The decision to stop publishing on a regular basis was reached after years of searching unsuccessfully for a more sustainable model for a community-run local news organization. It’s an issue of not enough time and money (but mostly not enough time or interest).

I hate to end it now, but five years is a good run. When I started hburgnews in July 2006, I wrote:

It’s my hope that enough people in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County will take an interest in informing neighbors online, that this blog site will become more community-run, rather than operated by one guy (me) who really doesn’t have the time to post stories on a daily basis.

That never materialized to the degree I had hoped it would. Currently, the handful of other writers and I simply don’t have the time necessary to update hburgnews on a daily (or even weekly) basis.

I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished in the Harrisonburg community over the last half-decade. With very few resources, we covered breaking news, asked questions that the local media weren’t, crowdsourced money for in-depth reports, and were able to focus on local elections in a way that the local media wouldn’t.

I hope to see a newer (better) site to pick up where hburgnews is leaving off. I’m encouraged by the stories in the HHS Newsstreak, as well as the level of activity on CommonPlace.

We still have the ability to post new local-interest stories if you send them to us.

Thanks for reading!

We are looking for people in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County who are interested in local issues. You may be (or know) a local writer, historian, photographer, videographer, or just someone who closely follows the local news, events and culture. Not all posts need to be original reports. If you can “connect the dots” between news stories A, B and C, and you would like to be a part of Harrisonburg’s community news network, contact us.

Why would someone want to spend the time and effort if there’s no paycheck in it?

I’ve posted over 1,000 articles here, and have never been paid for my work. But I still find it rewarding. I do this because I want to play a more active role in my community. I can’t have a big impact on the policy made in Washington, but I can cover Harrisonburg City Council, and tell my neighbors about what’s happening via this website.

I care about the future of news, and I want to help solve the challenges that the industry is facing. We’re working slowly and steadily toward a more sustainable model for hburgnews.com. Joining Spot.Us was a big step in that direction.

If you or someone you know would like to play a part in this ongoing, evolving community news project, email us.

Thanks for reading.

Our first story, an examination of the prospects of hydrofracking in Rockingham County, is already well on its way to becoming fully-funded. Before we even really had a chance to get the word out, several generous readers contributed a large chunk of the funding.

hburgnews.com is providing half of the money toward this particular fundraising goal. The other half is coming from readers.

This will be the first of many original reports we hope to publish. With your support, we’ll be able to make reader-funded journalism an ongoing part of hburgnews.com.

Thanks to all who read, comment, contribute, and participate in the hburgnews community.

Until now.

Illustration by OndraSoukup via Flickr (Creative Commons).

We will continue to operate on a volunteer basis to update the site, but in order to pay reporters for their original work, we are calling on you, the readers, for your financial support.

hburgnews.com is now an approved publisher on spot.us, a non-profit organization created to connect readers, journalists and news organizations, and raise money for special local reporting projects. The spot.us model will allow us to publish the stories you help to fund. Contributions to spot.us are tax-deductible.

The first thing we need from you is a list of the stories you’d like to see published here.

• What is under-reported, mis-reported or goes altogether un-reported in Harrisonburg?
• What angle should be investigated more closely in regards to local environmental reporting?
• Is there an amazing local historical event that hasn’t been told yet?
• How about paying a reporter to submit FOIA requests and write a report?
• What is the local news media missing?

Once we hear from you, we will launch our first fundraising campaign on spot.us. The success of this civic experiment depends entirely on you, the hburgnews community.

Send envelopes to:

hburgnews.com, L.L.C.
P.O. Box 1522
Harrisonburg, VA 22803-1522

Stickers will go out on a first come, first served basis. Feel free to use the comments section below to tell us what you think of the designs or if you’ve seen any of our stickers around town.

Photo by Josh Gooden.

We will be inviting people who visit the hburgnews booth at Hillandale Park today (between noon and 6) to post comments on this thread too, so check in throughout the day to see who’s joining our hburgnews family!

Hburgnews.com is a community centered news organization and the International Festival will be a great place to meet the people behind the site face-to-face. Drop by to say hi, let us know what you like or dislike about the site, give us a suggestion for a story or a topic we should cover or discuss with us how you can volunteer or contribute to our site.

See you there.

Since we started tracking traffic (in the spring of 2007) we’ve had more than 114,000 visitors, 491,000 visits and 1.6 million pageviews.

As always, we rely on the community to help direct our efforts. Continuing that trend, we are seeking your input to keep us pointed us in the right direction. Take a few seconds to participate in this poll, and leave a comment telling us what you like (or don’t like) about what we’re doing.

Thanks to all our readers, contributors, commenters, Facebook fans, Flickr photographers, Twitter hashtag reporters, and now underwriters, for making this local news network possible.

Here’s to four more years.