Recent feed is the front page for that place. Journalism leads it. A piece is journalism here when it does these things.
- It's about this place. A meeting, a game, a business, a person, a decision in the community the feed is for. Tagging a town isn't the same as being about it.
- Something happened. A specific event, decision, incident, opening, closing, or result, with who, what, when, and where.
- Someone did the reporting. You were there, talked to someone, or added context: an interview, a quote, a document, your own photos or video with the event named. A press release passed along as-is doesn't count. A press release plus your own reporting does.
- It's for readers, not for a sale. A piece whose main job is to sell a product, a service, a subscription, or your own brand is promotion, however well written. Promotion is welcome here. It runs at the pace ads run at.
- Reviews, civic coverage, and opinion are editorial, not promotion. A review of a show, a film, a restaurant, or a product, a council meeting, a candidate interview, a column: none of these are promotion, unless the reviewer is selling the thing reviewed.
New pieces are read against this list when they're published, for substance, not keywords. Not there yet? Two doors. Add the reporting: interview the owner, quote the coach, attach the agenda, and it leads the feed free. Promote it: promoting a piece puts it in front of the community at the pace ads run, labeled Ad. Your own feed and your publication's feed are yours either way; nothing you've published is removed or hidden.
While a town's own reporting builds, its feed carries reporting from other communities, each card marked with the place it came from. Those stories either sit in the feed where they fall or gather into one row titled From Across My Local Press below the town's own stories, and a town whose own reporting is steady gets neither — we set that per town, and it can change without an app update. Sometimes we put a single question to every community at once: a survey card at the top of every town's feed until you answer it or dismiss it. It isn't local reporting and it never takes a story's place. Think we got one wrong? Send it through the feedback form with a link to the piece. A person looks. Edit a story of yours that was picked and it comes down so a person can read the change before it goes back up.
Criteria as of September 7, 2026.
Promoting your work
Anything you have published can be promoted: a story, an event, a listing, or an advertisement. Open My Content, find the piece, and press Promote. The iPhone and Android apps have Promote in My Content too, with the same choices; when a promotion needs paying for, the app opens the web to finish payment.
The Promotion page asks two things. First, where it should appear — the local feed, which reaches readers by location, or a journalist's or publication's feed, which asks that person to host it. Then the reach and the budget: the audience, the total spend, and how long it runs. A placement on someone else's feed is a request rather than a purchase. The journalist or publication sees it in their Promotion Requests and decides, and nothing is charged until they do.
Once the payment settles the promotion runs, labeled Ad wherever it appears. Everything you have running is in Your Promotions, which is also where you stop one. What it costs and how the money moves are on how payments work.
Your insignia
The gold stars on a profile are insignia: marks earned by doing the work, every one a first, and nothing here counts volume. First Filing, your first story. Press Pick, a piece picked for From Across My Local Press. Reader's Respect, a reader tipped their hat to a story. Solid Sources, a story with Sources & Notes and credited photos. Community Convener, your first event. People's Pulse, your first poll or survey.
A star is permanent. On your own profile, marks you haven't earned show as dashed outlines with one sentence on how to earn them; readers see only what you have. The row can carry one number, how many of your pieces have been featured From Across, curated by an editor. A mark says what you did here, nothing more: it doesn't make anyone a journalist, doesn't change how stories rank, and is never bought.
Using AI
The writing assistant on every create form uses Anthropic's Claude. Using it to outline, draft, or refine is fine; the journalism belongs to the journalist, who is responsible for fact-checking everything they publish. Treat its output the way you'd treat an unverified tip. AI-generated images, video, and audio must never depict something real that didn't happen. Creative and illustrative AI visuals that aren't pretending to be documentary are welcome, and they get marked as such — see say what AI did. If you already work in Claude or ChatGPT, you can connect My Local Press there and have what you've written land in your account as a draft: working from an assistant.
Building an audience
We provide the platform. Journalists bring the audience, and the ones who do well treat the work as a small business. Point every channel you already have at the work published here: the profile link in social bios, the story link in a newsletter or email list, an email signature, the regulars at the meeting you covered, other journalists and publications. Every story page has a Copy link by its Share button, and so does each published piece in My Content (in the iPhone app, swipe the row left). Every reader you bring reads, clicks, and listens, and those are the numbers the people backing you see.
Getting paid
Readers and local businesses can back a journalist directly, subscribe to their stories, broadcasts, and long-form video for a monthly price, or run an ad. The same works for any publication a journalist creates. The split, the tiers, refunds, and what a backer sees are on how payments work; the short guide to earning is reader subscriptions and getting paid. Turn it all on in payment settings once a payout account is connected.
Learn the craft
Journalism is learnable work. A first story can be as simple as calling a public official and asking about the issue your community is worried about. The Resources page collects a self-paced journalism course, the books the journalists here recommend, and the stories that inspired us; nobody on it sponsors us or paid to be listed.
Built in the open
Updates go out daily. We want to hear what you need next, a feature or a step that got in your way. Tell us. A confirmed bug earns an extra month of Premium, every time. Anything the guide doesn't answer, write to us.