The My Bellingham Now app “delivers the latest breaking news and community information” from MyBellinghamNow.com, covering all of Whatcom County, Washington. It is free, it has no paywall, and it comes from the same Bellingham team behind heritage News Talk station KGMI. Built with AppPresser, it has earned a perfect 5.0 star rating ★★★★★ on Google Play.
In this featured app spotlight, we take a closer look at the team behind My Bellingham Now, what the app does, who it serves, and why it is such a strong example of what happens when a WordPress site and a mobile app work together.
Who Is Behind Saga Communications
My Bellingham Now is owned by Saga Communications, the broadcaster that began operations in 1986 and has been publicly traded since December 1992 (NASDAQ: SGA). In Bellingham, Saga’s local group operates five radio stations: News Talk KGMI 790 AM and 96.5 FM, Today’s Variety KAFE 104.1, Classic Rock 92.9 KISM, Northwest Sports KPUG and K-BAY. According to the site’s launch announcement, the group has provided local, regional and national news to northwest Washington for almost 100 years. Bellingham is Saga’s western-most market.
MyBellinghamNow.com launched on January 16, 2024, as a free local news website with no subscription or paywall, part of a set of 18 online news sites Saga rolled out that year. “More than ever before, we need local journalism that is accessible for everyone,” said Sam Kristofferson, a Western Washington University journalism graduate who was named Editor-in-Chief that spring. General manager Heidi Persson put it this way: “While local news and access continues to contract across the nation, we’re proud to be able to launch a free, timely and hyper-local news site designed to keep our local community engaged and informed.”
On January 1, 2025, the Bellingham group, previously known as Cascade Radio Group, became Pacific Northwest Media Group, with Heidi Persson as General Manager and Market President. The newsroom describes its mission as “reporting timely and accurate local news that matters to Bellingham and the greater North Puget Sound area,” with reporters who “live and work in Bellingham.” The site publishes its own ethics policy and AI use policy, and it is online at mybellinghamnow.com.
What the My Bellingham Now App Does
The My Bellingham Now app puts the newsroom’s coverage in a clean, four tab layout: Top Stories, Recent Stories, Sections and Listen. Every story comes from the WordPress site, so new reporting shows up in the app as soon as it is published.
Here are the main areas the app covers:
- Breaking news alerts for local news, so major Whatcom County stories reach your phone right away.
- Top Stories, a feed that leads with the day’s most important local reporting.
- Recent Stories, the newest articles in the order they were published.
- Sections for Local, Crime, Business, Sports, Education, Lifestyle, Community Events, Weather Updates, Photos and Videos.
- Weather and traffic updates specific to Whatcom County, as the App Store listing promises.
- Listen, with live streams of 790 and 96.5 KGMI, KAFE 104.1 and the group’s other stations.
- Links to local podcasts and shows on 790 KGMI.
- A share button for passing a story along to friends and neighbors.
What makes My Bellingham Now distinctive is the way it joins a new digital newsroom to a heritage radio brand. The written reporting and the KGMI broadcast sit side by side in one app, so a reader can check the latest headline about gas prices or a vehicle fire and then tap over to listen to the morning news on the station that has covered the region for generations. And it is all free.
App Screenshots
Here is a look at the app. Use the arrows or the numbered buttons to move through the screenshots.
Test Drive the App
The best way to understand My Bellingham Now is to try it. Download the free app, turn on breaking news alerts, browse a section like Community Events, then tap Listen to hear KGMI live.
Key Features That Stand Out
Top Stories
Top Stories opens the app with Whatcom County’s biggest news, presented in large cards with a headline, a photo and a short summary. In the screenshots, that means stories like gas prices in Whatcom County and a planned bridge repair that would bring Highway 20 down to one lane near Concrete. It is a quick way to see what matters locally before you start your day.
Recent Stories
Recent Stories lists the newsroom’s latest articles in order, from breaking reports like crews putting out multiple vehicle fires in north Whatcom County to updates on local home prices. Each card shows the headline, image and the opening lines of the story. It is ideal for readers who check in several times a day and want to see only what is new.
Every Section
The Sections tab turns the site’s categories into a tidy list of buttons: Local, Crime, Business, Sports, Education, Lifestyle, Community Events, Weather Updates, Photos and Videos. Each button opens that part of the newsroom’s coverage. Readers can go straight to the topics they care about without scrolling through everything else.
Listen Live
The Listen tab brings the group’s radio stations into the app, starting with 790 and 96.5 KGMI, the News Talk station, and Today’s Variety KAFE 104.1. A single button starts the live stream. It means My Bellingham Now readers are always one tap away from the local voices they already know.
At a Glance
- Free local news for Bellingham and all of Whatcom County, with no paywall.
- From the Saga Communications newsroom behind MyBellinghamNow.com, launched in January 2024.
- Breaking news alerts, plus Top Stories, Recent Stories and Sections tabs.
- Ten sections, from Local and Crime to Weather Updates and Videos.
- Live streams of KGMI, KAFE and other local stations.
- Available on iPhone and Android, with a perfect 5.0 rating ★★★★★ on Google Play.
- Powered by the newsroom’s WordPress site through AppPresser.
A Perfect 5.0 Rating ★★★★★
Ratings are one of the most honest signals an app can earn. At the time of writing, My Bellingham Now holds a perfect 5.0 rating ★★★★★ on Google Play, where it has been installed more than 1,000 times. For a local news app serving a single county, that is a meaningful result.
Why does that matter? A local news app lives or dies by trust. Readers have to believe the alerts are worth getting and the stories are worth reading. A perfect score from the people who actually use the app suggests My Bellingham Now is delivering on its promise of timely, accurate and free local news.
Who My Bellingham Now Serves
My Bellingham Now is built first for the people of Bellingham and Whatcom County. Whether you live in the city or in communities like Lynden, Ferndale, Sumas or Custer, the app keeps you informed about local government, crime, schools, business and weather without asking for a subscription.
It also serves the region’s longtime radio listeners. Fans of KGMI’s morning and afternoon news, KPUG’s Northwest Sports or KAFE’s music can stream their station from the same app they use to read the news, which makes My Bellingham Now a natural companion to the radio dial.
Finally, it serves anyone who wants to stay connected to the community. The Community Events and Lifestyle sections help families find something to do on the weekend, and features like the weekly Lifestyle Lookout make the app as useful for planning as it is for keeping up with the headlines.
Technology Behind the App
My Bellingham Now is powered by its own WordPress site, mybellinghamnow.com.
The app is built from WordPress, and WordPress drives it. Every story is published on the WordPress site, and AppPresser carries that content straight into the app, so updates made on the site show up in the app without a separate system to manage.
Looking at the site itself, these are the platforms behind the experience:
What My Bellingham Now Shows About AppPresser
Saga Communications runs My Bellingham Now on WordPress, the same platform that powers its newsroom. The app shows how AppPresser can take a busy WordPress news site with many categories and turn it into a fast, focused mobile experience with alerts, tabs and live audio.
It also shows how AppPresser fits a publisher working across many markets. My Bellingham Now is one of a family of Saga local news sites launched around the country, and a WordPress based approach means each newsroom can have its own app built on content it already publishes.
And it shows that an app can bring different kinds of media together. Text reporting, photos, video and live radio all live in one place, so a broadcaster can give its audience everything it produces through a single download.
My Bellingham Now in the Press
The launch of My Bellingham Now drew attention in the radio industry. In April 2024, Inside Radio reported on the debut of MyBellinghamNow.com as a free local online news website from Saga’s Bellingham group, quoting general manager Heidi Persson and noting that the site can also be accessed through a free mobile app. In May 2024, Radio Ink covered the appointment of Sam Kristofferson as Editor-in-Chief, describing the site as one of eighteen news outlets Saga was rolling out that year and noting that it is available through a mobile app for iOS and Android.
Congratulations to Heidi Persson, the My Bellingham Now newsroom, Pacific Northwest Media Group and Saga Communications on building an app that has earned a perfect 5.0 rating ★★★★★. We are proud to have AppPresser behind it.
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