Reynolds Fellows

Journalism traditionally has involved a mostly one-way communication from producers to consumers. Until now, journalists gather and edit news, then distribute it to people who consume it rather passively. Journalism continued to flourish this way as the information so far was scarce, gathering and distributing it was expensive and technology was nowhere an enabler.

Whatever has for been published or broadcast by journalists there has been minimal public involvement in the functions of journalism and diminishing public trust in its performance. That has begun to change profoundly and permanently. Technology is opening amazing possibilities to give people convenient access to both civic and life-enhancing information, without regard to income or social status.

adFreeq, a socially integrated classified ad system incubated at the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute, is one of 20 startups to be awarded a $50,000 St. Louis Arch Grant. The goal of the Arch Grants is to help create “more robust startup culture and infrastructure,” in St. Louis.

More than 700 companies applied for an Arch Grant this spring.

The winning startups must agree to open a business office in St. Louis and provide financial and job growth opportunities for the community. The adFreeq team plans to open up a sales and management office in Lab1500, an entrepreneurial center, in downtown St. Louis.

The newspaper industry's print model has hit a rough patch—its outdated pricing strategies continually fail to produce reliable revenue. And with local classifieds moving online, it's easy to see why some small-town papers have folded.

But Peter Meng (left) thinks he can help publishers monetize their online presence with a new-age version of the classifieds. He co-founded his solution, adFreeq, to connect sellers with niche markets.

In an unfortunate and ironic twist, SPN hasn't covered nearly enough of the entrepreneurial work fellow journalists are doing at the University of Missouri.

The Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute at the Missouri School of Journalism today announced its fall class of fellows.

Matt Thompson is looking for context. It motivated his 2008­–09 fellowship with the Reynolds Journalism Institute, where he launched a niche website that offered a trove of links and background stories about economic development in Columbia. The idea was to help people understand today’s news by pulling together stories of the events that led up to it.

Armed with a $30.1 million endowment gift from the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation announced in November 2012, RJI is ready to fulfill its mission.

Peter Meng, founder of adFreeq and 2011-2012 Reynolds Fellow, spoke at the May 22 meeting of 1 Million Cups.

The newspaper industry's print model has hit a rough patch—its outdated pricing strategies continually fail to produce reliable revenue. And with local classifieds moving online, it's easy to see why some small-town papers have folded.

The 20 startups that are set to be announced as Arch Grants winners today are a diverse bunch, in both geography and industry.

St. Louisan Peter Meng originally went in 2004 to Columbia where he would go on to co-found his business, AdFreeq, an electronic classified ad platform.

While there was plenty of entertainment at the Capital Innovators Demo Day event, which was held Wednesday at The Pageant, the main focus was on the 11 companies who were graduating the program.