Hi There, We’re DCist
DCist is the unofficial homepage of the D.C. area. We cover what matters to the residents of this region, whether it’s politics in Northern Virginia, neighborhood restaurants in Prince George’s County, the affordable housing crisis in D.C., or the latest news in transportation.
How We Got Here
Local volunteers launched DCist in 2004 under the umbrella of Gothamist, a New York-based blog. For years, it was a passion project, largely written by Washingtonians who yearned to see more dynamic coverage of the city. Over the next decade, it morphed from a volunteer-run blog into a professional digital news outlet that routinely broke stories and punched above its weight.
In early 2017, DNAinfo bought Gothamist and all of its sister sites. Nine months later, when employees in New York unionized, DNAinfo’s owner closed down the entire network, DCist included. We believed the fat lady had sung, and that D.C. had lost a vital part of its news ecosystem.
But after going dark for several months, DCist was offered a second life by WAMU, Washington D.C.’s NPR member station (WNYC and KPCC have, respectively, relaunched Gothamist and LAist.) And with the support of our readers, we relaunched on June 11, 2018. So many people have told us that they’re thrilled to see DCist back, and we are, too.
Rather than looking to owners in other cities, we now only answer to our own community (if you value and rely on DCist, consider sustaining our work with a donation). At our new home, you’ll find us experimenting more, working alongside our colleagues at WAMU, and even hopping on the radio every once in a while.
But fundamentally, we’re still the same news outlet that you’ve come to know and trust. What hasn’t changed in all this time is our curiosity about D.C. — the city, not the stereotypes.
