It’s a bright new day for journalism in New Mexico.

 

Two months after the newsroom keyboards grew quiet at one of the state’s most pioneering newspapers, the New Mexico Independent aims to fill the void left by the disappearance of the Albuquerque Tribune to honor the proud tradition of aggressive but fair coverage with an emphasis on holding those in power accountable. 

  

If you’ve made your way to this spot, that means you at least want to know a little more about what this corner of cyberspace is about.

 

The one-line answer: You’ll get news, information and analysis delivered by talented, local journalists with a zeal for picking up where other news outlets leave off.

 

Here’s what you can expect: a comprehensive focus on New Mexico’s historic ‘08 election, land and water issues, including growth, as well as reporting on culture, poverty, the border and the labs, just to name a few subjects.

 

Updated regularly, this online venue will take full advantage of the multi-media tools the Internet offers. The content on the site will be produced by a team of award-winning New Mexico journalists, a mix of reporter/bloggers who’ve distinguished themselves at the state’s major dailies and weeklies or by launching their own blogs or Web sites elsewhere. Or both. 

 

To check out brief bios of our NewMexicoIndependent.com team, go here.

 

We’ll hold ourselves to the highest journalistic standards. We sincerely hope our users will hold us accountable to that pledge, as we will do the same to the state’s most powerful people and institutions. To register as a user, which will enable you to post comments on everything we post, go here.

 

The lofty mission of the New Mexico Independent, part of the non-profit Center for Independent Media’s network of news Web sites, is to help rejuvenate high-quality journalism by fusing the very best of a vibrant but often dismissed blogosphere with the integrity of a journalism that isn’t hostage to a failing business model. New Mexicans don’t have to look far for a stinging example of that model: the Feb. 23 demise of the 86-year-old Albuquerque Tribune.

 

In a thoughtful, colorful review of the newspaper’s glory days entitled "When Heart Isn’t Enough" and published in this month’s issue of the American Journalism Review, ex-Albuquerque Tribune reporter Tony Davis writes this about the end of the paper’s impressive run:

The Trib’s decline was the stuff of Greek tragedy, a paper that basked in the limelight of well over a dozen big national awards while circulation plummeted from 45,000 in 1985 to less than 10,000 at the end.

Davis, currently a reporter with the Arizona Daily Star, describes the Trib as a place "where writers spent as much time plotting crusades as they did pondering leads."

 

The New Mexico Independent aspires to a like-minded approach to news. Our main crusade: to offer an alternative, online source of information that’s fair to all sides and, most of all, tells the truth. We hope you’ll be a part of it.