communityspotlight
Informative, Expanding, and Free
CT Environmental Headlines C
T Environmental Headlines is a free blog that has been in operation for almost four years. It contains a multitude of stories about environmental issues that are being reported on in Connecticut and posts summaries and links to the original stories on the website
environmentalheadlines.com/ct. Christopher Zurcher, founder, editor, and publisher of Environmental Head-
lines, says that his primary business goal is to keep as many people as possible abreast of what is going on environmentally in Connecticut. “We have considered charging a fee for what we do, but that would limit the number of people who have access to the information,” said Zurcher. “That goes against our mission of having as many people as possible be on the same page about what is happening in the environment.” To glean the stories put out in the blog, staff at Environmental Headlines reads
the New Haven Independent, the CT Mirror, CT News Junkie, and about 100 other publications, both print and online, throughout the state, from the Greenwich Time and Westport News, to the Torrington Register Citizen and the Litchfield County Times and The Daily Campus up at UConn Storrs, and then delivers the summaries and links to subscribers via daily email. The website itself offers a variety of information, in addition to the library of
blog articles. There are pages for job offerings (Highstead Seeks Conservation Direc- tor), wildlife news (Bobcat Alert for Newington), and business news (G.E. to Supply 188 Wind Turbines for Wind Farms in Illinois)—all of it somehow relating to the local environment. The entire business is run on a shoestring budget, with monies coming in through donations, grants, and advertising. Still, it is thriving. “I am proud of how my blog has beaten other major environmental news outlets in our Google results,” says Zurcher. “Environmental News Network (aka ENN), the CT DEEP, Mother Nature Network, and others used to beat us in the results for ‘Connecticut environmental news.’ No more.” CT Environmental Headlines boasts 6,000 visitors to the website each month. In addition, the news is pushed to Facebook, where it has hundreds of followers,
and to Twitter, where it has more than 2,000 followers. “There is a large portion of the population that really does recycle. They really do care what’s in their soil before they plant. They care what kind of car they drive. They use re-usable shopping bags because they know it has an impact on the environment,” said Zurcher, regarding why the site is so suc- cessful. “There is a large portion of the population that cares whether the state promised one day to preserve a piece of land in Haddam for perpetuity and is now reneging on their promise because someone has been offered a sweet deal.” Zurcher is also driven to provide information to his subscribers and fol- lowers. “With every story I blog, I know there is another story out there about another issue in another neighborhood that’s waiting to be blogged and that someone will be glad they heard about by reading Environmental Headlines,” he said.
Subscribe to CT Environmental Head- lines at http://environmentalheadlines. com/ct/. Reach Christopher Zurcher at
chris@environmentalheadlines.com.
natural awakenings October 2011 9
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