Managed by New America Media (NAM) - the US' largest ethnic media organisation - and funded by the Ford Foundation - LA Beez wants to collaborate with six ethnic media publications, which represent the diverse population, and will provide hyperlocal stories from African American, Latino, Asian, Arab American, and other ethnic groups.
NAM is both national and global, and LA Beez is 'an extension of that at a community level', explained Julian Do, NAM-SoCal director and manager of the Ford-NAM Digital Divide Project.
Content from LA Beez, which has adapted MoveableType software to meet its publishing needs, will appear on the NAM site and vice versa, said Do.
"Part of the project is to provide training to our initial six members with multimedia skills to produce contents with video, photo, sound, and on other online formats like Flash," he told Journalism.co.uk.
"There still exists a digital divide among ethnic populations and probably less than 30 per cent of the operating ethnic media has some form of online presence."
Since the world of media is increasingly moving to online, failure to make this transition in the future would seriously jeopardize the ethnic media sector, which has been a news source for more than 50 million ethnic adults, he explained.
"Online media could help expand ethnic media's audiences outside of its base and connect with younger generations who tend to be more internet savvy," he added.
While LA Beez is a non-profit venture with its content shared between six members, Do is hopeful that there will be sufficient traffic to start selling online advertisements within two years, which would help cover maintenance costs.
The sites have received good response and attention so far, he said, adding that several sites have heralded the network as a 'trailblazer'.
New features currently being built, including a forum, calendar, online advertising channels and a youth blog, will hopefully boost traffic, Do said.
The site will officially launch on March 13 at the NAM Regional Awards in Los Angeles, which focus on rewarding hyperlocal reporting.
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