Former Inquirer co-owner behind Philly journalism startup

South Jersey political powerbroker George Norcross appears to be starting a new journalism website, months after leaving his job as co-owner of the Philadelphia Inquirer, Daily News and philly.com.

Technically Philly reported that earlier this week, the domain phillyvoice.com was registered to one of his companies. 

PhillyVoice describes itself as a “well-funded media startup serving the Philadelphia and New Jersey region.” It will cover news, sports and entertainment, and three former top employees at philly.com are working for it.

Beyond that, not much is known about the website. Norcross declined to comment for this story through a spokesman.

Rick Edmonds, a media business analyst at the nonprofit Poynter Institute, said as an online news startup, PhillyVoice will face an uphill battle.

“The ads generally don’t come in at very high rates,” he said. “And you also need a pretty skilled sales force who specializes in digital to be effective selling, particularly in the local marketplace.”

Edmonds said PhillyVoice will have a better chance at success if it has significant financial backing initially because it is unlikely to generate revenue in the first few months.