DNAinfo

DNAinfo

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Dedicated to delivering reliable, nonpartisan and essential coverage of Chicago’s diverse neighborhoods.

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$1.6m

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Total Funding000k
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Block Club Chicago emerged from the abrupt shutdown of DNAinfo, a for-profit local news website, in November 2017. DNAinfo, founded by billionaire Joe Ricketts, ceased operations following a vote by its New York-based writers to unionize. In the wake of this closure, former DNAinfo Chicago editors Shamus Toomey, Stephanie Lulay, and Jen Sabella co-founded Block Club Chicago to continue providing neighborhood-level news coverage. Their previous experience at DNAinfo, where Toomey was Managing Editor and Lulay and Sabella were senior editors, equipped them with a deep understanding of Chicago's local news landscape.

The venture was launched as a nonprofit, journalist-run news organization, a direct response to the community's demand for the continuation of hyperlocal reporting. Funding was initially secured through a Kickstarter campaign that became the most successful of its kind for local news, raising over $183,000 from more than 3,000 backers, supplemented by capital from the Civil publishing platform. Block Club Chicago officially launched on June 12, 2018. The name itself is a nod to Chicago's long history of community organizing, where residents of a block unite to improve their immediate surroundings.

Block Club Chicago operates as a nonprofit, subscription-based online newspaper. Its business model relies on a diversified revenue stream that includes reader subscriptions, foundation support, advertising, events, and merchandise sales. This model aims to create a sustainable framework for community-focused journalism. The organization maintains a strict firewall between news coverage decisions and its revenue sources to ensure editorial independence. The target clients are the residents of Chicago's diverse neighborhoods, with a specific focus on providing meaningful coverage to areas often overlooked by larger media outlets. The core of its service is delivering reliable, nonpartisan news that covers everything from local school council meetings to new restaurant openings and watchdog investigations.

The service is distinguished by its 'boots-on-the-ground' reporting method. Reporters are assigned to specific neighborhood beats and are often residents of the communities they cover. This embedded approach is designed to build trust and foster a more accurate portrayal of each neighborhood, moving beyond parachuting in for single stories. The platform publishes multiple stories daily and distributes content through more than a dozen free and subscriber-only newsletters, which reach over 130,000 people. By 2023, the organization had grown to 20,000 paid subscribers and expanded its coverage to 45 of Chicago's 77 community areas.

Keywords: local news, Chicago neighborhoods, nonprofit journalism, subscription news, hyperlocal reporting, community journalism, investigative reporting, reader-funded media, Chicago media, neighborhood news source, nonpartisan news, watchdog journalism, digital newspaper, Chicago community, public service journalism, local reporting, Shamus Toomey, Jen Sabella, Stephanie Lulay, DNAinfo Chicago successor

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