Public Newsroom

What's the difference between safe space and brave space? Why do folks feel hesitant to use trigger warnings? Why should we practice consent?At this third and last installment of our fall curated series, Surviving the Mic founder Nikki Patin led a discussion on the above questions.

How can we create community spaces that are more inclusive and allow for challenging conversations? One key ingredient is establishing a "brave space agreement". Brave space is a concept that emerged from lessons shared by social justice educators in "The Art of Effective Facilitation" (https://styluspub.presswarehouse.com/browse/book/9781579229740/The-Art-of-Effective-Facilitation) as a "new way to frame dialogue around diversity and social justice" that de-centered systems of oppression, such as white supremacy and patriarchy. Brave Space agreements can be used for meetings, workshops, and restorative conversations. Led by actor-vist, social and emotional consultant, educator, and warrior for justice and radical self-love Jenna Anast, (www.journeyswithjenna.com) this week’s workshop centered around the importance of creating a brave space where colleagues, co-workers, and friends etc. can feel brave while sharing their truth. Anast also serves as the Head of Community and Exhibition for OTV - Open Television.This is the first in our fall 2019 series "Community Care in the Face of the 2020 Elections," curated by Felicia Holman. To learn more about the series, go to: www.citybureau.org/notebook/2019/10/24/the-public-newsrooms-2019-curator-felicia-holman-on-community-care-in-the-2020-elections

We're joined by BBF Family Service and Illinois Humanities to talk about the re-entry after incarceration, and how we can all support to make that a positive, generative process.

In May 2019 Chicago Reader published a two-year-long investigation into Pangea Real Estate by staff writer Maya Dukmasova that found the company had filed roughly 9,000 eviction cases since 2009. What’s more Dukmasova’s reporting revealed that little is known about Chicago’s larger eviction court system and the 20,000 cases filed there annually. “It's difficult to overstate the degree of historical disinterest in the eviction of renters in Chicago . . . rental housing in poor neighborhoods went largely unexamined—particularly the financial and social dynamics between landlords and tenants.” Dukmasova wrote in the piece. This week at the #PublicNewsroom Dukmasova shares a breakdown of her investigation into Pangea as well as an historic overview of eviction court and tenants’ rights. The evening also features a panel of experts including Mark Swartz from the Lawyers' Committee for Better Housing and Steve McKenzie, a long-time attorney for the city who litigates against landlords for building code violations.Illustration by Justin Santora, courtesy of the Chicago Reader.

We wrap up our ward-specific workshops in the 25th with Leone Bicchieri of Working Family Solidarity. This workshop was held in Spanish and English.Este taller es el último que se enfoca en un distrito específico—el distrito 25. Lo presentamos con la ayuda de Leone Bicchieri de Working Family Solidarity. Esta vez, hablamos en español e inglés.

This week we keep the ball rolling on our aldermanic accountability series. We're at Austin College and Career Academy on the West Side with Austin Coming Together and Austin Weekly News.

It's been 100 days since city council elections, and we're celebrating with a month-long series on aldermanic accountability. We teamed up with Niketa Brar of Chicago United for Equity and Christian Belanger of the South Side Weekly to bring you a free workshop focusing on the 20th Ward.

Racial bias in jury selection is harmful, wide-spread, and very difficult to catch. When challenged, lawyers can say almost anything to get rid of a prospective juror they don’t want. The result, studies have shown, are juries that are stacked with white jurors.Courts are often not subject to public records laws, and the parts that are can be stingy with records. So how can defendants, journalists, and the public get creative when it comes to investigating the system and its effects?Data reporter Will Craft leads our 111th Public Newsroom. He’ll talk about how In The Dark, an APM Reports podcast, investigated jury selection in Mississippi to reveal the stark disparities in how the district attorney treated jurors of different races over his 26-year tenure.Because prosecutors are only a small part of jury selection, we’ll also talk about the process of choosing jurors from start to finish, and how that can lead to disenfranchisement and skewed juries. Craft will cover the system as a whole, and share how creative approaches to covering juries can help us all understand how they might be failing to uphold their constitutional promises.

We're at Loretto Hospital in Austin this week talking with Chicago Learning Exchange,

In late 2018, local photojournalist Sebastián Hidalgo took on a Washington Post assignment to document the story of Isaac Flores, a 11 year-old from Honduras who was separated from his mother at the border in January 2018. Disturbed by other national media’s emphasis on the wall, Hidalgo chose to focus on Flores’ day to day life as a child to rehumanize the conversation on immigration. Hidalgo frames this approach as an antidote to the “if it bleeds it leads” philosophy in photojournalism. What is "shock value" photojournalism and how can photographers pursue a different path? That’s what Hidalgo shares at this week’s Public Newsroom. Learn about other photographers taking a similar approach, how to work with editors and how Hidalgo co-created a support group for Chicago-based photographers, The Visual Desk. Together we’ll develop frameworks that photographers can follow. About Hidalgo: Sebastián Hidalgo is an award-winning photojournalist and digital producer who uses photography to engage and explore many social and humanitarian issues affecting communities of color. He is also a educator and co-host of The Visual Desk, a bi-weekly editorial support group for concerned and engaged freelance visual journalists.

Tonika Johnson, Melissa Blount, and Essence McDowell work within diverse artistic practices (including photography, quilting, painting, and writing) to honor and center Black women’s voices and histories. At this Public Newsroom, inspired by Alice Walker’s writings on Black women’s creativity, these artists discuss their work as embodiments of Black women’s intergenerational and unconventional creative practices. Find out how they are redefining connections between creative work and resistance to oppression, exploring the relationship between Black women and the archive, and monumentalizing Black women within our creative lineages. This discussion is moderated by Kanyinsola Anifowoshe, who joined us at our 87th newsroom to talk about what young Chicagoans are doing to shape the city’s future.This Public Newsroom celebrates the opening of the In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens exhibit, the culmination of a series exploring Black women’s creativity through the lens of Alice Walker, featuring workshops and programs led by artists Tonika Johnson, Melissa Blount, Essence McDowell, and Renata Cherlise.

This year marks 100 years since the 1919 race riots in Chicago. Sparked by the murder of African American teenager Eugene Williams, who drowned after being stoned by a white man near a whites-only South Side beach, these riots are an oft-overlooked part of the city’s history. Media coverage at the time of Williams’ death and the ensuing violence largely got the story wrong with few notable exceptions, especially Carl Sandburg’s reporting for the Chicago Daily News. At this newsroom, we draw connections to how reporting on the 1919 riots relates to the coverage of segregation nearly half a century later and what, if anything, has changed today. Our featured guests for the evening are Ethan Michaeli, author of The Defender: How the Legendary Black Newspaper Changed America (2015), The Obsidian Collection Archives founder Angela Ford, and City Bureau Co-Founder Darryl Holliday. The evening’s conversation between Michaeli, Ford and Holliday is part of a year-long series, Chicago 1919: Confronting the Race Riots, led by the Newberry Library.

Nearly 40,000 people have gone missing in Mexico since December 2006 to October 2018, according to official records. These disappearances are largely attributed to the country’s drug war. Late last year a team of independent Mexican journalists sought to reveal how a decade of this drug war has turned Mexico into a burial ground.Their investigation known as #MexicoPaísdeFosas showed, for the very first time, the increasing discovery of mass graves in Mexico, between 2006 and 2016. This week at the Public Newsroom we’re hosting a member of the investigative team, Mago Torres. During this week’s workshop Torres will share how the team obtained documents, the challenges they faced, and lessons learned during their year and a half reporting project. After the presentation, attendees will have a chance to learn how to build a layered map like that used in #MexicoPaísdeFosas and give feedback to the reporting. Torres is a journalist and researcher who was part of the team that received the 2017 Pulitzer for Explanatory Reporting for the Panama Papers investigation.

Restorative justice has become a buzzword in Chicago in recent years, but what does it mean to actually practice it in all facets of life, including the workplace?Local Legend Films is building a trauma-informed startup and providing holistic employment to young Chicagoans at-risk from gun violence. A major component of this company culture is restorative justice, a radical, non-punitive approach to communal accountability.Local Legend Films founder Jayme Joyce, restorative justice practitioner Mashaun Ali Hendricks, and LLF employees join us to share this interactive model.

What is fact-checking and how do you do it? Come learn how and why news organizations fact-check, how to identify the facts in a story, and what makes a good source. South Side Weekly Editor-in-Chief Adam Przybyl will guide you through the first part of the fact-checking process. He'll also talk about why learning to fact-check can improve your reporting process and help you write well-sourced stories.

Reform For Illinois, a nonpartisan research and advocacy organization, has been closely watching the campaign finance trends in the Chicago mayoral race. Executive and Policy Directors Mary Miro and Alisa Kaplan join us in the newsroom for a discussion on the role money plays in the municipal elections.

Chicago has a deep history of racism. What should our next elected leaders do about it? Chicagoans from every ward voted over 52,000 times as part of the #VoteEquity project to tell our future elected leaders what racial equity policies matter to them the most. Candidates' responses are published in a Voter Guide for Racial Equity, so you can know where they stand ahead of the election. Chicago United for Equity Executive Director Niketa Brar and Generation All Executive Director Beatriz Ponce de León tell us how they got Chicagoans to vote, what they found, what their next steps will be, and how you can still help them set Chicago's racial equity agenda.

City Bureau reporters Michael Romain, Annie Nguyen, and Aaron Allen join us to share out their reporting, available in a brand-new special issue of Austin Weekly News. They talked to over 30 residents to gauge what issues matter the most to Austin, and then interviewed 28th, 29th, and 37th Ward aldermanic candidates to see where they stood on the issues. Tune in to learn more!

What role can community members play in development projects and how can they make sure these projects benefit their community?Tonight we're discussing Community Benefits Agreements (CBA) with City Bureau. A panel made up of organizers and community advocates are here to listen to your ideas and questions on CBAs and development agreements—how to plan, what to ask for, and how to negotiate for what you want and the challenges communities face while doing so.Representatives from Garfield Park Community Council, Kenwood Oakland Community Organization (KOCO), R.A.G.E - Resident Association of Greater Englewood and Alliance of the Southeast discuss The Hatchery Chicago (Garfield Park), the Obama Presidential Center and Museum (Kenwood), Whole Foods Englewood (Englewood) and US Steel South Works Development (Southeast Side).

Last year, City Bureau Documenters conducted about 50 interviews with friends and family to discuss their knowledge about the upcoming election and where they get their information. City Bureau Documenters Field Coordinator India Daniels & Editorial Director Bettina Chang, along with Documenters who participated in the project, will share the results.

This week we're at Metropolitan Planning Council's office with City Bureau reporters Mari Cohen, Davon Clark, and Danielle Scruggs. The three share out the reporting they've done over the past few months on public transit in Chicago.

Our Editorial Director joins us in the newsroom this week to talk about opinion pieces. Why is it important to diversify the field of op-ed authors, and how can you write one? Tune in to learn all about pitching, developing, and writing your own.

Attendees will hear about the Reader’s editorial strategies and get an opportunity to give feedback on the direction of upcoming political reporting. We’ll hear from Philip Montoro, Aimee Levitt, Karen Hawkins, and Anne Elizabeth Moore, and be hosting small-group discussions about the relationships between culture, politics, and elected officials.

The final installment in our November curated newsrooms, we've brought together youth organizers to talk about the legacy of Chicago activism, how they build upon it, and what they hope to pass down to future generations. Kanyinsola Anifowoshe of Cause The Effect, and Ava Johnson and James Arteaga join us in a panel moderated by our very own Andrea Hart.

Today we're joined by Mike Rispoli and James Thompson of Free Press, a media and technology advocacy nonprofit. They'll talk about their campaign for a "Civic Info Bill" in New Jersey, and what we can lessons we can take for Illinois.

#PublicNewsroom curator, author, and researcher Rayshauna Gray interviews Black Owned Chicago founder and actress Tanikia Carpenter in our second curated workshop. Carpenter will share about her craft, her experience supporting Black Chicago’s entrepreneurial changemakers, and the rich culture of #TheCityWeInhabit beyond the Magnificent Mile.

This week, Public Newsroom guest curator Daniel Kay Hertz will be in conversation with José Cha-Cha Jiménez, the founder of the Young Lords Organization. Jiménez will speak about the history of that group’s work and his efforts to document the history of YLO and Puerto Ricans in Lincoln Park.

For the past year, ProPublica Illinois reporter Melissa Sanchez has been investigating the impact of vehicle tickets on Chicago residents. Here’s what she found: thousands of Black drivers are filing for bankruptcy in order to cope with the consequences of Chicago ticket debt. Another investigation, in partnership with WBEZ’s Elliott Ramos, found that the city’s 2011 decision to increase the price of what was already one of the most expensive vehicle tickets -- not having a city sticker -- has led to massive debt for drivers, but not much more revenue for the city.Melissa and Elliot join us in the newsroom to present their reporting, and help us brainstorm solutions for a better, more equitable ticketing system in Chicago.

For our 82nd newsroom, we teamed up with Third Coast, the Smart Museum of Art, and the Experimental Station to bring you an evening with life-long Chicagoan Norman Long. To kick things off, Norman led attendees on a soundwalk through Woodlawn. Long’s walks develop over time as well as space and engage audiences by reorienting their sense of site through active listening. This clip is a Q&A between the Experimental Station's Matthew Searle and Norman that took place following the walk.

Reporting on gun violence often focuses on youth or young adults, but rarely does it center on their voices and perspectives. What strategies could emerge if we surveyed the oft-misrepresented young adults themselves? How could hearing from young adults contribute to community-led strategies to reduce shootings and get more guns off the street?The Urban Institute, one of the nation’s leading social science and economic research organizations, explores these questions in a survey of young adults in four Chicago neighborhoods experiencing high rates of gun violence: Austin, Auburn-Gresham, Englewood, and North Lawndale. With the help of community partners, researchers conducted in-person interviews with 345 young adults in November 2017 and February 2018. Nancy La Vigne and Jocelyn Fontaine present the survey's findings for the first time at this Public Newsroom.

Chicago Tribune reporter Jennifer Smith Richards and Free Our Info founder Matt Chapman team up to show us how to use the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to request government records. In this clip, they go over 5 tips to help you become an expert FOIA requester.

Mary Miro and Alisa Kaplan of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform join us in the newsroom tonight to ask: How do we track the mega millions in Illinois' race for governor? What does reform look like? How can everyday citizens participate?

Co-founder and Executive Director of Chicago United for Equity (CUE) Niketa Brar joins us tonight to talk us through having tricky conversations on race so they're productive for all involved.

Are Chicago aldermen using their aldermanic prerogative to keep neighborhoods segregated? That’s what a recent report co-authored by the Chicago Area Fair Housing Alliance (CAFHA) and the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law suggests. Patricia Fron, CAFHA Executive Director, and Kate Walz, Director of Housing Justice at the Shriver Center, joined us Thursday, August 9th to break down the report, “A City Fragmented: How Race, Power, and Aldermanic Prerogative Shape Chicago’s Neighborhoods”. They went over how affordable housing decisions are made in the city of Chicago and how these decisions often result in geographic imbalances in affordable housing development. Then they dove into aldermanic prerogative, which they say is the central vehicle driving this imbalance: the mechanics, the history, the roots in racism, and the effects. To access their report, go to: http://povertylaw.org/aldermanic-report

The Journalism + Design Team at The New School and Block Club Chicago join us for our 69th Public Newsroom on crime reporting.

BallotReady's Aviva Rossman hosts our 67th Public Newsroom.

The Trace's Akoto Ofori-Atta and Brian Freskos show us how to use online data tools on gun tracking and trafficking.

What would it look like to address culturally tone-deaf reviews in the art world? How can the next generation of art critics unlearn some of these racist frameworks? Art Leaders of Color Network Co-Founder, Communications Director at Links Hall, and life-long Chicagoan Felicia Holman discussed just that at our April 12 Public Newsroom. Listen to what she and attendees had to say here.