NetNewsLedger / 8319189 Canada Inc

James Murray


938 Mountdale Ave
Thunder Bay
P7E 2Z9

807-355-1862
Email: james@netnewsledger.com
Web: http://www.netnewsledger.com
LinkedIn
NetNewsLedger was founded and forged in a hurricane. In 2006, my plan was to attend Confederation College and study Broadcast Journalism. That plan was interrupted because of an email. That email was from a person in a small community on the Gulf Coast of the United States. They had prepared a list of where the people in their community of fifty-six people were going. The young woman asked if I could publish that list for her.

At the time, I didn’t really know how to do that, but felt it should and could be done. I opened a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, and went to save it as HTML. It was a list of the people from that small community, and where they were and how to reach them.

That opened the floodgates to a huge number of similar requests. I ended up, sitting with a Sony Vaio Laptop on my knees, building a team of about twenty people from around the world, and we focused on creating a missing persons list from New Orleans.

We ended up with a pretty massive list, and when the project was taken over by the ‘Katrina Scrapers’ and master lists were generated, we were the 13th largest list, one behind CNN. Right then and there I realized that while education is important, perhaps time could be better spent doing rather than learning how to do.

NetNewsLedger.com was born

NNL - Sept 1 2006
NetNewsledger.com on September 1 2006
In the early days, NNL was basically hand-coded. I wrote the css, and formatted each article individually. It was, in today Internet terms almost the same as back in the days when a newspaper was put together with individual pieces of type.

NNL moved, from that early hand coded site, first to Joomla, and then to WordPress. The look, feel and scope of the site has continued a similar evolution.

NNL December 3 2007
NNL on December 3 2007 we had moved to Joomla
NetNewsLedger has moved forward, building and innovating, and doing new things all the time. First working with videographer Paul Morralee, we did the first live Internet broadcast of a Thunder Bay City Council Meeting. Those tests were done at the Italian Cultural Centre while construction of the new City Hall was underway.

NNL July 27 2008
NNL July 27 2008
In August 2013, returning ‘home’ to the Italian Cultural Centre to do the World’s First Broadcast of a Festa Italiana was really special. It brought NNL full circle in many ways.

There are many ‘firsts’ that NetNewsLedger have accomplished in the eight years since we first started publishing in Thunder Bay.

NNL Sept 1 2010
NNL Sept 1 2010
They include the first ever Livestream broadcast of a Pow Wow in Northwestern Ontario.

NNL in 2011 on WordPress
NNL in 2011 on WordPress
The Lakehead University Native Students Association (LUNSA) was willing to work with NNL two years ago to do that. The students, and the Elders were willing to take a technology leap forward with us, and it is a move that I believe helps to forge friendships, and teach tolerance in our city and region.

Our goal from the beginning has been simple, we report what is happening, we do it on a timely basis, and we treat the truth with respect.

We also believe in presenting different viewpoints on a story. That is why sometimes you might see articles that are from one side and then from the other. It is our way of moving things together.

If comes from an idea from my Grandfather. He was teaching me how to drive a stick shift on his Ford half ton truck. He commented to me to push the truck into gear and let the gears figure it all out.

We believe our readers are looking for more than a soundbite. They want, and can recognize all sides of the story.

Follow the Truth and Report on the Journey

Moving forward, we continue to grow, innovate, seek out solutions, follow the truth and report on the journey.

It is a path we continue to follow.
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