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Six New Voices projects are not online. One, a 2009 Towson University mapping project is expected to launch soon; its original partner went belly up and it had to find another. Route 7 Report became a monthly newsletter because of its area’s limited web access, then died when no one stepped up to take it over from the Ohio University professor who helped launch it. The North Lawndale blog was plagued by technology problems from the start and failed to catch fire in the community. And three others were community radio or cable-access projects that now have no online presence.

Eleven projects are still online but have stalled for various reasons. Some failed to attract stable leadership; some were overambitious. Partners for one New York City project preferred to produce media events rather than generate media content. Some were community radio or youth media projects. Two were difficult-to-use wiki projects. Still active, however, is the high school dropout calculator in the wiki-based Learning to Finish project.

Several consider their projects to be a success, even though they are no longer active.

“I am truly embarrassed that this project did not take root in the way that we had planned,” said Maryanne Reed. Her West Virginia University project produced newscasts at a Monroe County community radio station. It stalled from inadequate staffing and commitment.

But it “was a success on a number of levels,” she said. A station that had been playing automated music “suddenly was getting news releases and showed that it could be a source of news ... The project’s main influence has been to help establish WHFI as a regular source of news and information about the local community.”

Likewise, Donica Mensing of Nuestro Tahoe said: “We believe the time we are taking to get to know this community and its perspectives will make future journalistic efforts more successful.”

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