![The staff of Mahoning Matters.com cuts the ribbon Friday at a launch party at the DoubleTree Hilton hotel in downtown Youngstown. [ELLA ABBOTT / WKSU]](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/abf1f0a/2147483647/strip/true/crop/2734x1952+0+0/resize/840x600!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Flegacy%2Fimages%2Fnews%2Fnpr%2F2019%2F10%2F770160286_1581716543.jpg)
An experimental local news project is up and running in Youngstown.
has officially launched with the goal of helping to fill the void left when Youngstown鈥檚 for economic reasons.
Mark Sweetwood used to work at The Vindicator. He鈥檚 now the local editor for Mahoning Matters. He says their mission is to tell stories that matter to Mahoning County and empower citizens to engage in their community.
鈥淲e鈥檙e not gonna be the folks who explain the what鈥檚 all the time," Sweetwood said. "What we want to do, as solutions-based journalists, we want to put together the how's and the why鈥檚. We want to do explanatory reporting, the type of thing that doesn鈥檛 always get done.鈥�
The startup of Mahoning Matters is part of the , funded by McClatchy and Google. To help fill the gap in local coverage from the closing of the Vindicator, Propublica has also announced it鈥檚 funding a reporter at the Youngstown Business Journal, and the Warren Tribune-Chronicle has begun publishing a Youngstown edition under the Vindicator name.
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