This piece is part of our spring Documenters Showcase—a content series spotlighting the stories, impact, and growing network of people and organizations around the U.S. shaping participatory media and turning civic information into community power as part of City Bureau’s Documenters Network. Check out our next Showcase story, “Oklahoma and Oregon Join City Bureau’s Documenters Network.”
From Detroit to Los Angeles, Documenters are helping people track public spending, fight misinformation, and bring overlooked local issues into the spotlight.
By Maria Dikcis
City Bureau staff meet with Documenters Network team members from San Diego, Los Angeles, and Wichita for a peer exchange visit. (Photo: Iran Martinez)
As a growing force in local journalism and participatory democracy, City Bureau’s Documenters program is turning heads for its people-powered approach to informing communities. From helping Detroiters reclaim millions of dollars to amplifying Indigenous-led reporting, here’s how the Documenters Network has been connecting people to the information and tools they need to advocate for change.
Equipping Locals to Make an Impact
At the heart of the Documenters Network are the people who bring this work to life. Documenters are residents who care deeply about what’s happening in their communities and want to make a difference. With training and support from our program, here’s how they’re transforming their interests and lived experiences into real civic impact:
Detroit
Through a massive community outreach initiative, Documenters helped almost 500 Detroiters reclaim $6 million in surplus funds from tax foreclosure auctions. Many residents who lost their homes between 2015 and 2020 are owed part of these profits, and thanks to an innovative phone banking project led by Detroit Documenters and Outlier Media, hundreds learned how to file a claim to get back the money that’s rightfully theirs. On WDET’s The Metro, Documenter Shiva Shahmir and Outlier Media Documenters Coordinator Lynelle Herndon reflected on the power of hearing a human voice on the other end of the line: “Just having that human contact and being able to hear people’s stories of what actually happened to them,” states Shahmir, “I think that’s why this is active journalism because we’re not just notifying people about how much they’re owed, we’re also…amplifying their stories.”
Another Detroit Documenter, Kayleigh Lickliter, wasn’t looking to become a journalist, but she discovered a new sense of purpose in public accountability. A stay-at-home mom and former private investigator, she was frustrated with her local government after the 2020 election and found an outlet through documenting public meetings. What did she enjoy most about the experience? “Translating bureaucratic language into the people’s language so they can understand it,” she says. Since then, she’s live-tweeted over 120 meetings and seen her work picked up directly by local news outlets. You can hear more of her story on The Enjoyer Podcast, where she talks about how Documenters opened up a career path she didn’t see coming.
An Outlier Media phone banking participant ready to place a call. (Photo: Outlier Media)
Los Angeles
Los Angeles Documenters is officially live! Kevin Martinez, Community Engagement Director for the Los Angeles Local News Initiative, recently joined LAist's Air Talk to chat about the program’s launch. “There’s power in just having the same people that are impacted attend these meetings and hold their local government accountable,” he says. As the Documenters Network expands into one the country’s largest media markets, there’s growing excitement about how the program will increase access to public meetings across Southern California. And it’s not just Los Angeles. Staff from LA and San Diego teamed up during a peer exchange visit last fall to brainstorm ways they can share resources, collaborate, and build stronger regional connections.
San Diego
When San Diego City Council President Sean Elo-Rivera proposed eliminating virtual public comment, Documenters helped rally hundreds of community voices in opposition, which resulted in the proposal being withdrawn. With the support of inewsource, these Documenters covered 160 meetings in 2024–including many that typically see low attendance–and they transformed how democracy functions in their city and teamed up with reporters to shed light on major decisions. From housing and libraries to water bills and pollution, San Diego residents are more informed and equipped thanks to their intrepid neighbors tracking the money spent and decisions made through local government.
“There’s power in just having the same people that are impacted attend these meetings and hold their local government accountable.”
Building a Blueprint for Civic Engagement
In Ontario, the Documenters model is getting recognition as a solution to challenges like misinformation and voter disengagement. The Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) added Documenters to its Democratic Engagement Solutions Bank–part of the Healthy Democracy Project–as a scalable model that communities can use to spread trustworthy information, revive local media, and strengthen civic engagement. By highlighting our community-powered approach to news coverage, AMO is encouraging other municipalities to consider adopting models like Documenters to support more informed participation in local government processes.
Shaping the National Conversation on News Innovation
Documenters are showing up not just in public meetings, but also in national conversations about the future of local news. As journalism faces funding challenges and newsrooms shrink, our program is being cited in major impact reports and industry conversations as a solution for building sustainable news ecosystems.
At an Essex County Board of Commissioners meeting in New Jersey, Newark Documenters Program Manager Hayat Abdelal arrived to find locked doors and no signs directing her to the meeting location, even though it was listed online. “Many people could have made it up the long steps of the building, just to turn home when finding the doors locked,” she shared. This kind of story is all too common in Newark, where public meetings are canceled at the last minute, lack agendas, or are physically inaccessible. That’s when New Jersey Documenters, powered by the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice, stepped in. Thanks to months of consistent coverage and some well-placed public pressure, they helped turn Newark’s empty “no upcoming events” page on the city’s website into a full meeting calendar.
This commitment to public access and transparency earned Documenters a spotlight in the 2025 New Jersey Civic Information Consortium Report, which featured the program in a case study about sustaining local news startups. The Consortium is our key funding partner for all New Jersey Documenters sites, and their report explores how models like ours–when backed by both private and public funding–can address the local news crisis and increase government accountability. As the report puts it: “Alliances with other civic-minded, non-partisan organizations…such as the partnership with City Bureau in establishing the New Jersey Documenters program…strengthens the Consortium’s mission to increase civic engagement and stem the rise of misinformation and disinformation.”
This same spirit is guiding the launch of our first Indigenous-led Documenters site in Bismarck, North Dakota. Powered by the digital news site Buffalo’s Fire, the program plans to focus on covering meetings at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation and hopes to expand to other reservations across the state, helping to fill longstanding information gaps in regions often described as “tribal news deserts.” Press Forward–a nationwide, nonpartisan philanthropic initiative supporting the revitalization of local news–recognized Bismarck Documenters in its 2025 impact report for expanding Indigenous civic journalism and bringing much-needed representation to communities that have been underserved by mainstream media.
Documenter Avis Red Bear takes notes during the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s Monthly Council Meeting. (Photo: Jodi Rave Spotted Bear)
Paving the Path for Future Documenters
The Documenters Network is growing, and so is the momentum behind it. With new sites joining every year, the possibilities for collaboration, experimentation, and impact are endless. In the coming months, we’ll continue rolling out new opportunities and resources to support local solutions across the network, like developing new trainings around how local government works and improving our award-winning Documenters.org platform. Documenters are proving that when communities are informed, they’re stronger. Whether it’s through sharing critical information or helping neighbors understand what’s happening at city hall, Documenters show us what happens when communities look out for each other.
Want to learn more about City Bureau’s Documenters Network? Check out Documenters.org.