ELi Profiled by the Lenfest Institute, and We Head into Spring Break

Above: Ornamental quince blossoms in East Lansing in a 2016 photo.

As we often tell our readers, ELi follows an unusual—and what we think is cutting-edge—model of local journalism. We use citizen-reporters to water our local “news desert,” to make sure people who live in East Lansing can get the nonpartisan news and information they need to lead informed local lives.

This model not only brings news that otherwise would go unreported. It also helps the people of our city understand and appreciate journalism and its importance to local democracies.

More and more national media-watching organizations are becoming interested in our approach. Today, the Lenfest Institute published a profile of ELi by Joseph Lichterman. The Philadelphia-based Lenfest Institute for Journalism describes itself as “the first-of-its-kind organization whose sole mission is to develop and support sustainable business models for great local journalism.”

Read the Lenfest Institute profile of ELi here.

As of tomorrow, ELi will be on Spring Break, coinciding as we do each year with the Spring Break of ELPS and City Council. Our team of reporters are currently working on a bunch of really interesting stories for you, and we look forward to bringing those to you when we return.

Were we not nonpartisan, we’d suggest you go out and check out the crocuses and find some forsythia and ornamental quince to force. But you’ll need to decide for yourself what to do while ELi takes a long spring nap. We wish you the best for the next week, as real spring approaches. See you back here starting April 9.