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Exciting news! The Chicago Community Trust today announced $500,000 in awards to 12 recipients under an new program, Community News Matters, to spur the growth of new sources of quality local news and information about the Chicago region. The award winners were selected from among 86 requests, totaling $5.7 million.
Windy Citizen awarded $35,000 grant through Chicago Community Trust news incubator
cct.org - 2 weeks ago - 1630 views
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Congratulations to Brad and everyone who frequents the Windy Citizen! We will all benefit from this great news.
I was surprised to see Columbia College and Loyola on there, but I'm happy that the Windy Citizen got a grant! Whoo hoo!
Kudos!
Well put, Richard Giraldi!
Congratulations Brad and Windy City
So is the $50k awarded to the Chicago News Cooperative the funds they secured through MacArthur? The CCT press release has notes the funding is provided via CCT, Knight and MacArthur.
Here's Mike Doyle's post on Chicago Now about today's news.
His main question is "what happens when the grant money runs out?"
And there is this little nugget.
Congrats! This is awesome for the Windy Citizen!
Congratulations, Brad!
Vivian Vahlberg, your words precede you. At what point did the Community News Matters grant program go from aiming to support sustainability to, as you said in a 1,276-word comment posted to my Chicagosphere blog in August, merely "bridge funding"?
Your massive quote doesn't seem to jibe with the text of the Trust/Knight press release that announced the grant program in August. And that is the subject of my Chicagosphere entry today:
"Vivian Vahlberg Vs. The Usual Suspects: Why the 'Community News Matters' Grantee List Is No Surprise"
http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/chicagosphere/2009/11/the-usual-suspects...
Congratulations and I think it's well deserved!
Great list of innovators getting support here, exactly what's needed to provoke more experimentation and broader news coverage. I especially like the Columbia College plan to write about the Austin neighborhood and Loyola's effort with Benito Juarez High School in Pilsen, which should be complementary to the growing presence of www.pilsenportal.org.
And the boost to Beachwood, Gapers Block and Windy Citizen quite rightly supports their leadership roles.
Onward!
Loyola is on there for their partnership with the Benito Juarez Community Academy, "to train high school and college journalists to cover Pilsen, with content distributed via a new Web site, "Adentro de Pilsen" (Inside Pilsen), a Spanish language news magazine and (potentially) hand-held mobile devices." Patrick Berry made note of the Pilsen connection earlier.
& Upward, Patrick Barry!
Psssst. We're almost self-sustaining already. We asked for money so we can get bigger.
I don't think so. The numbers above add up to $500,000, so I'm assuming they got money from this CCT fund in addition to whatever MacArthur funds they received.
In spirit!
We asked for an amount that's perfectly sustainable, assuming advertising keeps getting better -- which is a reasonable assumption. I'm not sure why he thinks we need to hire new staff -- we got the money so we could start paying the staff we have.
That's great to hear.
Congrats Brad!
Doyle's kind of hit or miss to me, but he is DEAD ON with this post.
Half of these grants are bullshit:
Chicago News Cooperative? Bullshit. It's a bunch of rich white guys with MacArthur backing. Why do they need $50k that could go to Gapers Block?
Columbia College/Chicago Now? Bullshit. If the Chicago Now people thought Austin was such an important community, why the heck didn't they pony up the measly $45k needed to start this site? That chump change to the Tribune and to Columbia. Meanwhile that amount would change an actual startup's life.
Loyola? Northwestern? Bullshit. These are major universities, world-class universities taking money away from people living off saltines so they can pay the rent and keep building their dream. Bullshit.
I understand wanting to give some of the money to safe bets, but a lot of these decisions are real headscratchers. How is it that only 2 out of the 12 are things I've never heard of before?
Yeah, this is a good thing. Now I need to work on getting the NYTimes/WSJ/WashPo/Time/Newsweek to do a story on the scene here. That's part 2.
What other city has so many news startups?
I think you're right that everyone will benefit from the Windy Citizen award. As Brad put it in his application, "Independent blogs about neighborhood news now have no way to promote themselves to a wider audience; distribution is a major obstacle to the publishing startups being launched every day in Chicago. By supporting Windy Citizen,you are in essence investing in better roads and highways for the territory you hope to see settled. The easier it is for news and information to reach its destination, the more incentive there is to create it."
Great news, Brad, also for all those other ambitious start-ups... Congrats
Your assumption is there's only one type of person that's going to have the key to the future -- the person living off saltines and building a dream. They may be the ones, which is why the Trust bet on a few in this round of grants. But it's also possible that those "rich white guys" who have connections with Chicago's movers-and-shakers that others don't have may be able to leverage that access to raise big bucks to create an operation that pays journalists decent salaries -- if only they can get it off the ground. Or maybe the answer will come from universities that build on what they're already doing with students to create news operations that would be a heck of a lot more expensive to create from scratch -- and do it in a high-quality way.
These are very good points. I guess what I was trying to say was that a 10k grant to someone like Steve Rhodes can go a lot farther than a 10k grant to someone with access to a great deal of capital. It would be silly to think that "saltine man" holds the key to the future. This is true. I think saltine man's options for getting a chance to prove him/herself are many fewer than a university or this CNC operation.
If Northwestern doesn't get it's $30k grant, they have numerous other options at their disposal for finding that funding. If Gapers Block doesn't get its grant, what else does it have other than a program aimed at new local news initiatives?
But I concede your point that these other approaches stand a good chance of success. I just don't think that means it's then worth betting on them.
Thanks so much for fielding comments here though. This is really impressive. As a loyal WCer since Brad roped me in, it's great to see this community getting some exposure.
Very true, very true. It's absolutely amazing what Steve, Brad and others have done on a shoe string. They really know how to stretch a penny!
The only thing I'd add (having not that long ago gotten laid off at a university news-related program because our funding dried up) is that it isn't very easy to raise money for news-related things at universities either. J-school deans have such a hard time raising money; their graduates aren't generally rolling in dough and not many funders care. And college journalism programs are very expensive, relatively speaking. It takes much less money to have a professor lecture three times a week than it does to staff a working newsroom for student reporters with daily stories to edit.
That is a really good question. I guess I always assumed most places were like Chicago with lots of start ups trying to fix the news, but only NYC comes to mind as an answer.
Chicago's earned a Front Page reputation as depicted in the Hollywood movie by the same name!
On a semi-related note, I love that movie.
Inspired a generation, craignewman!
If there were a sure fire way for media ventures to be self sustaining out of the gate, The Chicago Community Trust would not have had to create this program. This program was created because business models are in flux and no one yet knows the answer -- so a little experimentation (in content, presentation, business approaches, platforms, etc.) is needed. One of the main goals of the awards is to help people who have good ideas for how to create viable business models and give them a little fuel as they try to make their vision work. Each applicant had to outline their plan for sustainability; this was a critical part of the evaluation process. Just because the sustainability plan for each award winner isn't obvious to Mike Doyle after reading a one-phrase description doesn't mean there's no plan for sustainability.
If you find coverage of the announcement today, post it in a comment under this thread.
Gapers Block (has full press release): http://gapersblock.com/ac/2009/11/05/gapers-block-among-recipients-of-ch...
"We're extremely honored to have been chosen to receive this award, which will allow us to begin paying staff members to write feature articles and pay the editorial staff a bit more than we do right now. While we're still far from paying everyone for everything they contribute to the site -- with around 100 contributors producing thousands of posts a year, we'd need a lot more than $35,000 to do that -- it's a great first step toward that eventual goal."
Congrats to WindyCitizen, too!
Danke. Danke.
Where will Windy Citizens find their next easter egg benevactor?
Congratulations, Brad, Andrew, et al.
It doesn't seem as if any of these groups got enough cash to hire any full-time journalists, though, unless they're combining it with funds from elsewhere. (I hope I'm wrong about this ... if anyone needs a sharp, experienced editor, let me know!)
Beachwood Reporter: http://www.beachwoodreporter.com/column/the_thursday_papers_184.php
The Medill School has news about their award here: http://www.medill.northwestern.edu/newsreleases/archives.aspx?id=144835
Chicago Tribune: http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/towerticker/2009/11/chicago-communit...
Crain's: http://www.chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?id=36050
TOC blogged about it here:
http://www3.timeoutny.com/chicago/blog/out-and-about/2009/11/gapers-bloc...
Absolutely delighted to hear the news, Brad Flora! Congratulations. Pay the rest, it's my pleasure to contribute my shares pro bono!
Congratulations, Brad. Uh, does that fact that you recieved this as an individual mean you're not incorporated?
Congrats, Brad! That's awesome!
Thanks, Megan. My startup brain is excited to have some funding to work with. My news nerd brain is intrigued by the list of all the winners and the cryptic statements about their itentions. This'll be interesting.
Congrats, Brad! You're buying the first round, it looks like!
Ha ha. Does that mean you're going to respond to that e-mail I sent you weeks ago? :)
Never saw it. Send again - cnewman@suntimes.com - and I'll think about responding ;-D
Will do. It's been beer time for far too long.
Champagne tastes!
Here's the list of winners:
Columbia College - $45k to start a site about Austin for the Chicago Tribune (Why isn't the Tribune paying?)
Gapers Block - $35k to pay for more original coverage of undercovered areas
Loyola University - $45k for new web site about Pilsen
South Suburban Publishing LLC - $30k for new web site about Markham
Chicago Association of Hispanic Journalists - $30k for site to promote work of hispanic journalists
Chicago Youth Voices Network - $60k to get teenagers writing about teenage problems in Chicago
Community Media Workshop - $15k to keep tracking local coverage, $30k to work with a Medill prof on a translation service for ethnic audiences
Chicago News Cooperative - $50k to start a new non-profit news org in Chicago (aren't these guys rolling in cash already?)
Northwestern University - $30k to help two local news ventures (which ones?)
Better Government Association - $60k to train people for a new better local government web site
Beachwood Reporter - $35k for tech improvements
Windy Citizen (Brad Flora) - $35k to improve the best site in Chicago
Always good to see that plucky little news org - Chicago Tribune - get some free money.
Got that one, craignewman. Actually, the Chicago Tribune appears to be re-inventing its Internet presence under the careful eye of several of my friends & acquaintances.
Watch for the venerable institution to accelerate the development of Chicago Now & to incubate a variety of journalistic startups, perhaps including acquisition of existing non-profit news aggregators.
Those guys would just start their own and pretend like we don't exist before they'd buy Brad out. I hate to say it, but that's a more likely scenario.
Sam Zell's son & the Chicago Tribune management team might be tempted, so let's encourage them to do the right thing by Windy Citizens.
Yeah, wtf?
WTF? Isn't that a copyrighted expression used by the Chicago Sun Times? (:->)
More of a corporate motto.
Thanks, I needed a laugh!
The Tribune will not be receiving money -- Columbia's ChicagoTalks.org got the funding, and will be creating an Austin channel that will also flow news to a ChicagoNow blog. I don't have details about how that relationship works, but it's certainly not "Tribune gets free money."
Besides, if it means Austin gets thorough local coverage, who cares if the Tribune benefits a little bit? The neighborhood is the true benefactor.
That's correct. This is not a money-making project for Tribune; it's Tribune contributing its reach and its expertise to help a site that's focused on a very underserved area. The money goes largely for the editorial expertise to supervise the students reporting in Austin and for freelance journalists to contribute to the site.
Vivian Vahlberg (Project Director, Community News Matters"
Best Little Web Aggregator in Chicago, ChicagoBankerMan?
Great title for a broadway musical?
To claim fame & fortune, we'd have to add a dash of spice to build up the number of unique Internet visitors to the Windy Citizen site & tone down the culinary flameouts!
Columbia College/Tribune and the Chicago News Cooperative are big shocks to me. Although I am really happy to see that Gapers Block and Beachwood Reporter got some money out of this too.
Chicago News Cooperative does start out with more money than other Chicago Internet ventures have raised -- a $500,000 grant from MacArthur plus a significant contract with the New York Times. But comparable ventures in other cities that have been somewhat successful have taken at least $1 million a year -- so they have a long way to go in raising enough money. But their plan is to rely on foundation support only for seed money at the beginning -- not longterm.
Northwestern: Now that the project is a go, NU will be looking for just the right community news partners who can benefit from the in-depth audience and business strategy consulting that Northwestern can provide through its Innovation class.
How high can we vote up this story? 30 votes?
Getting there...
Leverage this to the next level, fellow Windy Citizens?
Have you noticed the quality of the daily shares improving in quality & diversity?
Diversity definitely. Seems like the site's getting more posts every week. Quality.....I'd like to see less politics and more fun stuff on the front page.
More circus, less bread, fellow Windy Citizens?
Awesome! Congratulations, Brad.
Thanks, Richard. Pizzas are in order for the next intern meeting, eh?
$35,000 will buy a lot of pizza.
This is true. The original draft of my proposal was "improvements to the dining experience at our weekly intern meetings."
Dominos should sponsor the intern meetings.
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