For go-getting journalists weary of the self-censored media, like The Raw Story’s founders, the Internet is paramount.

During its first year, the RawStory.com’s claims to fame have included alleged proof that President George W. Bush skirted several months of mandatory National Guard duty in 1972, compelling him to serve nearly four months of active duty which he never completed during the cruelest years of the Vietnam War.

The website has also found evidence to support rumors that Republican Congressmen on opposite coasts — in separate cases — have championed homophobic legislation in spite of being themselves gay.

RawStory.com’s editor, John Byrne, is a 2003 College graduate who consorted with fellow classmate Jesse Kanson-Benanav to launch the site on Feb. 1 of this year.

“The thing I found most frustrating in the media is that they may know something and just not report it,” Byrne said.“They’re conservative about what they report because they have a high burden of proof.”

Updated daily, the site features a range of stories — both exclusives and links — which appeal to a progressive audience. The editors fashion it as a response to The Drudge Report, a conservative online publication run by Matt Drudge.

“Our stories are interesting to a progressive audience,” Byrne said. “But in our reporting, we talk to both sides.”

The fiery campaign year charge challenging Bush’s Guard record made it into the Boston Globe on Sept. 8. The Cambridge, Mass.-based RawStory.com went public with an expose nearly a month earlier, on Aug. 1, Byrne said.

A former Reagan defense official confirmed Bush’s bohemianism as constituting “away without leave” first to The Raw Story and credited the website for breaking it to the Globe, among other outlets.

“If we highlight things that make Bush look bad we’re going to make damn sure they’re accurate because our credibility is on the line,” Byrne said.

In fact, uncovering Bush’s alleged military snafus has been somewhat of a goldmine for RawStory.com, the site’s unique visitors have topped 25,000 per day since throwing timber into the fire by suggesting Bush once posed with National Guard medals not his own. Ninety percent of Raw Story’s audience is in the United States, but it has also reached 140 countries worldwide.

Byrne credits the cynicism of key sources for coming to Raw Story in lieu of the established press. “There are a lot of people that have really interesting news, but they don’t like the corporate media,” he said. The researcher who has been the source for documenting Bush’s military transgressions came to RawStory.com for that reason, he said.

Byrne and Kanson-Benanav’s journalistic legacy extends to their Oberlin days, when they co-founded The Grape and Byrne edited the Review, as well as the short-lived and immortalized Muckraker. Byrne also has experience in Washington, D.C. as a McClatchy Newspapers intern and as a freelancer for The Boston Globe.

For RawStory.com, the Internet provided the duo with an inexpensive medium to create the news source they wanted. Though their start-up costs are less than those for print publications, online publications have had a hard time surviving.

Ironically, The Raw Story was modeled after the conversely right-wing Drudge Report. Drudge is the site’s sole operator, and he has very low overhead while raking in millions of dollars per year from the site.

Byrne and Kanson-Benanav run The Raw Story on their own. Though they haven’t matched Drudge’s millions, the publication has provided them with a fairly stable source of income. John earns enough to work on it full-time while Jesse also works as a community organizer.

An integrated sister site to RawStory.com, Blue Lemur, is a liberal web log, or “blog” site. “I think the medium of the blog is something that’s revolutionized journalism,” Byrne said. “It provides instant access to information the mainstream media won’t report because they can’t get it verified.”

At a time when Raw Story’s creators feel media is becoming increasingly corporatized, alternative news sources like their own play an important role. Though The Raw Story recognizes that it caters to a progressive audience, its creators don’t feel that bias interferes with the quality of their reporting.

Journalistic publications that openly express a political leaning have long been targets of controversy and are sometimes characterized as incapable of fair and balanced reporting.

“You can get to extremes, which is dangerous,” Kanson-Benanav said. He cited publications like the Christian News Service and the Washington Times, which he felt have obvious agendas to advance.

However, bias is an issue for all publications. “The media itself has conceded that point,” Byrne said. “No one claims to be objective anymore.

“I wish I’d started this website when I was at Oberlin,” Byrne said. “There are so many empowering ways you can be involved. That whole one person changes the world thing...I didn’t believe it so much when I was at Oberlin, but it’s true.”

“Students at Oberlin have a lot of access to resources and knowledge you don’t have access to in the real world,” Kanson-Benanav said. “Remember not to miss that.”