31 News Projects funded to Cover the South and West Sides

On April 4, 2011, the Chicago Community Trust announced that it will award $110,000 for reporting projects on local issues affecting the residents of Chicago’s South and West Sides. The Community News Matters program which aims to foster impactful and relevant coverage of, by and for Chicago’s low-income neighborhoods that will shape current and future decision-making.

The awards are a direct response to the findings of 2010 Community News Matters research, which found that people in the Chicago area feel they don’t know enough about the region’s challenges, and that residents in the city’s South and West Sides feel that there is a lack of relevant coverage in their neighborhoods.

Awards winners include; individuals, nonprofits, and for-profit companies with expertise in journalism or Chicago’s community issues including, Strategic Human Services, Beyond Media Education, Loyola University and Back of the Yards Neighborhood Council.

For more information, please click here.

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Specialized Reporting Institute: Covering Families during the Recession

Earlier this month on April 5-6, 2011, the Suburban Newspapers of America and the Associated Press Managing Editors hosted the latest in the series of Specialized Reporting Institutes (SRI) in Chicago: Effects of the Current Economic Crisis on American Families.

The two-day workshop brought together community journalists from all over the country, and explored topics such as “The Big Picture: How the recession’s fallout will shape the next decade,” and the recession’s impact on marriage, family structure and gender roles.

Resources from the workshop and upcoming SRIs will be posted on Poynter’s News University Resources section.

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Hats off to Chicago’s Best Student Journalists

We were very excited to host the McCormick Foundation High School Media Awards this past Friday, where the best high school journalism in the Chicago area was recognized. The luncheon at the Chicago Cultural Center honored 12 schools in 24 categories. Lane Tech College Prep High School won the most awards, and Mike Stanton of Whitney Young Magnet High School was named High School Journalist of the Year. For the first time in the event’s 19-year history, two principals were acknowledged for their leadership in protecting and defending press freedoms. Prior to the awards luncheon, the morning featured dozens of workshops for the HS journalists, with presenters from a variety of media and topics ranging from "hunting for good stories" to "making your blog buzz."

The Scholastic Press Association of Chicago, which is based at Roosevelt University, coordinated the event.

For a list of all the winners, click here.

Check out an interview with one of the 2011 principals of the year, Juan Carlos Ocon, principal of Benito Juarez Community Academy.

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Director's Notes: April Update

April is the cruelest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.

T.S. Eliot called it “The Waste Land”.

We call April exciting.

The news media conference season is in full swing, spring journalism classes are running at full tilt and the Journalism Program’s deadline for letters of inquiry is fast approaching. Click here to learn how to apply.

Some of our recent highlights include:

• Hosting the McCormick Foundation High School Media Awards, which recognizes the best in student journalism in the Chicago area. The April 15 luncheon at the Chicago Cultural Center honored 12 schools in 24 categories. Lane Tech College Prep High School won the most awards, while Mike Stanton of Whitney Young Magnet High School was named High School Journalist of the Year. For the first time in the event’s 19-year history, two principals were acknowledged for their leadership in protecting and defending press freedoms. The Scholastic Press Association of Chicago, which is based at Roosevelt University, coordinated the event. For a complete set of winners, click here.

• A new International Center for Journalists course that is equipping a corps of U.S. Spanish-speaking journalists with skills needed to be multimedia trainers in their newsrooms. Participating journalists represent such prominent news organizations at NPR, CNN, CBS News, Univision, Telemundo, the Sun-Sentinel of Florida and Hoy of Chicago. Click here to learn more about “Lideres Digitales: Creating a New Generation of Spanish-Language Multimedia Trainers.” Click here for more information.

• Attending a ‘two-fer” in San Diego, the annual conferences of the American Society of Newspaper Editors and the Inter American Press Association. These piggy-backed events focused on innovation, leadership and press freedoms. ASNE’s annual survey of newsroom employment showed a very slim increase in jobs after three years of downturns. However, the percentage of minorities in newsroom slipped nearly a half a point to 12.8 percent. IAPA also awarded the MF Journalism Program a spiffy plaque for 16 years of funding in support of the Chapultepec Project, which promotes and defends press freedoms in the Americas.

• The Berkeley-based Center for Investigative Reporting hosted a management and sustainability workshop for more than 30 journalists, many of them members of the Investigative News Network. The MF-funded event allowed these superb journalists to concentrate on the more mundane back-shop issues that may determine the fates of their fledgling news organizations. Click here to learn more. Maggie Mulvihill, co-director of the New England Center for Investigative Reporting at Boston University emailed me that not-for-profit watchdog reporting “is truly a movement that has much potential for public good. It is heartening to know that McCormick has put some money behind the INN effort.”

• Supporting the Chicago Community Trust’s “Community News Matters” project. The funders announced that 31 journalists and news organizations would receive a total of $110,000 to purse reporting on important issues impacting low-income neighborhoods in Chicago.

• Hosting Manal S. El Moteay of the Cairo-based Media-Arts for Development. The Egyptian youth media trainer is visiting Chicago student journalism organizations and colleges to give a first-hand account of the political revolution that will forever reshape her country. Manal also is sharing her vision for an ambitious youth media center project offering scholarships, internship, leadership programs and media arts training for tens of thousands of Egyptian students. She and a colleague also are speaking at Columbia College (6 p.m. on April 20 in Room 219, 33 E. Wacker). Click here to view their work.

• Piloting an American Press Institute career development and branding workshop for independent journalists. The April 8 training at Northwestern University focused on how an authentic and relevant personal brand gives journalists a competitive edge in the employment and freelance marketplace.

• Finally, kudos to grantee Intersections South Los Angeles, which recently received four-star treatment in a Columbia Journalism Review feature story. The nonprofit news site, headed by University of Southern California journalism professor Willa Seidenberg, is a charter member of the MF-funded Youth Media Los Angeles Collaborative.

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Grantee Spotlight: Facing History & Ourselves

Teachers learned how history could be used to provide context for current events at a March 15, 2011 workshop hosted by Facing History & Ourselves.

This workshop prepared Chicago Public Schools teachers to teach students from the Chicago area to understand the critical role that media and journalism play in their lives using the documentary Reporter as a teaching tool. Reporter is about award-winning journalist Nicholas Kristof and his work in the Congo. It demonstrates how and why reporting is vital to our democracy.

Later this summer, there will be another intensive two-day workshop for Facing History teachers to become part of a national network of teachers exploring ways to use digital technology.

For more information about Facing History, click here.

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Grantee Spotlight: The News Literacy Project on Empowering Teens Through News Literacy

At a brown bag lunch session for After School Matters staff on March 30, 2011, Peter Adams from The News Literacy Project offered an overview of the field of news literacy; explained why it is an essential part of developing empowered, responsible digital citizens; and offered some relevant ways that this content may be used in after school settings.

The area of news literacy has gained important attention in recent years as the news and information landscape continues to undergo rapid and radical changes. Ever since the rise of cable news networks, and the 24-hour news cycle, consumers have experienced an explosion of sources for information, especially on the Internet. But navigating these sources, and understanding the varying levels of bias and credibility that they employ, pose significant challenges for everyone.

As so-called “digital natives,” the current generation of young people arguably has more opportunities for meaningful civic engagement than any other, but it likely also faces unprecedented levels of misinformation and distortion as well. Learning to separate fact from fiction in the digital age is an essential skill set—one that can be incredibly empowering for rising citizens.

The News Literacy Project partners with schools and youth organizations to help students sort fact from fiction, evaluate information sources and learn why quality journalism is important to a healthy democracy.

To learn more about The News Literacy Project, click here.

Check out their blog for ideas on how to use news literacy in the classroom.

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Grantee Spotlight: University of Southern California's High School Journalism Days

Earlier in March, hundreds of high school students gathered at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School of Journalism’s for the High School Journalism Day (HSJD). The event, held several times a year, provides high school students a chance to participate in journalism workshops and see panels led by professional journalists and USC faculty.

The next High School Journalism Day will be held in November 2011.

For more information about the event and how to get involved in future HSJD’s Click here

Also, check out Terry Anzur’s blog about speaking at this year’s High School Journalism Days.

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Who We Are: Social Media Mavens: Exploring New Media Tools

On March 22, 2011, the Journalism staff attended a presentation at Tribeca Flashpoint Academy in downtown Chicago organized by the MacArthur Foundation. Featured speaker Howard Tullman, President and CEO of Tribeca, zipped through more than a hundred different applications of digital media and new technologies to the business, government and nonprofit worlds. We were thoroughly impressed by the numerous possibilities and implications for news, media and digital learning. Most of us are familiar with Facebook, Twitter and Wikipedia, but here are some useful social media tools you may not have heard of. Here’s our take on how a few of these tools might come in handy for journalists and media makers:

• Instapaper.com –This tool allows you to bookmark content as you run across it for later reading. Once you bookmark your content, you can go back later and read it on your kindle, computer, iPhone, iPad and soon your iTouch. If you are researching an idea for a story, you might use Instapaper to store articles for future reading.

• Alltop.com –This site allows you to see what’s going on by aggregating headlines from websites and blogs based on topics you are interested in. Alltop’s website describes itself as “an information filter to help you find your nuggets of gold.” This is another tool that could be useful while researching a story.

• Twistori.com –This site helps you visualize Twitter. It pulls keywords from Twitter and when you click on them, you can see related tweets and pictures. Twistori could give your readers a way to visualize twitter based on common words.

• Addictomatic.com –This site gives you the latest “buzz” on a subject. You can create a page with links to article, social media, videos, Google searches and more on any topic you’re interested in. The site might be a way to give your readers background knowledge and additional reading on a subject, or a great way to research a topic.

• Kickstarter.com –Kickstarter helps fund creative projects. If a project fits its guidelines, Kickstart will provide a way for individuals to pledge to fund your project in return for rewards. This might be a great resource for journalists looking to gain funding for a new project.

• Wix.com – Wix helps you create your own website, from a template, or from scratch. If you are looking for an internet presence for your organization or your portfolio, you might use Wix to create a website .

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How to Apply

Letter of Inquiry (LOI) due by May 2, 2011

1. Before submitting a full proposal, the organization should fill out an application cover sheet and compose a two- to three-page letter of inquiry. Please keep within the page count limit.
2. The letter should outline the following: the program’s nature, purpose, need, proposed timeline and cost. It should also address the qualifications of the organization and how the program fits into the Journalism Program’s strategy.
3. E-mail your cover sheet and letter of inquiry to the attention of Aaron Smith, Administrative Officer, at asmith@mccormickfoundation.org. You will receive an e-mail confirming that your letter has been received.
4. The staff will review your proposal by June 10, 2011. We will either send you a decline letter or be touch with questions or requests for additional information. If your project is selected to be considered for funding, we will request a full proposal. Proposal components are outlined below.

Full Proposal (invitation only), due June 30, 2011

If your organization is invited to submit a full proposal, you will be asked to prepare a project narrative using the subheads below. In some instances, this information will elaborate on wording in the LOI. Please format your Word document using Times New Roman, 12 point font, single spaced. When possible, please use bullet points to break up complex program descriptions.


Program

• Describe your program in detail.
• Include clearly stated goals and objectives.
• Include a project activities timeline.
• If your program involves a partner or partners, describe why you have chosen them.

Organization

• Describe your organization's background, history and mission
• Include the overall goals of the organization.
• List current programs and activities, emphasizing major achievements of the past two years.

Need

• Include a needs statement describing the issue and who the program will serve.
• Describe how your strategy compares with or differs from others in the field.
• Describe how the proposed project will address the identified need.
• What research supports your idea?

Fit

• Describe how your project addresses one of the Journalism Program's three grantmaking initiatives (Content, Audience or Rights).

Impact & Measurement

• Describe your plans for assessing the results and impact of the project. For example, how will your organization track, measure, and monitor progress toward meeting outputs, outcomes, and key milestones during and at the end of the grant period?
• How do you plan to share with others the obstacles you’ve met along the way, the failures encountered, or the best practices and lessons learned from carrying out this initiative?
• Detail how your organization will recognize the McCormick Foundation as a funder of your project or activity.

Project Budget

• Describe any unusual or specific circumstances about the funding request and provide an explanation.
• Describe why the proposed budget is realistic and reasonable in relation to the specific grant results you have identified.
• What is your sustainability strategy?

• Please download and use the attached budgeting form to show your budget for the program for which you're requesting funding. If you are proposing a multiple-year grant, you must provide a projected budget for each requested funding year.

Organizational Budget

• Provide an operating budget for your organization that includes income and expense projections pertaining to the fiscal year in which the project will take place. Feel free to submit in a format that is convenient for you—there is no required form or worksheet.

Funders

• List your top five funders and amount of support for fiscal year 2010.This list should include the name of the corporation/foundation/individual, amount, and purpose of the donations.

Board of Directors

• Provide the most recent list of your Board of Directors.
• Please list their name and job title on the first line, and the principal business or professional affiliation on the second. Please provide this in Word Document format.

Other Required Attachments

• Most recent audited financial report.
• Tax exempt certificate. This signed form certifies the organization's current tax-exempt status. Please download this form to sign.
• IRS tax determination letter / 501(c)(3). We require a copy of the most recent tax determination letter issued to your organization (or your fiscal agent) by the IRS. It should include your federal tax identification number and the date your organization (or fiscal agent) was awarded tax-exempt status. (If this information is not printed on the letter, it should be written in manually at the top or bottom.) This is NOT the state tax exemption certification. We will need all applicable components for the registered 501(c)(3) organization by June 30, 2011. In some instances, where fiscal agents or universities are involved, the intended grantee is not the same as the entity carrying out the proposed initiative. In such cases the foundation needs all the applicable documents for both organizations (i.e. the university’s fundraising foundation and the center/organization applying for funding).

Please contact Aaron Smith (asmith@mccormickfoundation.org) with questions.

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Journalism Grant Deadlines

We accept letters of inquiry (LOIs) from organizations for three types of requests:

Grant request of $50,000 or more:
Requests greater than $50,000 must be approved by Board members at the Journalism Program’s annual board meeting in early September. The deadline for LOIs for more than $50,000 is May 1 or the first business day in May.

Grant requests under $50,000:
LOIs requesting less than $50,000 are accepted on a rolling basis and are reviewed in February, July and November. We accept LOIs for this level throughout the year. It sometimes takes us several weeks to review the many LOIs we receive, so please be patient.

Specialized Reporting Institutes (SRIs):
LOIs for these intensive specialized training conferences for working reporters are reviewed in November by our administrative partner, the Poynter Institute. For application instructions, review the SRI guidelines here. The deadline to apply for 2012 funding has passed, but you can check back in November 2012 to apply for the next round. For more information, email McCormickSRI@poynter.org.

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What We Fund (and Why)

Content, Audience and Rights
The News Literacy emphasis is supported by grantmaking initiatives in Content, Audience and Rights (CAR). Staff research and board guidance agree that the current supply of quality journalists is not the problem. There are enough highly trained and experienced professional journalists, many of them under-employed or working in other professions.

Our refined strategy bolsters an informed citizenry by investing in quality news content and educating people—especially students—to better appreciate the importance of news and protecting journalistic rights. Last year, we announced our intention to fund fewer international projects, general support grants for media trade associations, new business model investments and management training projects. In 2011, our grantmaking strategy includes more Chicago investment and increased support for youth media and news literacy activities.

We recognize the competitive nature of seeking grants to fund journalism projects. In fact, we are able to invest in only a fraction of the interesting requests received each year. In 2010, for instance, we received more than 200 formal letters of inquiry requesting about $17 million in support. Furthermore, with a slightly reduced 2011 budget of $5.5 million, it’s imperative that we find efficiencies and focus on quality implementation and impact of programs.

That’s why we’re putting stronger emphasis on performance measurement in 2011-2012 and adding rigor to existing evaluation work to provide a pathway for the Journalism Program going forward. We’re also coordinating and funding more field-building collaborations and partnerships to maximize the impact of our work.

For more information on our program strategy, please visit the Journalism Program Strategy page of the McCormick Foundation website.

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Resources for Journalists

The McCormick Foundation's grantees and partners offers several opportunities for journalism training and professional development. Check out the opportunities below:

Apply for a training fellowship to attend one of the 2011 McCormick-Poynter Specialized Reporting Institutes below. Ethnic media and Chicago-area journalists are encouraged to apply.

• The effects of the economic crisis on families April 4-5, 2011- The Suburban Newspapers of America Foundation and AP Managing Editors Foundation held this April training in Chicago. Check out resources from the workshop, posted on Poynter's NewsUniversity page.

• Track the impact of stimulus funds on communities May 10-12, 2011- The New England Center for Investigative Reporting at Boston University held a workshop to help reporters track the impact of stimulus funds on their communities; click here for resources from the workshop.

• Reporting the census June 16-17, 2011- Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication will hold a June training on reporting the census. More information coming soon.

• Covering the crisis in funding public pensions June 1-3, 2011-The Society of American Business Editors and Writers will hold this June training in Phoenix. Registration for this workshop has closed, but check out Poynter's News University resources page in the coming weeks for workshop resources.

• Political polling June 17-18, 2011- American University's School of Communications will host this June workshop. More information coming soon.

• Islam in the Bible Belt August 21-23, 2011 Middle Tennessee State University's School of Journalism will hold this August workshop. For more information and to apply, click here.

Other fellowship and grant opportunities:

• George Polk Grants For Investigative Journalism- The George Polk Awards grants are given to experienced reporters from newspapers, radio or television to pursue specific investigative projects. The intent is to provide short-term relief to journalists and also to promote investigative articles on the Web.
• 2011 Dart Center Ochberg Fellowships- a unique seminar program for mid-career journalists who want to deepen their knowledge of emotional trauma and improve coverage of violence, conflict and tragedy. Application deadline, July 27, 2011. Click here to apply.

  
  

Awards:

• It’s time to highlight your innovative online work. J-Lab’s annual contest rewards the process of journalism as much as the end result, with a grand prize of $10,000 and special distinction awards totaling $6,000. Applications are now open. Deadline: June 6. Click here for more information and to apply.

Also, check out these resources and interesting research:

New Media Toolkit- An online toolkit with tutorials and resources for nonprofits and others to learn to use social media and digital media tools.

Chicago is the World- ethnic media project led by journalist Steve Franklin at the Community Media Workshop.

OurChinatown -This Asian American Journalists Association’s Executive Leadership Program project is led by a unique multidisciplinary team, which includes experts in community development, online editorial and digital production.

Paper and Database Trails -This slideshow from IRE (Investigative Reporters and Editors) explains how to get useful public documents and data.

Web for Watchdogs -Also from IRE, this slideshow explains how to be a "smarter searcher" on the Internet.

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Grantee Spotlight: Do Young Female Athletes Have a Fair Shot?

We are really excited to support the Open Youth Network’s upcoming Fair Shot New Media Institute, hosted by Columbia College.

The initiative, produced by Columbia’s Mindy Faber, will work like this: Fifteen girls from Chicago-area high schools will participate in a four-week summer training institute where they will learn investigative journalism skills. Then, during the fall, they will conduct research and interviews to learn about gender inequity in sports in Chicago Public Schools. Finally, in the spring they will report their findings. This work will be followed by 2012 release of In the Game, a major documentary exploring the same issue, by Maria Finitzo of Kartemquin Films.

Check out the great thank you message from the team at Columbia College/Open Youth Networks. It made our day to have a thank you come from an avatar!

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Grantee Spotlight: Y-Press and Radio Arte Collaborate on Youth Reporting Project

Y-Press and Radio Arte kicked off a year-long collaborative investigative journalism project with an hour-long session at WBEZ this past Thursday with education reporter Linda Lutton. High school students from youth media groups Y-Press and Radio Arte interviewed Linda about covering Chicago Public Schools and learned interviewing and storytelling tips and techniques.
Lutton told the group that her, “favorite radio pieces explore a little curious piece of a bigger question.” She suggested that they focus on something they find interesting and then investigate it and get kids to talk about it.”

Her advice to the group clearly supports one of the project’s end-products – the creation of an online story content development tool that can help youth-media producers narrow a story idea and find that curious piece of a bigger question. The tool will have national distribution and be marketed by GenPRX, a group designed to support youth radio groups by sharing ideas, strategies and materials online.

In addition through the reporting done in Chicago and Indianapolis, young people from different backgrounds and youth-media experiences are coming together to strengthen each organization’s core journalism. Through topic selection and then narrowing for each city and then by reporting and producing the pieces together, they can learn each organization’s news-gathering process.

Hearing from a seasoned education reporter, Lutton’s briefing grounded the group and provided first-hand experience.

In Chicago, the group is investigating innovations in education and explored the following topics:

o How to engage students in the learning process

o How problem schools have found innovative ways to increase graduation rates

o How to improve hostile learning climates

o How a young person is involved in the choice of his or her school

The young journalists will distribute the stories locally and through PRX, a public media network.

Next week, Radio Arte students will visit their fellow Y-Press reporters in Indianapolis and explore stories about diversity and immigrant communities in the city.

Each group has its own style, but this partnership will investigate new ways to tell stories, share sound-gathering techniques and expertise and produce stories for a wider audience that amplify each others’ cultural experiences and resonate nationally.

*Thank you to Y-Press for contributing to this post.

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