I’ve worked at large-circulation, big-city papers up and down the East Coast and I was one of the early architects behind the growth of Bleacher Report, a national sports website that has over 60 million monthly visitors today. But nothing has been more rewarding than my time in Bluffton, first with BT and now as a writer for the Bluffton Sun and most area monthly magazines.

I saw the way our work connected and uplifted the community. Yet the sad truth is the conglomerates behind daily newspapers have squandered their collective stature in their towns.

THE FULL ARRAY OF THE PROJECT

We began LOJI by trying to bridge some of the communication by taking over and re-imagining the What’s Happening in Bluffton? Facebook group. We made it a center for good news and discussion of local issues done with civility and respect. The reaction has been huge, as we’ve grown the group to 22,000 opt-in members. Our diehard WHIBbies tell us they appreciate this safe haven of communal positivity in the ever-growing social media cesspool.

We then began hearing from both area newcomers and long-time residents alike that while current news discussion was so appreciated, they wanted to connect more with the rich Lowcountry history that is the foundation of why this place is so special.

They did not adjust their capitalistic business models to adjust to the changing times. The result in the Lowcountry is we had two dailies covering the area when Bluffton had 3,300 residents in 2005 and barely one daily today when the U.S. 278 corridor has 70,000 residents and growing.

The dailies that do exist, like the Island Packet, have minuscule resources thanks to the corporate guttings of their newsrooms and what does remain is focused on clickbait, salacious headlines and the sad-but-true long-time industry adage of “if it bleeds, it leads.” The end result is a positive information desert, where good news is shared with folks in the same pack (like a school or a club) but not shared enough to the larger community.

That’s when I connected with budding historian Paul Tollefson to create the Bluffton Here and Now Facebook group. Paul is tireless in finding hidden gems about The State of Mind and just as dogged in his posting of said finds.

What we heard from both our WHIB fans and early feedback from our proof-of-concept Lowcountry Chronicle videos was the information was outstanding, but centered in a Facebook feed, it was difficult to find the videos or the posts soon after they were released.

That’s when we began work on the Lowcountry Chronicle website, to house all this content with individual Google-indexed pages to more easily find our content.

The more history we delved into, the more we began to expand the “Chronicle” part of our name. I grew up in New England watching a show called “Chronicle,” a nightly show that told longer-form positive stories. Their approach — in large part, formed and executed by celebrated newsman and Bluffton transplant Randy Price — helped me develop what has become a career-long ideal that you can throw a dart at a map and find a great story to tell.

Everybody has a story. Most folks don’t think anyone else will care about their tale until folks like Randy share it far and wide.

That holds true with our area. We have a history of incredible writers and journalists, but the sad truth is that much of that work is not available online. Most of the area’s earliest publications were never digitized. And the most recent works often fall victim to corporations keeping the work behind paywalls or are gone completely thanks to ill-advised corporate decisions. Try finding my BT work — I wrote thousands of articles in my time there and yet there are just a handful online (that will soon change).

So we’ve made it our mission to digitize and publish as many of the writers and publications that have covered the Lowcountry through the years as we can secure rights and permissions to publish. We have a strong foundation of area writers out of the gates, but we’re going to be building that lineup weekly.

WHAT TO EXPECT FROM US

Lowcountry Chronicle is based in Bluffton but is part of a growing national trend toward nonprofit news organizations. As corporations have increasingly polluted the news industry model, writers, editors and philanthropists have pumped more than $1 trillion across the country into building nonprofit news operations free from the influences of corporate greed.

This is a model very similar to NPR and PBS. LowChron is a free site, but we will be dependent on your contributions to help us grow. We are educating area philanthropists on the model and that we are a 501(c)3 and we have already attracted donors over the past year that have gotten us to this starting line.

Lowcountry Chronicle will be a hub for all of LOJI’s work. We will digest the most-talked-about discussions from WHIB and compile many of the smaller posts that Paul makes on Then and Now (longer posts and stories will be their own link on the LowChron site).

There will be current news, we’re just not interested as much in breaking it. You will hear about upcoming events in the area, important news from the town and postings of the upcoming agenda and minutes from Town Council meetings.

Our videos will include discussion and analysis of the latest news with interviews from many of the newsmakers.

One thing you won’t see are stories about car accidents or drug busts. There are other sources that focus almost exclusively on that already.

But you will see stories on how a community reacts to setbacks and trends. You’ll see interviews with first responders to get to know the folks that help keep our community safe and secure. You’ll hear about efforts to fundraise for accident victims or families fighting unthinkable medical ordeals.

- You’ll see a robust and ever-growing history section, with specific topics that may grow into their own subsections of the site.

- You’ll see some of the best features from the top writers through the years. We will work with the writers directly to secure republication rights, because they’re stories that deserve to be shared.

- You’ll see a focus on small business on the site. I am a firm believer in building up and promoting our entrepreneurs. (More on that in a bit.) They are the foundation of a thriving local economy and the basis for creativity and innovation.

HOW YOU CAN HELP US GROW

While I am spearheading this project, this is meant to be a community-wide endeavor.

We hope to attract both known writers and up-and-coming writers and video storytellers to contribute to LowChron. We will create podcasts from much of that work and create original podcasts that are helmed by community members. If you have an idea for a podcast but just aren’t sure how to get it off the ground, email me and together, we will make your dream a reality.

As I mentioned above, donations are what will drive our growth. We have had many folks donate on the concept alone, but we hope that as prove our worth to the community, you will consider making us a part of your individual giving portfolio. Every little bit will help and we thank you in advance for your support.

Another way you can donate to the cause is by purchasing products from our store. Our plan is to attract local makers to showcase their wares to a wider audience through the LowChron portal, splitting proceeds with each maker.

We have begun that out of the gates with artist Stephen Gregar, the creative dynamo behind the Bluffton Rocks art project at the Bluffton town dock on Calhoun Street. He crafted a beautiful image of the Little Blue Boat that helped raise money for local nonprofits. We’ve expanded the Little Blue Boat offerings here and look forward to attracting more artists and makers to showcase the immense talent in our area.

If you have an idea for a story, please reach out.

We’re excited to share this site with you. Onward and upward.