Vox Media’s publishing service, Chorus, welcomes Chalkbeat as first nonprofit

Vox Media announces that Chalkbeat, one of the nation’s largest nonprofit news organizations, will join Chorus, gaining access to its best-in-class publishing tools, revenue capabilities and audience distribution services.

The announcement comes after Chalkbeat, which provides local-first education reporting to underserved communities, released its five-year vision to “Build the News Our Democracy Demands,” outlining its ambitious expansion plan “at a time when resources for [local] news have never been more scarce.”

Partnering with Chorus will allow Chalkbeat to grow into new markets, maximize revenue and bring world-class education reporting back to local communities, drawing from the same success Chorus has achieved in scaling Vox Media’s own networks – Eater, Curbed and SB Nation – to regional markets around the globe. Chalkbeat currently serves Colorado, New York, Indiana, Tennessee, Detroit, Chicago and Newark, with the goal of expanding to 18 regions by 2025.

“In planning our expansion, we knew we needed a publishing system that worked at scale and solved the unique challenges of providing high-quality local journalism in multiple locations,” said Elizabeth Green, CEO and co-founder of Chalkbeat. “Chorus was built with this same powerful single-subject, multi-city model in mind, and we believe the future of local news requires this networked model to thrive. That means the best technology and smart, strong partnerships along the way.”

“Chalkbeat serves educators, parents and politicians across the country with valuable information they often can’t get anywhere else. We want the Chalkbeat team to be able to focus on local reporting, while Chorus provides the tools and support needed to reach new audiences and markets,” said Trei Brundrett, COO of Vox Media. “We understand that building a platform is not the best use of resources for every publisher, small or large. By building and licensing technologies like Chorus, Concert and Coral to publishers, we are proving our commitment to providing the media industry with the tools and resources needed to power their businesses.”

For Vox Media, Chalkbeat represents the first nonprofit organization to join Chorus. “This is a goal we have had from the very beginning: to support innovation we are seeing in nonprofit journalism, and create a model for the future,” said Brundrett.

Chorus is the only all-in-one publishing, audience and revenue platform purpose-built for modern media companies. Chalkbeat joins a group of premium publisher partners ranging from digital savvy legacy newsrooms like Deseret News and the Chicago Sun-Times; TV-born brands like This Old House and REVOLT; and multi-platform digitally native brands like The Ringer and Funny Or Die.

The new site and digital experience for Chalkbeat will launch early next year.