The American Reporter was the first online-only newspaper to use content that was specifically written for the web, rather than items fed from a

news wire A news agency is an organization that gathers news reports and sells them to subscribing news organizations, such as newspapers, magazines and radio and television broadcasters. A news agency may also be referred to as a wire service, newswire, ...

. It was started in 1995 by Joe Shea, and last published in September 2016, a month before Shea's death. It was published seven days per week as an electronic daily newspaper, cooperatively owned by the writers whose work it featured. It was started by members of the

Society of Professional Journalists The Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), formerly known as Sigma Delta Chi, is the oldest organization representing journalists in the United States. It was established on April 17, 1909, at DePauw University,2009 SPJ Annual Report, letter ...

Internet discussion list but was never affiliated with the SPJ. The paper has no political, corporate or other affiliation, but was founded to give journalists around the world an opportunity to have a financial stake in their own work. Each story carried by the paper earned equity for the correspondent in profits from advertising and subscriptions, and income when their stories sold to other newspapers. The paper began publication on April 10, 1995, becoming the first daily Internet news site with original news and features. Nine days later, the paper's chief correspondent, former Memphis AP bureau chief Bill Johnson, began breaking news coverage of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building bombing in

Oklahoma City Oklahoma City (), officially the City of Oklahoma City, and often shortened to OKC, is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The county seat of Oklahoma County, it ranks 20th among United States cities in population, and ...

, which continued until the death of

Timothy McVeigh Timothy James McVeigh (April 23, 1968 – June 11, 2001) was an American domestic terrorist responsible for the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people, 19 of whom were children, injured more than 680 others, and destroyed one-third ...

and the conviction of his accomplice. The paper was honored by the

ACLU The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". ...

in 2000 with an

Upton Sinclair Upton Beall Sinclair Jr. (September 20, 1878 – November 25, 1968) was an American writer, muckraker, political activist and the 1934 Democratic Party nominee for governor of California who wrote nearly 100 books and other works in sever ...

Freedom of Expression Award ("Uppie") for its groundbreaking

First Amendment First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1). First or 1st may also refer to: *World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement Arts and media Music * 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and reco ...

victory in the '' Shea v. Reno'' U.S. Supreme Court case, in which

Internet censorship Internet censorship is the legal control or suppression of what can be accessed, published, or viewed on the Internet. Censorship is most often applied to specific internet domains (such as Wikipedia.org) but exceptionally may extend to all Int ...

was ruled unconstitutional. Among the paper's other major accomplishments were the worldwide scoop on the Good Friday IRA ceasefire in Northern Ireland, reported by AR correspondent Stephen O'Reilly, and reporting on the beginning of the end of the

Suharto Suharto (; ; 8 June 1921 – 27 January 2008) was an Indonesian army officer and politician, who served as the second and the longest serving president of Indonesia. Widely regarded as a military dictator by international observers, Suharto l ...

era by Nieman International Fellow Andreas Harsono of Jakarta. Joe Shea won the Los Angeles Press Club award for the Best Internet News Story in 2000 for an article that led to the arrest of eight people to jail on charges of fraud in a multimillion-dollar "pyramid" scam. AR Chief of Correspondents Randolph Holhut won the Vermont Press Association's first place award for editorial writing in 2007.

References

External links

Farewell, Joe Shea, Online News Pioneer and Defender of the First Amendment
Randolph T. Holhut. American news websites {{news-website-stub

References

Further reading

External links