Tools & Resources
Newstips is a grassroots news service providing journalists with stories and sources from Chicago-area nonprofits and community organizations. Journalists can receive Newstips via email or subscribe to this RSS feed. Website
Writeboards are sharable, web-based text documents that let you save every edit, roll back to any version, and easily compare changes. Use Writeboard to write solo or collaborate with others. Website
Dropbox provides instant access to your uploaded documents on any internet connected device including your computer, tablet or smart phone. You can create shared folders to allow people to work together on the same projects and documents. Website
DocumentCloud runs every document you upload through OpenCalais, giving you access to extensive information about the people, places and organizations mentioned in each. Reveal all the dates mentioned in a set of documents, and plot them on a timeline. Zoom in to view just the few critical months or days. Discover documents related to your story and explore links to the original reporting. Website
Stories from Chicago neighborhoods
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As the news hole shrinks and staff cuts continue at major outlets, there are lots of stories going uncovered in Chicago.
- After 30 years of the AIDS epidemic, what challenges do South and West Side residents face getting treatment?
- How does a turnaround at a Bronzeville high school look from ground level?
- How are changes at Provident Hospital and the reorganization of Cook County’s health services affecting low-income Chicagoans?
- How are Southeast Side residents working together to move beyond their community’s history of polluting industry and toward a green economy?
- Which in-school and after school programs really work to keep kids out of trouble – and improve their academic performance?
- How is Mexico’s drug war impacting Chicago’s Mexican communities?
- What are young people in Little Village doing about polluting coal plants, inadequate public transportation and lack of green space?
These are just a few of the stories from under-covered communities that will be featured here in coming weeks and months.
Others include: millionaire slumlords, Latinas in the arts, young people organizing to stop violence, TIFs in Austin, the impact of low-wage jobs on local economies, and how prostitution court works. And there are lots more.
This site will connect you with reporting projects sponsored by the Local Reporting Initiative of the Chicago Community Trust’s Community News Project – articles, video and radio documentaries, blogs and multimedia projects, coming from seasoned journalists and up-and-comers, community organizations and nonprofits, and neighborhood papers, websites, and writing groups.
The goal is to add significant new information to the local news ecosystem. It’s part of a larger effort to find ways to use new media and technology to keep communities informed.
Along with the Chicago Reporter, Community Media Workshop is administering the program – and helping to push out the results to local media and to interested media consumers.
Bookmark this site and return often – or sign up for e-mail alerts or an RSS feed — to keep up with these reports. We’re expecting great things!
Congratulation.This is a badly needed project for the South and West Side neighborhoods. For example, while the mainstream media reports unemployment rates of 9%, the 18% average for African Americans and 60% plus rates for young Black males goes unreported. This project could change that. I hope that you will link with youth organizations and proactive teachers in the high schools and colleges like Kennedy King and Chicago State as well as community based programs with large Black and Latino youth populations such as Youth Media Voices,The Black Star Project, Magic,Iman and Safety Network, a state funded youth anti violence program and similar programs to get youth and young adult voices to report their perspectives and that of their communities.