ColorLines Transitions from Print to Mobile

Katie Donnelly

ColorLines, the national racial justice magazine, has made a major shift — moving from a print publication to a primarily Web and mobile-based system. How might this shift the outlet’s relationship to its users, and influence the impact that it hopes to make?

Founded in 1998, ColorLines addresses race and politics by “tell[ing] stories from communities of color while focusing on structural solutions that advance racial justice.” Published by the Applied Research Center (ARC), a think tank that addresses racial justice through media, activism, research and policy analysis, it is explicitly designed to shed light on often overlooked cultural and political issues, and move users to act upon them. According to their site, ColorLines is “not just a magazine but a network. More than 20 percent of our readers take action based on what they read in ColorLines. Professors take our stories into classrooms and advocates use information from our magazine in talks with city council members.”

While some publications have decided to discontinue their print editions altogether, ColorLines decided to take a different route. Their readership was torn between sticking with the print publication and moving to mobile access. ColorLines staff addressed this split by scaling back to two printed issues per year and putting extra energy into web and mobile improvements, including a revamped website to be launched in March. The mobile site was released in November; users can access it by visiting colorlines.com on any web-enabled mobile device. There, they’ll find not only breaking blog pieces and searchable archives of more substantive feature stories, but links to videos and organizing resources like the Green Equity Toolkit, which offers tips and case studies for advocates fighting to diversify hiring and ownership in environmental business ventures. 

In a letter to subscribers, ColorLines editor Daisy Hernández explained:

Many people today are consuming news and entertainment on the Web and mobile devices and we want to be a part of this in a bigger way. It's our hope that we'll be able to create an online home for people who care about racial justice--while still keeping the magazine accessible to those who don't have electronic access and those who prefer the pleasure of print. 

“It’s an experiment,” Hernández said when I spoke with her recently. “The whole journalism industry is going through an experiment.”

According to Hernández, the experiment is going well. Shifting to a Web-based publishing system means that ColorLines can now include more writers without having to worry about strict deadlines, word counts or printing costs. These differences have helped to increase the magazine’s capacity to tell stories about racial justice. 

This shift has lead to increased web traffic for ColorLines, as well as more sharing of stories across social networks, including Facebook and Twitter. (ColorLines has begun to develop a social media following, with nearly 2000 Facebook fans and over 2000 Twitter followers.) The new format provides ColorLines a better understanding of which stories resonate with readers. This can be measured not just by user clicks but also by the quality of the accompanying commentary and discussion. Last year, said Hernández, readers found this story, about a young Laotian American woman who stood up against the No Child Left Behind Act, especially affirming. 

However, online commenting has also increased the possibilities for negative feedback. In a strange way, Hernández said, having publicly available hate mail has allowed the ColorLines team to delve into (sometimes uncomfortable) topics that may resonate with other readers as well.

In March, ColorLines will merge with its RaceWire blog on one site that will also include embedded Facebook and Twitter feeds. New pages for each author will include all of the author’s stories along with related social media commentary. Additionally, the new site will delve more into multimedia projects such as "Torn Apart by Deportation:"

With its diverse staff and audience and focus on racial justice issues, ColorLines offers an example of how a public media 2.0 project designed to address persistent gaps in mainstream coverage can generate social and political outcomes and attract dedicated publics. In this post, Jessica Clark explains why "inclusion is a central element to public media 2.0 projects, because publics can only form effectively when the broadest possible swath of stakeholders is involved." Projects like ColorLines play a crucial role in balancing out the larger networked public sphere.