Attention all Columbia College Students!

The deadline to turn in materials for consideration for the 2012 Studs Terkel Scholarship is February 3, 2012!

Community Media Workshop will award $2000 to the student whose class project best exhibits a Terkelian Perspective.
Click here for more details on how you can win this award!

A 2011 story by Barrington Patch about CareerPlace

At a time of record unemployment in Illinois and the country, organizations that can help people find employment and build their skills are more important then ever. Yet, CareerPlace, located in Barrington, found that more than 40% of people in their area didn’t know about their services and classes for unemployed individuals.

“We struggled with finding the time to reach out to the local media,” said Monica Keane, executive director of CareerPlace. “I thought Professional Media Relations would be a good way to learn how to get information to the public.”

After attending the Community Media Workshop’s Professional Media Relations course in early 2011, Keane said she realized that when working with the media, everything is about a story.

“I learned to stop telling the business of the agency and to tell the story of the people who are touched by what we do,” said Keane.

Since the Workshop course, CareerPlace has received more media coverage in community press (check out the Patch story here) and started developing relationships with local reporters. Keane says she can now pick up the phone and call certain reporters with possible story ideas. She’s also used the Workshop’s online press release generator and Chicago area media guide to aid in her media outreach work.

“I’m just really impressed with the Workshop,” said Keane. “The willingness of staff to roll up their sleeves and get involved with the nonprofits they serve is so important.”

Keane enjoyed her time at the Workshop so much that she decided to hire Workshop staff for a custom consulting project—development of a train-the-trainer curriculum “Using Social Media to Search, Network and Find Your Next Job” to give CareerPlace trainers tools to help job seekers use social media in their employment searches. The project was supported with a grant from the Barrington Area Community Foundation.

The Workshop team continues to work with CareerPlace to ensure successful social media trainings for its participants in the coming year.

The Workshop’s 2012 Professional Media Relations course starts Jan. 20. There are still spots available. Register today and start making your own local media connections!

Holy Cross Hospital on Chicago’s Southwest Side decided to step up its breastfeeding efforts after hearing a story on WBEZ about the hospital’s newborn breastfeeding rate being the lowest in the Chicago area. That story and subsequent policy change resulted from a pitch made by HealthConnect One’s RoiAnn Phillips to WBEZ Reporter Chip Mitchell at the Workshop’s Professional Media Relations workshop in early 2011.

“The WBEZ stories wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t taken Professional Media Relations,” said Phillips. “Without the class, I wouldn’t have understood how to frame a pitch and I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to be in the room with reporters.” Read the rest of this entry »

Entre Nosotras, a multimedia blog by Radio Arte, has been publishing posts on Latina youth artists, activists and issues since September, focusing on news from Pilsen, Little Village, Back of the Yards, Bridgeport, and Brighton Park.  Portions have also appeared in Hoy and Extra, and several programs have been broadcast on WRTE.

Topics covered range widely. There’s an interview with a survivor of domestic violence, discussing her new-found freedom, and a piece with members of the Vida Fidei youth group discussing spirituality.  There are pieces on STDs and how fast food industry marketing targets young Latinos.

The series is produced by a team of young women from Radio Arte’s media training program, which gives the basics of journalism and radio production to hundreds of local youth each year.  Broadcast on 90.5 WRTE FM since 1997, Radio Arte is currently transitioning to digital broadcasting and programming; it will be one of the first Latino media centers in the nation.

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

Alex Kotlowitz, Studs Terkel, and Thom Clark at the 2004 Terkel Awards.

Thank you for your nominations for the 2012 Studs Terkel Community Media Awards!

The nomination ballot is now closed. Please check the Community Media Workshop website in the new year to see the winners!

Click here to see a list of previous winners of the Studs Terkel Community Media Award.

Check out our latest blog post about all the tools you need to communicate your story! From our Press Release Generator, Submitting to Community Calendars to our very own Media Guide. Read more to find out what resources are available for FREE!

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.

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Enjoy this delightful tour of our Online Media Guide by our New Media Associate Marissa Wasseluk. To subscribe to our online media guide, visit www.chicagomediaguide.org or find out more on our Media Guide page where you can also download sample pages of our print guide as well as our 2012 Media Event Quick Contact Sheet.