The Pagan Newswire Collective, which PNC-Minnesota is a local bureau of, has expanded internationally. The main site for the news organization has also been redesigned to better serve its readers.

The newest bureau of the PNC opened a bureau for South America, featuring writers from several South American countries and a Canadian bureau is preparing to launch. Jason Pitzl-Waters, Project Coordinator for PNC, said he has also had inquires from Spain and other European nations. “We were approached by Yoko Galkan, a writer and journalist from Uruguay about starting a bureau, and decided to expand it to news and views from Pagans all across South America,” Mr. Pitzl-Waters said of the new bureau, “Modern Pagan religions have been growing at a quick pace in South American countries like Brazil, and I’m excited to establish local sources for stories emerging from that region.”  This brings the total number of PNC bureaus up to ten worldwide.

This expansion also necessitated a site redesign for the main PNC website.  PNC Technical Coordinator, David Dashifen Kees, was tasked with the redesign, “The real goal is to specifically highlight the blogs’ and bureaus’ content.   To that end, we figured out a way to pull in the bureau and blog content on the homepage and link back to them to try and act as an information broker helping people find their way to stories that they want to read regardless of where those stories are.”  Mr Dashifen Kees says that although he is pleased with how the redesign looks and functions, there is still work to be done on it, “There’s a lot of work to be done on the pages that aren’t the homepage.   A list of all the bureaus and blogs on their appropriate areas, a better page for special coverage.  While we’re well on our way to a solid web site, there’s quite a bit of work left to do.”

Between the growth of the bureaus, going from zero to ten in about as many months, the addition of International bureaus, and the organizations website redesign, the PNC has made significant progress in its mission to “promote primary-source reporting from within our interconnected communities.”  Pitzl-Waters  says, “My main vision is to grow our network of bureaus as quickly as is sustainable. The faster our bureau network grows, the faster we’ll be able to knit them together into the first international Pagan-focused newswire. I think we’ve been making tremendous progress.”

If you would like to be a part of PNC-Minnesota as a writer or contributor, or if you have stories ideas or announcements, please contact Cara Schulz or Nels Linde here.