In June 2021, I started The World Telegram News as a 15-year-old trying to get a foothold in journalism, funded by a birthday VISA gift card from my grandpa. Leaving a Google internship to do it did not look like a smart trade at the time. It is still the best decision I have made.
The early reporting was rough. What it bought me was reps — enough to work out what my reporting actually was. I liked talking to people and getting their read on things. I liked taking everything I had dug up on a topic and building it into something a person could actually use.
2022Finding the format
The team grew, and we pushed into experimental newsgathering and storytelling. Gaming coverage was where it clicked first — viewers noticed the craft before they noticed us.
"Your editing is unreal. Super impressed with this, really informative and entertaining."— Viewer comment, 2022
2023Going local
After some setbacks, we rebuilt as a journalism collective — and found local community reporting. That work peaked on June 18 with "New Rochelle Mayoral Race: Meet the Candidates." LoHud, a USA Today affiliate, reached out to use our coverage. Talk of the Sound, a local staple, called it a must-read interview.
"Very well done! We need more people your age doing this kind of journalism."— Reader, 2023
The same year we launched NewsAudio — fast news updates spanning local, national and international coverage — and locked in the color palette we still use.
2024On air
We refreshed the on-air and online presentation: modern, minimal, news front and center, with a new music signature. NewsAudio turned 1, making it our longest-running product. And we started broadcasting on WBNY 91.3 FM.
"I'm so impressed with the quality of this show and how authentic to the overall concept it is."— Listener, WBNY 91.3 FM, 2024
2025A new name
The World Telegram News became KirNews. Same standards, clearer name, and a masthead that could stand next to the rest of what we were building. The ethos did not move: transparent, truthful, timeless.
KirMedia is the studio around it. The newsroom does the reporting. The studio does the branding, the production and the original IP — and it funds the newsroom's stability, which is the whole point of running both.
NowWhere this is going
We are not backing off the commitment to try new things in journalism. Social, web and radio get the resources, and they get them first.
We do not think the future of news is replacing reporters with AI. We think it is using AI to get high-quality journalism to the communities that misinformation hits hardest. And we think a real piece of what comes next is immersive — augmented reality that puts you inside a story and lets you handle the data yourself, instead of reading someone else's summary of it.
I am passionate about what that vision means, and I would rather build it with you than at you. If you want fair, impartial and inventive journalism to be the status quo, there is a door below.