I really enjoyed Sally Duros‘s talk on finding funds for new media and about L3Cs. The criteria for a L3c made me think about journalism as more of a public service industry.
Sally showcased the importance of reporting relevant news and how to create a working business model for the industry.
With Sally’s talk in mind, I kept brainstorming on how hyperlocal reporting can be pushed to more of a community service. Sally mentioned a small town in Maine buying the local paper (Village Soup) to keep it going, so it’s evident that most people want news from and about their neck of the woods.
I think a great idea is to find low-income communities that are suffering from the lack of local news coverage and create a program through the high schools in that area. A program run through a local high school could be run after school and teach valuable skills to students. Students would be engaged by running a website for their community. They could learn how to research their community, report and reach out to community leaders. A great addition to a program like this would be to have the Alderman of that ward come in once a month and talk about what is going on in the community. This will allow students to learn transparency, even with government and politics.
Using high school students in low-income areas to report will allow media to recognize what’s missing and how information can be communicated effectively. This could even lead to more of a demand in mobile journalism. Computers might not be a necessity, but phones are.
I feel the Grand stop environment has heavy emphasis on the nightlife, shopping and tourist activity. I could aggregate events and deals going on in the area at the bars and restaurants, but then I feel it’s too much like Metromix. Here are my following observations in hopes to find some inspiration; House of Blues, AMC theatre, Merchandise Mart, the Public House, Rockit, Sunda, Gilt bar, Xoco, hotels, Bloomingdales and the Trump Tower.
My Grand page is going to have to consist of lifestyle content—it’s inevitable. I hope maybe to do a feature on restaurateur Billy Dec, who owns Sunda and Rockit.
I haven’t been able to physically visit the Sox/35th area (recently), but it’s quite obvious that U.S. Cellular field and the White Sox have some sort of an effect on the area. I hope to do a news story on businesses and their profits during the baseball season and when it is not baseball season. I don’t know if that will be the exact story, but I want to cover something that shows dependency on the baseball season or something with a drastic change once the season is over.
Chicago Transit Authority’s (CTA) bus tracker site is the highest viewed website in Chicago, so it’s obviously providing a service people need. So with this, I just continue to brainstorm on how people could use our site or create a need to read our content on the Red Line Project.
A few big players dominate the national news arena in today’s media, but local news outlets are continually developing new techniques and facets of hyper-local journalism to keep readers interested. There have been major changes in the journalism world, but I’m not sure if I would call them setbacks.
About 8,000 jobs have been lost in the industry in just the past two years, according to Ken Doctor. Although this number might frighten many, I feel that it instills a sense of excitement and adventure toward the ever-changing world of news.
News and journalism today has allowed writers to become therapists to the bipolar media industry sitting on a chaise lounge. Not only are we supposed to pitch story ideas and/or report the news, journalists must have analytical conversations on what is the best way to relay news to their readers. The tables have turned; we must create a want or necessity within the reader to come to our specific medium.
Doctor also talks about the ability to distinguish between news and just information. “Readers often just want to know what’s happening, where it’s happening, and how to find services in their community.” (Doctor, p.53) Is this simplicity? Convenience? Are we trying to report news or give just facts and information in the most interesting and effective way possible to readers? Are they the same thing?
“The roles of editors are changing in many places, as some become more community organizers than wordsmiths.” (Doctor, p. 54) This change in job titles can be seen in the change to hyper-local news. The Tribune Company launched their interactive site, ChicagoNow, less than two years ago. The site hosts over 200 blogs of different genres. I was part of a class that was part of an attempt to create user-generated-hyper-local-blogs on neighborhoods in the city. The lab rats were Gold Coast Now, Old Town Now and Lincoln Park Now all of which have been inactive for over six months.
Of course I wonder what went wrong, or how do you make people read about their own neighborhood. I guess you can’t.
The dynamics, business models and human behaviors are changing in many industries. I look forward to reading more of Newsonomics on Ken Doctor’s insights and analysis of the media industries.
There is no word for “good-bye” in her language, said Catheryn St. Germaine, who affiliates herself with the Ojibwe and Odawa tribes. As the desk receptionist for the American Indian Center of Chicago, St. Germaine helps to promote the mission of the center, which is to keep the presence of Native Americans alive in Chicago.
The American Indian Center (AIC) of Chicago, located at 1630 W. Wilson Ave., was created in 1953 as a result of Native Americans being forced off of their reservations to go live in cities and assimilate to what is known as the white man’s culture.
The coordinator of professional development at the AIC Adam Kessel, who affiliates himself with the Lakota tribe, and the special events coordinator Cyndee Fox-Starr, who refers to himself as Omaha-Odawa or Bear clan, shared their stories in this podcast about how the U.S. government tried to take away Native American culture from their families and how these historical events have had an effect on Native Americans today:
Kessel passionately talks about the Indian Relocation Act of 1956 that resulted in the dehumanization of Native Americans. As a result of this act, the number of Native Americans in urban places increased. Thus, communities such as the AIC were necessary to keep Native American culture alive in large cities.
Cyndee Foxx-Starr, Special Events Coordinator at AIC. Photo by Maria Baglien.
“Students and their families carry such unique stories that define who they are and their experiences that it’s hard to really boil it down to why folks don’t understand native history, and it’s because it has been excluded from the larger dialogue of American history,” Kessel said.
The boarding school experience that Fox-Starr’s parents experienced also tried to rob Native American’s of their culture and assign them a new one that more resembled the westernized culture. Children as young as three were taken from their parents and sent to boarding schools to adapt the Christian way of life.
The AIC offers a variety of programs available to those Native Americans striving to keep their heritage present in their lives and revive what the U.S. government took from them.
For students grades K-12, an after school program is offered four days of the week that educates young Native Americans about their culture and history, which they may not get taught in typical Chicago schools. Computer classes are also offered to anyone who wishes to learn how to use the Internet or the many other programs technology has to offer.
In addition to educational programs, the AIC offers a series of artistic workshops and works closely with the Trickster Gallery in Schaumburg, a Native American arts institution. The Trickster Gallery, located at 190 S. Roselle Rd., not only features Native American art but also speakers and film showings.
To honor traditional Native American holidays, the AIC hosts various powwows throughout the year. At these powwows, Native Americans sing, dance, drum, design and create regalia, and other traditional activities.
In order to promote health and wellness, the AIC has its very own medicinal garden located in front of the center. Eli Suzukovich, who affiliates with the Chippewa-Cree tribe, works as the garden manager/research assistant at the AIC and tends to the garden.
An old tree stands in the medicinal garden at the AIC. The tree is decorated with traditional ceremonial items. Photo by Maria Baglien.
The AIC takes great pride in their medicinal garden. According to Suzukovich, too many chemicals are added to medicines nowadays when plants from the Mother Earth could be used if they were just planted and harvested properly.
The AIC recently transformed their medicinal garden by burning the plants, allowing them to grow again in the fresh new soil. Currently, the garden is the largest it has ever been with a nature trail and benches so that people can take a stroll, relax, and enjoy the many animals and medicinal practices taking place.
By offering resources such as the medicinal garden, the AIC works towards promoting Native American culture and keeping its beliefs and practices alive.
“I’m not a medicine man,” Fox-Starr said, “I just tell stories.”
Currently, the AIC is need of donations to keep the center growing and thriving. Information on how to become a member is available on its website.
Last summer, Lincoln Park experienced a spike in crime rate in which several men in their 20s were targets of muggings. Five of the seven muggings were linked, and police believed that two other muggings were related.
Andrew Huff, writer and creator of Gapers Block, visited a DePaul University journalism class this past Wednesday to share many wise words on making a digital presence in the evolving world of media.
Gapers Block is a super-blog dedicated to Chicago and Chicagoans. Huff started the site seven years ago in attempts to get people to “slow down and check out your city,” according to Huff. Gapers Block features an established book club page, elaborate music reviews and even a politics section called Mechanics.
