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D.C. residents: Innovative crime journalism project needs help to keep going

A pitch for some friends and a public service: Laura Amico and her husband Chris have put a lot of energy into a great project in the Washington DC area — a site, Homicide Watch, that quite literally tracks every reported homicide in the District. It’s grown into a public service that’s drawn hundreds of thousands of pageviews per month and helped keep people aware of stories that would’ve gotten ignored by a traditional newspaper. Unfortunately, a deal with a local media outlet to keep the service alive fell though at the last minute, which (due to its founder receiving a prominent fellowship at Harvard) will force the site into hiatus. All is not lost, however — a Kickstarter project to help keep the site going for another year is showing early signs of success; the project has raised a fifth of its desired $40,000 goal in a single day. It’s a smart project and one that the DC community needs. Read up here to find out more.