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Amid all the grim news about downsizing and belt-tightening at newspapers and other major media outlets, the do-it-yourself counter-trend infusing the growing universe of blogs and podcasts continues to manifest itself in different ways.

In December, for instance, Online Journalism Review published a first-person account headlined "Redefining Freelancing with Entrepreneurial Web Journalism." It related the author's experiences seeking donations for a reporting project in India, then seeking an audience for the blog-based product.

In February, one of the MediaBistro website's many instructional courses for freelancers and others working in various journalistic and publishing endeavors was titled "Going Solo: How to Start Your Own Media Business."

One decidedly entrepreneurial venture illustrating the DIY approach as it's applied to environmental journalism has just been launched with no outside funding but with high hopes and ambitious goals.

It's a new, web-based publication in blog form called OneAtlantic, whose masthead has this explanatory line: "Environmental News & Views for the Atlantic Coast."

The "What is OneAtlantic?" part of the website says it will take a cross-border look at issues such as "global warming, air pollution, energy generation, preserving biodiversity and watersheds, economic justice and prosperity," and will be on the lookout for "the interconnections, laying a foundation for support of policies and projects that will enable people to create a sustainable, healthy, prosperous future for the Atlantic coast."

Emily Gertz, the site's creator, envisions it as a combination of news aggregator, collaborative outlet for participatory citizen journalism, and catalyst to help forge a new sense of bioregional identity in areas bordering the Atlantic – and not just on this side of that ocean.

"Ocean levels are going to be changing here, just as they are on the English coast," she said.

No one argues with the unitary concept of a "Pacific Rim," she added, though people don't typically conceive of areas bordering the Atlantic, which share common concerns and problems, in the same cohesive way.

Looking for ways to examine and illuminate linkages in seemingly disparate regions bordering the Atlantic, Gertz said she will use an inclusive definition of environmental news. "I take a pretty broad view that the economic health of the region will be dependent on environmental conditions in the next few decades," she said, noting that several northeastern states have banded together recently in a regional pact to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.

But she knows that gaining and keeping an audience will be challenging. "In this area, the issues are so fought over, it's easy to tune out." Her task, she said, is to find ways "to wake people up."

Gertz explored possibilities for launching the site with outside backing, such as a fellowship from Echoing Green, an organization that invests in reform organizations launched by "social entrepreneurs." At first, she also hoped to create a publication that would pay contributors "a little money." Eventually, however, in a go-it-alone leap, she "decided just to get it off the ground as a blog, with a very pared-down approach, to get it established and attract some collaborators."

The concept of a bioregional news site will be familiar to those acquainted with the Tidepool website, which has served as a news aggregator for the Pacific Northwest since 1997 and as a model for bioregional publications in other areas. (See two articles on Tidepool, one from February 2006 and one in September 2003 published in EW.)

Gertz got to know Tidepool during the period from 1997-99 when she worked as an environmental news producer at OregonLive, the Portland Oregonian's website.

"I got used to using Tidepool," she said, "and I saw what it did for environmental awareness, a cohesion of ideas and activism."

Moving back to New York City in 2000 [original posting of 2004 corrected here], she said that she noticed that people didn't generally conceive of the Atlantic coast and its interrelated issues in a way that was comparable to the sweeping vision of the Northwest as "Cascadia," a region extending from Alaska into California that Tidepool captured in its signature phrase, "News for Salmon Nation."

Tidepool was an early inspiration for OneAtlantic, but Gertz said it's no longer the template for her new site.

In recent years, she has been writing for WorldChanging, a multi-contributor blog publication that largely focuses on new technological developments and ideas that might enhance environmental sustainability. In so doing, Gertz said, she became more aware of the burgeoning fields of blogging and citizen journalism.

Accordingly, she decided to make OneAtlantic not just a news aggregator, but instead a broader, "participatory" publication that aims to get readers thinking about what she calls the shared "political geography of the Atlantic seaboard."

In addition to her work as a web producer and Internet consultant, Gertz brings a diverse background to the task. She earned a master's degree in interdisciplinary environmental studies from the University of Oregon. A biographical blurb posted on the WorldChanging site says she "has been active in environmentalism and social change for 20 years, in online media and community for 10 years, and as a freelance writer on environment, politics, and arts for international, national, and local independent publications since 1994."

She has frequently contributed, for example, to the online environmental news magazine Grist and formerly to Bush GreenWatch, a series of background papers critical of the Bush administration's policies on various environmental issues that was launched in 2003 by the Environmental Media Services organization and was transferred this year to the advocacy group Friends of the Earth.

In OneAtlantic's first days of publication, Gertz has mainly posted news summaries and links, such as one themed group of three newspaper stories about alternative-energy developments in Massachusetts, North Carolina, and Maine , which appeared under the headline "Chicken-Poop Power and Other Atlantic Coast Energy News."

In line with her aim to create a forum for different voices, one of her other early postings on the OneAtlantic site was an article from Waterwire, the weekly newsletter of the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance, a network of organizations and individuals working for renewal and redevelopment of the New York-New Jersey metro region's waterways. A note indicated the article was just the first installment in a continuing collaboration between OneAtlantic and the Alliance, which gets support from private foundations and government organizations.

This collaborative spirit is apparent elsewhere on the OneAtlantic site. Next to the Waterwire article is an invitation to individuals who might want to write for OneAtlantic to contact Gertz. Elsewhere is a diverse list of people who have served as her advisors as she planned the site, including individuals affiliated with organizations such as Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet & Society and Working Today, an organization that seeks to help freelancers and other independent workers in various fields.

Looking to the future, Gertz says she hopes to add both photo and podcast capabilities to the site shortly, so she can attract photo and audio contributors from along the Atlantic coast, in addition to writers.