On the surface, Jose Rivera of East-Harlem.com and Marina Ortiz of East Harlem Preservation don’t have much in common. But they both possess a love for their hometown and desire to present a positive image of East Harlem in the face of perceived bias and neglect from the mainstream media.

“I think people want to feel like the people they know matter,” said Ortiz, who grew up in East Harlem and returned to the neighborhood two years ago after spending several decades in the northwest Bronx. “That’s how I shape my Web site.”

“I wanted a place where people in the community could come and see their news,” Said Rivera, a Navy veteran and lifelong New Yorker who started East Harlem.com 11 years ago.

In Manhattan’s daily newspapers, Ortiz sees a flawed image of East Harlem.

“If you want salacious and mind-numbing divergence from what’s really important in our daily lives, you can stick with the Daily News and the New York Post,” Ortiz said, criticizing their focus on violence and professional sports coverage. Ortiz believes these stories present a dated image of East Harlem as a place with a high crime rate.

By contrast, Ortiz aims to keep East Harlem Preservation’s focus on community social services and news from a broad range of English and Spanish language sources, as well as advocacy issues with an “anti-gentrification and environmental slant.”

On the issue of politics, Ortiz and Rivera differ significantly and this is reflected in how much attention they allow politics to creep into their East Harlem Web sites.

“She’s a liberal, secular progressive, as my friend Bill O’Reilly likes to say,” Rivera said of Ortiz, who he began a friendship with her two years ago when she took over a job he was leaving at the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone. “I am not.”

Resolute though Rivera is in his own beliefs, he is equally firm in his resistance to letting those opinions infuse East Harlem.com.

Browse East Harlem.com, and instead you’ll sense Rivera’s veneration for the neighborhood’s past and the individuals who shaped it. Images of old photos and maps contributed by the Museum of the City of New York trace East Harlem’s history beginning in the 1600s.

Although Rivera initially created East-Harlem.com because he found that the Internet provided a way to reach exponentially more people than a newsletter at a fraction of the overhead costs, he does find that getting more neighborhood residents engaged is a challenge. Rivera said he receives approximately 15,000 page views a month, but he does not have a strong sense of what proportion of those viewers are current or former East Harlemites. Judging from e-mails sent to the site, a fair number of his viewers are high school and college students doing research.

For feedback on her site, which Ortiz said also receives thousands of page views each month, Ortiz turns to people she meets in East Harlem through her work as a member of Community Board 11 and as a communications associate for Hope Community, an affordable housing developer.

But money is the biggest obstacle to additional support. Ortiz and Rivera both adamantly oppose putting advertisements on their websites; they said this would deter from their public service missions. Rivera already pays between $500 and $600 each year for web space and software upgrades. Taking on a staff member to aid in regular site maintenance or information and photo gathering would significantly increase those expenses.

Yet both Ortiz and Rivera also work full-time jobs that limit the time they can devote to their sites. For Ortiz, whose work with Hope Community and Community Board 11 puts her in contact with many of the people and issues that shape East Harlem Preservation, this problem is less acute.

The challenges are clearer for Rivera. His current day job, as the admissions director for Cristo Rey High School, demands more of his time and energy than past employment. He is sometimes only able to update East Harlem.com once a month, a frustration that has been on his mind recently. He believes he has missed coverage of a few important local issues, such as the month-long disruption of service at the 124th Street post office due to construction. He would like to update the site day, but with his retirement 15 years off, the opportunity to do that appears a long way away.

In spite of the challenges of balancing his Web site maintenance with family and a full-time job, Rivera, who is in his 50s, said his passion for East Harlem.com remains firm.

“I’m not planning to let go of this for another 30 to 40 years.”

Tara Kyle is a native of Juneau, Alaska, and is currently pursuing a Master of Science in Journalism at Columbia University. Tara previously served as editor-in-chief and publisher of The Dartmouth daily college newspaper. She has worked as an urban education fellow and immigration legal assistant.