Thursday 13 October 2016

Open Road Launches New Online Community: The Portalist

I've checked out the site and there are a lot of interesting list and other articles.  Here's the press release: 


OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA LAUNCHES NEW SCIENCE FICTION, FANTASY,
AND POP CULTURE ONLINE COMMUNITY  


New York, NY, October 13, 2016—Open Road Integrated Media, a digital publisher and multimedia content company, announced today the launch of The Portalist—a new online community for fans of science fiction, fantasy, and genre-related pop culture news.

Heading up the new site as Senior Editor is Carolyn Cox, a writer and editor with extensive experience working in fandom and genre news. Prior to joining Open Road, Cox was an editor at the prominent pop culture news site The Mary Sue. Acting as strategic advisor to The Portalist is renowned science fiction and fantasy editor Betsy Mitchell, who spent ten years as VP and Editor-in-Chief of Random House’s Del Rey Books.

The Portalist will cover science fiction and fantasy as it exists across all mediums of entertainment and culture—from film and TV to video games, books, and comics, both past and present—but with the added focus on making the fan experience a positive one.

“The Portalist celebrates the great science fiction and fantasy that gets lost in the din, and shines a spotlight on the stuff we love. We’ll also explore pressing developments in tech, conservation, and space exploration, all from an optimistic and inclusive viewpoint. We celebrate science and imagination equally, and value possibilities and positivity,” Cox said.

“There’s a lot of anger in science fiction and fantasy right now,” she added. “Some of that anger is a necessary response to how women, people of color, and other marginalized groups are often misrepresented or left out of the narrative in geek media; but much of it is from fans who feel the fiction they love is ‘overrun’ by progressive values. In the midst of these cultural debates, inclusive, innovative media is sometimes overlooked. On the road to greater representation, it’s important to pause and celebrate the progress we’ve made.”                 


Open Road developed The Portalist after seeing extraordinary success with The Lineup, another content vertical focused on true crime, horror, and the bizarre. Launched in November of 2015, The Lineup now boasts more than 2 million unique users a month, with 130,000 newsletter subscribers and 260,000 Facebook fans.

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