);

Petworth News Only Provides Local News

Petworth News is giving their local residents the “considered opinion, inform opinion, or subjective news,” said Schneider. Photo By Greg Gebhardt

By Tiffany Hunt, Howard University News Service

Petworth News has been providing local news and neighborhood insight to the Petworth community since June 2015.

Petworth News originally started off as a Facebook page back in 2015 by Drew Schneider. The page steadily grew and eventually obtained about 1,000 likes. After realizing that Facebook wasn’t allowing Schneider to reach as big of a population that Petworth had, Schneider decided to launch the “Petworth News” website. “The website gets an average of 33,000 views per month,” said Schneider. Originally Petworth News website’s content was more of a blog, but now it has officially transitioned into a hard news source. Petworth News focus is also mainly local. Petworth News does not post news daily, however because of the financial model. “Our goal wasn’t money, it was to provide information to people,” said Schneider.

Petworth News is giving their local residents the “considered opinion, inform opinion, or subjective news,” said Schneider. Petworth News tries to cover news from all over the neighborhood. From local crime, to what’s happening at library, up and incoming restaurants, to holding government agencies accountable. “I first found out about Petworth News when I was searching for a home— I enjoyed both the content and the fact that the neighborhood had a publication dedicated to serving it… it made me feel like this was an actual neighborhood where neighbors cared about one another,” said Yuliya Panfil, a Petworth resident and writer for Petworth News.Petworth also has several ‘corners’ on their site. Corners are reoccurring news articles, that consist around the same topic. “Ask Glen!” “Councilmember’s Corner” and “Petworth Blooming Corner” all provide useful content for their readers. “Ask Glen!” provides advice to Petworth residents from local contractor Glen Sperling. Residents send in any questions they have about home improvement. This was inspired by Schneider who found himself calling Sperling on a frequent basis to ask questions about different tasks he had to take care of in his household. “Councilmember’s Corner” is written by DC Councilmember Brandon Todd. The column originated after Councilmember Todd and his team asked to post an article on Petworth News, and Schneider offered a continuous column that now is updated about once every two months.