grasswire announces re-launch of citizen newsroom platform

! !!!Contact: Austen Allred FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE +1 (801) 369-2444 austen@grasswire.com

GRASSWIRE ANNOUNCES LAUNCH OF “GRASSWIRE 2.0,” THE BRAND-NEW INFORMATION PLATFORM FOR

2.92 BILLION CITIZEN REPORTERS

Before today, the honor of the world’s largest newsroom belonged to the BBC with nearly 8,000 reporters, editors and other staffers in the United Kingdom and in locations around the world. Today, the honor of the world’s largest newsroom now belongs to Grasswire with a staff of 2.92 billion citizen reporters around the world. Grasswire, a service that initially sought to help fact-check content and statements published on social media, has re-launched as a powerful storytelling platform, enabling anyone with a computer and an Internet connection to participate in the world’s largest open newsroom, working alongside professional and citizen journalists alike to research, verify and publish the most-interesting and important world news stories of the day. “Our goal is to democratize the editorial system,” said Austen Allred, Grasswire founder and chief executive. “The more people that are involved in the journalism process, the better the news becomes." As part of our new initiative, Grasswire has completely re-designed its website to provide a visually-rich storytelling experience powered entirely by Grasswire’s users. In addition to publication space, Grasswire provides citizen reporters with a number of tools to help users examine elements of a story, including an open newsroom powered by Slack where anyone can talk with other users and two professional editors to verify elements of a story before they are published. Grasswire’s brand-new website is supplemented by a responsive mobile website, also launching today, and a set of smartphone apps that will be unveiled in the future. The launch ends four weeks of beta testing during which Grasswire logged more than a half-million global page views.

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For questions and general inquiries, contact Austen Allred, Chief Executive Officer and Editor-in-Chief, at austen@grasswire.com or (801) 369-2444. To discuss news and editorial partnerships, e-mail Joanne Stocker at joanne@grasswire.com or Matthew Keys at matthew@grasswire.com. To download our press kit, visit https://app.box.com/grasswirepresskit

Grasswire Team Austen Allred Chief Executive Officer & Editor-in-Chief austen@grasswire.com Levi Notik Chief Technology Officer levi@grasswire.com Joe Cianflone Director of Web Development joe@grasswire.com Mark Watson Web Developer mark@grasswire.com Jonny Bond Director of User Experience jonny@grasswire.com Joanne Stocker Managing Editor, International joanne@grasswire.com Matthew Keys Managing Editor, North America matthew@grasswire.com

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8,000The number of reporters at the world’s largest news organization before September 1

2,925,249,355The number of reporters at the world’s largest news organization after September 1

At Grasswire, we give everyone the tools and space to become a participant in the largest

open newsroom in the world — researching, fact-checking and reporting stories with a team of

professional and citizen journalists on the most-important news of the day.