nicole hollway

The St. Louis Beacon, a local Web site that covers the region, was founded in 2007 by a group of veteran St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporters who perceived a serious lack of in-depth reporting about the communities they lived in. After building up the site, they snagged a couple of grants and partnerships that made the project viable. But, like many local news sites started by high-minded journalists, the Beacon was initially all about the journalism. “They didn’t have anybody on staff who was thinking about business models or technology strategy, or any of that sort of stuff,” says Nicole Hollway, the site’s general manager, who came on board in 2008…