Windy City Times is accepting applications for the second year of its paid community journalism course for anyone interested in storytelling for marginalized communities.
Our Stories, Our Power is a 6-week course on telling stories that are for us, by us. Applications are open now with a deadline of 5 p.m. Friday, Jan. 2.
Six participants will be selected, and everyone will be notified of their application status by mid-January.
This program is open to anyone interested in telling local news stories serving their communities. This could be people interested in entering the field, citizen journalists, college students or early-career journalists.
Classes will be held at a Downtown location every Saturday from Feb. 14-March 21 from 10 a.m.-2 p.m.
Participants will receive a $400 stipend at the program’s completion. The cohort will cover every step of the community newswriting process, beginning with pitching story ideas and culminating in a published piece on Windy City Times’ website.
Jake Wittich, managing editor of Windy City Times, and Anna DeShawn, founder of E3 Radio and writer of Windy City Times’ BLACKlines newsletter, will co-lead the program. We will also bring in guest lecturers from across Chicago’s journalism industry.
The Our Stories, Our Power course is supported by a grant Windy City Times received from Press Forward National, a funder collaborative led by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation that is dedicated to strengthening and sustaining local news.
Anyone with questions about the upcoming course can email jake@windycitytimes.com.