Democratize Journalism Everywhere - City Bureau’s Documenters Network
Channel: Chi Hack Night
Date: 2023-04-08

City Bureau’s Documenters Network trains and pays local residents to attend and annotate government meetings, turning the knowledge, relationships, and capacity of local residents into a powerful community information resource. The Documenters Network dramatically increases local journalism capacity while simultaneously creating points of access for anyone to participate in the process of producing civic media.

Last summer, City Bureau received the Stronger Democracy award to expand the Documenters Network across the U.S. Launched in 2015 in Chicago, the Network now comprises six Documenters sites in addition to Chicago, in Cleveland, Detroit, Minneapolis, Atlanta, Omaha, and Fresno. Two new sites are launching Documenters programs this month and more are joining later in the year.

The Documenters Network creates participatory civic infrastructure by developing and resourcing Documenters sites. The organizations that operate Documenters sites create impact in their communities that complements and parallels City Bureau’s work in Chicago, while feeding learnings back into the network. Join the discussion to learn more about the growing Documenters Network and the tools and resources supporting it.