First Civil Newsrooms are Live and Publishing
The time has finally come. After months of preparation, Civil’s First Fleet Newsrooms officially began publishing this week. Documented, Sludge, ZigZag and Block Club Chicago are all live, and each are already showcasing the great journalism that’s to come from them and many other Newsrooms running on Civil. An additional nine First Fleet Newsrooms will begin publishing in the coming weeks, and Civil’s platform will be live for anybody who wishes to apply to launch a Newsroom later this summer (learn more about that process here).
This news comes right on the heels of former NPR CEO Vivian Schiller’s appointment as the Civil Foundation’s inaugural CEO last week.
Documented NY
Documented, co-founded by Mazin Sidahmed and Max Siegelbaum, covers New York City’s immigrants and the policies that shape their lives. Their Newsroom launched with an investigative piece examining the costs of immigration bail in New York City. The story follows a Pakistani immigrant with no previous criminal record who had his bail set by a New York judge at $20,000. Reporter Felipe De La Hoz also published an interview with NYC Comptroller Scott Stringer about how federal policy is impacting the economy of New York.
Documented is currently working on rolling out its membership model, which will give its readers exclusive access to perks and events. Mazin Sidahmed, who has worked at publications like the Guardian US in New York City and The Daily Star in Beirut, noted that Documented will increasingly focus on getting their articles translated into other languages to be as accessible as possible to the communities it serves.
Sign up for Documented’s weekly newsletter here.
Sludge
Sludge, which focuses on money, politics and the nontraditional, often shadowy ways that special interest groups advance agendas, launched with a feature article about how the telecom industry has spent $190 million on lobbying to defeat net neutrality. Investigative reporter Jay Cassano also published a two-part investigation: the first part with reporter Alex Kotch, on a defense think tank called Project 2049; the second part on a relationship between a defense contractor and a Department of Defense official.The team plans to put together a series of investigative pieces covering midterm elections, kicked off by this piece by Josefa Velasquez, about the Virginia Republican primary election for U.S. Senate.
According to Sludge’s co-founder David Moore, keeping the Newsroom ad-free on Civil’s platform is crucial to keeping its strong degree of editorial independence. “Building on Civil and growing our membership base is necessary for the deeper investigations we want to do,” he said. “It’s not enough to point out a campaign contribution. We aim to go deeper for the public and explain how the policy making process works, and how special interests and corporations can set the boundaries of what’s legislatively possible.”
Looking to the future, Sludge plans to cover federal lobbying issues, as well as how technology companies are affecting lobbying regulations. They also plan to collaborate with other Civil Newsrooms, including Block Club Chicago, forthcoming Cannabis Wire and Popula.
Sludge offers a free email newsletter of money in politics — sign up in the middle of the homepage.
Block Club Chicago
After the sudden and unexpected shutdown of DNAinfo in November 2017, Block Club Chicago (BCC) was formed by former DNAinfo Chicago editors to cover local news in Chicago. This week, after months of hard work, the site went live.
It has already published over 60 (that’s right — sixty!) articles, covering topics from gun buyback programs to church mergers in Pilsen to a story of a Depression-era Wicker Park home. Though subscriptions range from $6/month to $59/year, breaking news — like this story about a tour boat rescuing kayakers from the Chicago River — will always be free. The Newsroom also plans to offer sponsored subscriptions for those who can’t afford to pay for their news.
According to Jen Sabella, co-founder and director of strategy at Block Club Chicago, establishing trust and transparency with readers is the most important thing to focus on as BCC grows. Since the Newsroom’s launch, Sabella has personally been responding to an ever growing volume of emails and Tweets to build goodwill and a sense of community with readers.
To learn more about Block Club Chicago, visit them online.
