Hillsboro Signal is a volunteer digital media organization exclusively dedicated to the city of Hillsboro, Oregon. Currently we offer coverage of the Hillsboro City Council and the Hillsboro School Board, in realtime on Twitter and with more depth on our website. We also offer a community calendar outlining what’s going on in the city on any given day. All of this happens without advertising, subscriptions, or revenue of any kind.
But we want to do more, and we need you to do it. We’re looking for volunteers to help build a media brand in this city, and hopefully also build a community of journalists and activists dedicated to making Hillsboro a better place. If you think you can help, please get in touch. We’re open to any ideas you might have.
But if you want to help, and have no idea how, here’s a list of things we’re currently hoping someone will do:
- Help us comprehend Facebook! Our current volunteer crew feels very at home on Twitter, where we’ve already connected with many people in the city including multiple elected officials, but our Facebook page is a little…sad. We’re hoping someone more comfortable on Zuckerberg’s platform can build a local audience and help keep them informed.
- Take photos!. Having a photographer take photos around the city and at events would make our articles pop, and also really help beef up our social presence (particularly on Facebook). It would also be nice to have a rotating collection of beautiful photos from around town for our header photo, and other places. Feel like you can help?
- Write features! Right now we’re mostly doing day-to-day coverage, but we’d love to move more into feature articles about people in Hillsboro doing amazing things. If you want to dig into a local story, and have the support of experienced editors along the way, please get in touch. We’re excited to work with you, and help you write the best possible article that you’re capable of.
- Curate news!. We’re not like other media organizations: we’re perfectly happy to link to and feature other site’s work when it’s good. To this end we regularly publish roundups of links about the region, and if you’d like to help with that and put out lists of links regularly that would be very helpful. We can help you get set up, and potentially learn a skill you can use for blogging elsewhere.
- Find your own beat!. We’ve got two main beat reporters right now, on City Council and the School Board. But if there’s a topic you’re particularly passionate about, and are willing to take on as a beat, please get in touch and let us know. You’d have the support of experienced journalists as you dive in.
- WordPress help! Our site is currently the default WordPress theme, because we’ve been mostly focused on getting our two beats and the calendar up and running. If you consider yourself a WordPress expert, and would like to lend a hand, we’d love to hear from you.
These are just a few ideas; we’re open to so much more. Hillsboro Signal is whatever the volunteers want it to be, so get in touch if you’d like to help steer this ship.