It’s Your Town. Read All About It
New Haven. Its neighborhoods. Its government. Its people – from the knuckleheads to the dreamers and schemers, and everyone in between.
That’s what this web site is about: A five-day-a-week report on news about the City of New Haven, Connecticut, produced by veteran local journalists, and by you.
The New Haven Independent is rooted in and devoted to the city. We believe that democracy starts at home, with smart, thorough, in-depth local news reporting and broad citizen debate about local issues. Thanks to the Internet, journalists and news-deprived citizens need no longer be hostages to out-of-state media conglomerates. We can reclaim our communities.
The New Haven Independent is produced in conjunction with the Online Journalism Project, a not-for-profit effort to promote professional-quality “stand-alone” and “hyperlocal” news sites on the Internet. Our main financial sponsors are listed on the right-hand column of the homepage and most inside pages. This site relies on three sources of revenue: grants from foundations to support specific areas of reporting, such as health care, similar to the way that National Public Radio obtains charitable grants to support independent reporting; general ongoing sponsorship grants from institutions; and donations from readers. The reporting on this site is, as the name says, “independent.” All financial contributions to the site come with the understanding that contributors will not determine (or have any responsibility for) the articles produced on the site. (Feel free to contact us with further questions about the site’s financial support.)
The New Haven Independent features daily reports and diverse public discussion about news about New Haven neighborhoods, government, politics, criminal justice, schools, business, arts and culture. It links readers to other websites with information about New Haven.
And it depends on your contributions. Please send us photos and news tips. Add your comments at the end of articles. (One rule: Be civil.) Let us know what you like — and don’t like. Tell others about us (preferably by sending them e‑mail messages with the link to the site). And sharpen that red pencil, to inform us of misspellings, typos and other errors. We’ll keep track of who catches the most mistakes and give out periodic Independent coffee mugs to the winners. (Sites like ours can’t afford proofreaders.)
Finally, you can pitch in your pennies to the cause of independent, not-for-profit local journalism. You can read everything on this site for free. But it does take money to produce. If you feel like making an ongoing tax-deductible contribution to New Haven Independent.org, click here.
The Independent shares some articles with New Haven-based La Voz Hispana, the state’s largest-circulation Spanish language newspaper.
Read our latest 990 tax form here.
WNHH FM
WNHH FM is a bilingual low-power and webstreamed nonprofit community radio station owned and run by OJP. It can be heard live at 103.5 FM as well as through this webstream. Click here for the station’s separate homepage, including a linked list of programs.
Click here to read the minutes from the radio station’s Community Advisory Board meeting.
Read About The Independent and WNHH FM In The News
How to excel at in-school reporting — The Grade, May 17, 2023
Babz Rawls-Ivy, the radio voice of New Haven, shares her life and wisdom — Media Nation, Feb. 23, 2022
How a nonprofit digital newsroom tracked the 2021 local elections live, online and over the air — What Works, Dec. 23, 2021
The latest bad idea for chain newspapers: Robot reporting on real estate — Media Nation, Jan. 27, 2022
Think locally: As creator of the online New Haven Independent, Paul Bass ’82 has helped reinvent civic journalism — Yale Alumni Magazine, May/June 2019
No mugshot exploitation here: The New Haven Independent aims to respect the reputations of those arrested in the community it covers — Nieman Lab, Feb. 14, 2017
FM Stations That Don’t Reach Far But Reach Deep — The New York Times, Oct. 14, 2016
In New Haven, a low-power FM experiment seeks local conversation — and financial sustainability — Nieman Journalism Lab, Aug. 4, 2015
The Wired City — Boston Globe, June 19, 2013
A murder, a frenzy, and the rise of a new form of local news — Neiman Journalism Lab, June 5, 2013
Independent’s Way — Daily Nutmeg, May 16, 2012
Is There Hope for Local News? — The Atlantic, Nov. 10, 2014
One Town, Two Newspapers: Will the Real Digital Innovators Please Stand Up? — The Awl, September 2012
Still Reporting in the Independent — Hartford Courant, Feb. 23, 2015
The New Haven Independent seeks to expand its hyperlocal mission to low-power radio — Neiman Journalism Lab, Dec. 3, 2013
The Most Important Story of Our Time — and the Only Journalist Covering It — PJ Media, April 20, 2012
Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide — New England First Amendment Center, May 16, 2011
A multitasking, multimedia journalist — Media Nation, May 19, 2010
Future of news lies in the grassroots — The (UK) Guardian, March 16, 2010.
Erasing barriers: new media, and new democracy — The Yale Herald, Sept. 30, 2011
It Won’t Line a Bird Cage, but It’s Still News — The New York Times, Feb. 18, 2010.
The Girlfriends Of Raymond Clark — Slate, Sept. 23, 2009.
Made in India, but Published in New Haven — New York Times, May 31, 2009.
The Facebook Conundrum: The New Haven Independent and the Annie Le Murder — Knight Case Studies Initiative, Columbia Journalism School.
A Nonprofit Panacea For Newspapers? — National Public Radio, Feb. 6, 2009.
Death and Life in the Pressroom — Governing Magazine, January 2009.
When the Watchdogs Don’t Bark — New York Times editorial, December 30, 2008.
Web Sites That Dig for News Rise as Watchdogs — The New York Times, Nov. 18, 2008.
Online Journalists Keep Local Reporting Alive — The Walter Duranty Report, Nov. 10, 2008.
Blackout: Big-city newspapers aren’t telling citizens the things they need to know — Governing Magazine, December 2006.
Roundtable: The Return of Local News — Governing Magazine, December 2006.
Liberation! On Creating the New Haven Independent — PressThink, Aug. 8, 2006
A Virtual Declaration of Independent — Business New Haven, June 12, 2006.
Independent Staff
Founder: Paul Bass
Editor: Tom Breen
Staff writers: Maya McFadden, Nora Grace-Flood, Laura Glesby
Assistant editor: Dereen Shirnekhi
Webmaster/Designer: Kyle Summer/Smartpill Design
Valley Bureau: Eugene Driscoll
WNHH FM station manager: Harry Droz
WNHH staff morning host: Babz Rawls-Ivy
Print partner: La Voz Hispana
Contact Us
New Haven Independent
51 Elm St., Suite 307
New Haven, CT 06510