Ebyline Receives $1.5 Million from E.W. Scripps Company

LOS ANGELES - Ebyline (www.ebyline.com) announced it has raised a $1.5 million Series A investment from The E.W. Scripps Company (NYSE: SSP).

Based in Los Angeles, Ebyline publicly launched in September 2010 as a content marketplace for news publishers and professional freelance journalists, creating an alternative economic model dedicated to preserving high-quality reporting.

"Ebyline gives news publishers a way to streamline and simplify the distribution of content, allowing them to reinvest in their core business -- quality content," said Mark Contreras, senior vice president of newspapers for Scripps. "Today's news business needs solutions like Ebyline that offer both publishers and individuals new opportunities to manage and monetize quality content."

The E. W. Scripps Company is a diverse media concern with interests in newspaper publishing, broadcast television, and syndication. Scripps operates daily and community newspapers in 14 markets, and 10 broadcast TV stations. Scripps also operates Scripps Howard News Service, one of the nation's largest news services.

"Scripps' investment is an endorsement of Ebyline as a way to help news publishers and freelancers connect with each other in efficient and innovative ways," said Bill Momary, Ebyline CEO and co-founder. "With the support and partnership of Scripps, we're looking forward to bringing new ideas, tools and growth opportunities to the journalism space."

Ebyline's marketplace and underlying technology enable those who produce original news content and those who publish it to do business with each other, buying and selling news on an á la carte basis using a secure online platform that manages many administrative tasks - freeing up time and budgets, permitting both sides to dedicate more resources to quality journalism.

For qualified freelance journalists, Ebyline's online platform lets writers "self-syndicate," giving them the ability to pitch and sell finished work to news organizations and negotiate fees with publishers.
For news publishers, the platform introduces new incremental revenue opportunities and significant cost savings, enabling news publishers to assign and to buy stories á la carte from freelance writers, and to buy and sell their news content directly with publishers.

Variety, the premier source of business entertainment news, uses Ebyline to sell its film reviews and additional content to other publications for the first time. Additional partners providing content include Pulitzer Prize-winning ProPublica, Cars.com, and independent organizations like Minnpost.com and The Texas Observer. Some of Ebyline's journalist members include credentialed freelancers from The Journalism Shop and The Sports Media Exchange.

Created by former news-industry executives, Ebyline received its initial round of funding from Los Angeles-based angel investors.