{"id":18339,"date":"2018-06-12T08:00:06","date_gmt":"2018-06-12T13:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.robertfeder.com\/?p=18339"},"modified":"2018-06-12T08:00:06","modified_gmt":"2018-06-12T13:00:06","slug":"block-club-chicago-comes-alive-wednesday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/2018\/06\/12\/block-club-chicago-comes-alive-wednesday\/","title":{"rendered":"Block Club Chicago comes alive Wednesday"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

<\/a> Block Club Chicago staff (standing from left): Stephanie Lulay, Shamus Toomey and Jen Sabella; (sitting from left): Mina Bloom, Alisa Hauser, Lee Edwards, Kelly Bauer and Mauricio Pena<\/p><\/div>\n

Wednesday marks the official launch of Block Club Chicago,<\/a>\u00a0a subscription-based neighborhood news service from the former editors of DNAinfo Chicago.<\/p>\n

Since the startup was announced <\/a>in February, more than 3,000 backers contributed $183,720 in a Kickstarter campaign to fund the nonprofit independent newsroom. Support is expected to come from a combination of subscriptions and charitable donations from individuals and foundations.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u201cDNAinfo Chicago closed in early November, and we\u2019ve been working ever since then to get Block Club Chicago off the ground,\u201d Shamus Toomey, editor-in-chief and co-founder, said in a statement. \u201cWe are incredibly excited to get back to covering neighborhood news. We want to thank our readers for their patience and officially say: \u2018We\u2019re back!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Toomey and co-founders Jen Sabella, director of strategy, and Stephanie Lulay, managing editor, are all alumni of DNAinfo Chicago, the neighborhood news site that was funded for five years by billionaire Joe Ricketts. At Block Club Chicago, they\u2019ll head an initial staff of six reporters, including Mina Bloom, Alisa Hauser, Lee Edwards, Kelly Bauer and Mauricio Pena.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Alex V. Hernandez<\/p><\/div>\n

The sixth, Alex V. Hernandez, was hired thanks to a Kickstarter pledge that an extra reporter would be added if the fundraising effort exceeded $100,000 in donations. Hernandez, who recently completed a fellowship at City Bureau, will cover the Lincoln Square, Irving Park, North Center and Ravenswood neighborhoods.<\/p>\n

Freelance contributors will also be employed.<\/p>\n

For the first week, readers will be able to access stories for free at blockclubchicago.org.<\/a> After that a limited number will be available each month before the paywall kicks in. Subscribers will be charged $5.99 per month or $59.99 per year.<\/p>\n

\"We aren't naive, we know it's expensive to maintain and grow a newsroom, especially with a laser-focus on local,\u201d Sabella said in a statement. \u201cBut our entire team believes in this so wholeheartedly, and after hearing from our readers and supporters, we think we can give Chicago the community-level journalism it needs and deserves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Initial funding was provided by Civil, <\/a>a publishing platform and website that also launched two other newsrooms this week \u2014 Documented, <\/a>covering immigration issues in New York, and Sludge,<\/a> producing investigative journalism on lobbying and money in politics.<\/p>\n

Talks are underway between Block Club Chicago and other news organizations in town about collaborating on projects, Toomey said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wednesday marks the official launch of Block Club Chicago,\u00a0a subscription-based neighborhood news service from the former editors of DNAinfo Chicago. Since the startup was announced in February, more than 3,000 backers contributed $183,720 in a Kickstarter campaign to fund the nonprofit independent newsroom. Support is expected to come from a combination of subscriptions and charitable... Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18339"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18339"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18339\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18345,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18339\/revisions\/18345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}