Photo Credit: Sasha Chavkin/The New York World

A new journalism site devoted to deepening public understanding of the ways city and state government shape life in New York City launched this week at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

In its first week, The New York World broke a story about a city-chartered Brooklyn bus that segregates its passengers by gender. The story was picked up by several major media outlets including The New York Times, NY Magazine, NY Post and Gawker. Following the story, the New York City Commission on Human Rights said it would look into the issue of the alleged discrimination on the line.

The Knight-funded site also launched a crowd-sourced project to analyze the city’s privately owned public spaces, a timely topic amid the Occupy Wall Street protests. World reporter Yolanne Almanzar, a 2011 Columbia Journalism School alumna, appeared on WNYC’s Brian Lehrer show to announce the project. She and fellow reporters will return to the show next month to announce its findings.

As part of its mission to engage New Yorkers with information about how their city works, The New York World is committed to partnering with other media organizations, large and small. It is named after the newspaper published by the school’s founder, Joseph Pulitzer.

The program is currently run by editor Alyssa Katz, interim deputy director Amanda Hickman and reporters Yolanne Almanzar, Alice Brennan, Sasha Chavkin, Pei Shan Hoe, Alexander Hotz and Michael Keller. Bill Grueskin, dean of academic affairs and professor of professional practice at Columbia Graduate School of Journalism is the faculty advisor.

The New York World was inspired in part by News 21, a nationwide effort to teach, challenge and prepare the next generation of news industry leaders. Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism was one of 12 universities to originally participate in News21. Both News21 and The New York World are funded by Knight Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation as part of the Carnegie-Knight Initiative on Journalism Education.