If you missed our How’s Rahm Doing? panel discussion at the Cliff Dwellers Club, tune in to the audio archive featured at our partners at Chicago Public Media’s Chicago Amplified or watch a recording of the event made by our partners at CANTV. Panelists included were  Richard Barnett, veteran West Side political organizer; Ricardo Muñoz, 22nd Ward alderman; Amisha Patel of Grassroots Collaborative; and Don Rose, independent political analyst. The panel is moderated by longtime City Hall reporter David Stewart, WLS-AM.

Listen in Now

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The Coca-Cola distribution warehouse in the Austin neighborhood in Chicago. Picture provided through Austintalks.org

With Mayor Emanuel’s TIF panel looking into the program’s effectiveness, AustinTalks examines its impact in a community with the seventh-highest unemployment rate in the nation – and finds it falling far short.

Only four TIF projects have been authorized for Austin; only one – relocation of a Coca Cola warehouse – has met the terms of its TIF agreement; and that project has employed just 28 people who live in or near Austin, according to a report by Ellyn Fortino.

More than half of the 200 TIF projects authorized since 2000 are located downtown (as Fortino and ChicagoTalks staff previously reported in the New York Times).  “Few if any projects can be found in Chicago’s most blighted communities on the West and South Sides,” Fortino writes in today’s report.  “And many of those projects haven’t been completed at all – if started.”

Of $22 million in TIF subsidies allocated for Austin, “only $1.4 million has been paid out – most of it for the Coca Cola distribution center,” Fortino reports.  That’s out of $1.2 billion citywide.

That project is “a prime example of how low-income neighborhoods in TIF districts don’t get what they deserve,” with property taxes diverted from public services to benefit big corporations, one activist tells AustinTalks. It’s “legalized corruption,” says Dwayne Truss of the South Austin Coalition.

Read more on this story at the Chicago Local Reporting Initiative – Community News Project page.

Tomorrow is a big day for the Workshop. It is with great pride that we will present to the world the online version of our media guide – Getting On Air, Online, and Into Print.

Robert Feder announced the news on his blog today, calling it, “[a] gold mine for anyone with a story to pitch.”

Screen Shot of the Workshop's Online Media Guide

We put a lot of ourselves into creating the online media guide for you, and though we will still have the print version available, we hope you’ll check in tomorrow to explore this new tool and see why we’re so proud of it!

Online news providers from Chicago and around the country converged in Chicago last week to discuss the ever-evolving trade of providing news and information via the web. The main event was Friday’s “Block by Block: Community News Summit 2010” hosted by online news experts Michele McLellan, Reynolds fellow, and Jay Rosen, pressthink.org. The Chicago Community Trust kicked off the two-day affair with a half-day conference on Thursday, “Advancing Chicago’s News Ecosystem.”

The Community Media Workshop presented two reports at Thursday’s conference–our NEW News 2010 report that we released in August, and our new report “Realizing Potential: What Chicago’s Online Innovators Need.” (Michael Miner blogged about the reports last week as well.) “Realizing Potential” is a look at what online news producers need to be sustainable in the long term. We spent most of August and September conducting focus groups and surveying Chicago’s online news providers about what type of assistance funders could offer to help them succeed. It’s obvious that cold hard cash is what most people need right now as they try to find economic models that work, but it’s also clear that foundations can only give so many general operating grants before they’re looking for other ways to help online news providers thrive.

Read More on the NP Communicator Blog

REGISTER NOW for Making Media Connections, June 9 & 10

If you’ve never attended the Making Media Connections conference one of the benefits of being an attendee is the relationship building that happens at the conference. You will be able to connect and expand your network with folks in the nonprofit sector and media.

Once you’ve registered for the conference you will get a special invite to our “Making Media Connections” Kick Off reception and vendor fair on Wed. June 9. Be the first to meet and greet nonprofit leaders and media movers and shakers over drinks and light snacks. Wait there’s more!

PLUS special book signings by:

Deanna Zandt, author of, “Share This: How You Will Change The World With Social Networking”

Jessica Clark, co-author of, “Beyond the Echo Chamber: How a Networked Progressive Media Can Reshape American Politics”

Tim Frick author of, “Return on Engagement: Content, Strategy and Design Techniques for Digital Marketing”

Our vendor fair offers the opportunity to discover communication tools to get your message across. Come by on June 10 from 3 to 6 p.m. to check out the vendors exhibiting at our conference.

Vendor Fair includes:  Amzo Zip Mailing Services, Chicago Access Network Television, Rush Powers Media, English Communication, Inc.,The WebFarm Inc., Wooded Isle Computer Consultants, Social IMPACT Research Center, Executive Service Corp. of Chicago, Association of Consultants to Nonprofits, Tweeting For Dollars Project, Careers In Nonprofits, Metro Chicago Information Center, Arte y Vida Chicago, Giftworks Fundraising Software

REGISTER TODAY AND GET CONNECTED!

Broadcasting: What’s new, what’s not
Thursday, June 9, 2010
Engage your audience by using the prime news source in America—TV. Panelists Shawn Campbell  (Chicago Independent Radio Project), Judie Garcia (WGN News), Mark Saxenmeyer (WFLD-TV Fox Chicago) and moderator: Raschanda Hall (Business Wire) will discuss how using visuals and sound can introduce your agency’s message to captive audiences. Discover the craft of visualizing your message for broadcast. Learn more

FREE — Making Media Connections Roundtable Discussion
The Chicago Community Trust’s Community News Matters initiative and Community Media Workshop invite you to a roundtable discussion from 3 to 5 p.m. June 10th at Columbia College’s Film Row Cinema, 8th Floor, 1104 South Wabash, Chicago. We’re all creating and reporting news and stories for and about our communities, our region, and beyond. Read more

Joanne Griffin of the BBC Radio 5 interviews Thom Clark, president of the Community Media Workshop. The audio segment includes excerpts from Studs’ very own archived interviews. Listen in…

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Read more about our Annual Studs Terkel Community Media Awards Benefit

We’re reaching out to ask Chicago’s online journalists to help with our second annual survey of Chicago’s online news ecosystem. Here’s the link.

Unlike last year’s survey and directory (available here) we will not be ranking sites this year–too complicated but it sure did get people’s attention, as we discussed last spring!

If you produce an online news site, we have 20 questions for you. If not, please help us spread the word. Read the rest of this entry »

Blast from the Past
Unique package of Chicago historical delight: family membership to the Chicago History Museum, Chicago by Studs Terkel and a photograph of Studs Terkel at his last Media Awards Benefit in 2007, pictured with the Chicago Tribune’s Eric Zorn and Mary Schmich. Photo signed by the Studs Terkel himself.  Estimated Value: $200. WINNER:  MARCY CURRAN Read the rest of this entry »