Route Bay City is a digital news magazine, and Bay County institution, focused on the dynamic communities, businesses, and residents of Bay County, Michigan. We cover what's next in entrepreneurship, creative culture, and urban development in and around the city, and are part of the Issue Media Group family.
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Meet the Route Bay City team
Managing Editor:
Kathy Roberts
Contributors:
Scott Baker
Ashley Brown
Robin Devereaux
Jen Dore
Denyse Shannon
Meet our Partners
Route Bay City is published by Issue Media Group. Incorporated in 2005 in Detroit, Michigan, IMG operates a national network of online media outlets leveraging the power of solutions-based journalism to report on community change. Our publications aim to connect readers to their communities’ most visionary and innovative people, projects, businesses, and organizations – fostering civic capacity, improving understanding of key issues, amplifying underserved voices, and building community attachment during a time of local media decline.
We work with like-minded stakeholders across public, private, nonprofit, and grassroots organizations whose values and missions align with ours through an underwriting model of publishing. Our journalists connect with community stakeholders through regular listening sessions designed to build trust and shape authentic community stories.
IMG's work has been recognized and supported by leading journalism organizations nationally including INC Magazine, Knight Foundation, Columbia Journalism Review, Facebook, Lenfest Institute, Google, Solutions Journalism Network, Ground Source, and Society for Professional Journalists.
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Michigan Assets
Issue Media Group’s Michigan footprint of 18 local online community news sites is grounded in cross-sector stakeholder coalitions comprised of leadership in foundations, nonprofits, government and municipalities, education, community and economic development, health, entrepreneurship, and workforce development. Through regular community listening sessions, these leadership coalitions help guide relevant community-informed coverage, increase local audience engagement and ensure influential readership networks.
All Michigan content is published through a growing network of sites that include: Detroit’s Model D, Grand Rapids Rapid Growth, Metro Detroit’s Metromode, Ann Arbor / Ypsilanti’s Concentrate, Kalamazoo / Battle Creek’s Second Wave Southwest, Flint’s Flintside, Port Huron’s The Keel, Catalyst Midland, Route Bay City, Epicenter Mount Pleasant, UPword in the Upper Peninsula, and Rural Innovation Exchange covering Michigan's rural community. Every week, Second Wave is published to a statewide audience featuring a listing of top stories from across IMG’s network of sites. Current Michigan assets include over 120 community partners, 80 journalists, 4.6 million annual readers, 280,000 emails, and 213,000 social media followers.
Detroit's Model D: www.modeldmedia.com
Second Wave (statewide): www.secondwavemedia.
Want to pitch us a story? Here's how:
Route Bay City receives valuable contributions from a network of talented freelance writers and photographers. We encourage anyone interested in contributing articles or photos on a topic related to Bay County to email [email protected] with a pitch describing the story you want to tell, how you plan to tell it, and why you think our audience will be interested. If you are looking for examples of the types of stories we run, below are some pieces we’ve loved.