[November 6, 2009] Columbia College Chicago is among a dozen recipients to share $500,000 that the Chicago Community Trust has pledged to support the development of emerging local news sources.
Columbia will receive $45,000 for a project in collaboration with the Chicago Tribune using student and professional journalists to cover government meetings, businesses, churches, and other institutions in the Austin neighborhood, with content distributed via a new website (www.austintalks.com) and the Chicago Tribune’s Chicago Now blogsite (www.chicagonow.com), a mobile edition, a newsletter, and text messaging.
The Community Media Workshop, a nonprofit housed at Columbia College, will receive $45,000 as well: $15,000 to help build and develop a strong, healthy online news ecosystem in the Chicago area through continued tracking, convening, reporting, collaboration with and education of the sector; and $30,000 to launch (in collaboration with Northwestern University Medill School professor Jack Doppelt) a reporting, story sharing, and translation service for ethnic media and their audiences, building on CMW's ethnic media work and Medill's "Immigrant Connect Chicago" program.
In June the Chicago Community Trust commissioned a report, funded by a Knight Foundation grant, to explore alternative news sources in response to the difficult and changing climate facing traditional media outlets. The awards reflect recognition that new news sources must be cultivated.
The Community News Matters Award is funded jointly by the Chicago Community Trust and the John D. and Catherine T. MacAthur Foundation.