Find out why we’re overhauling City Bureau’s longest-standing program, and how you can get involved. 

by Dawn Rhodes

Fellowship alumni interview a source on the street. Photo: Ariel Cheung.

The City Bureau flagship training program is back with a new focus, a new name, and applications are now open through August 11!!

Formerly the Civic Reporting Fellowship, Tte Civic Information Fellowship is a paid, six-month program over two phases. Chicagoans of any professional background will develop innovative projects that connect South and West Side communities to vital information that helps people get more involved in their communities. 

With support from City Bureau staff, fellows will boost their skills in three key categories: community engagement (how to build relationships and trust over time, and how to share our skills with our communities and learn from them in return); how to navigate and get involved in civic life (understanding how local government and elections work, how to give public comment, how our city decides on its budget each year); and journalistic skills (gathering information, compelling storytelling, ethics and accountability). 

Fellows will dive into their communities to deeply understand how people get and share information, understand what information neighbors are missing, and develop strategies to get that information in ways they can use. 

The projects produced depend on what we learn! Past fellows have created zines and guides about how community benefit agreements work or how incarcerated people can navigate the complex legal system; built a directory and text service to connect Black mothers to maternal health resources; created a people-powered voting guide for Austin neighbors; and created a bilingual guide to help inform migrant laborers about their workers’ protection rights. 

This range of projects is actually the point: The fellowship isn’t asking, “how do we train better journalists”; it's asking what a specific community needs to know, and building the resources and tools to get them there. If you’re an alum or familiar with City Bureau’s work, some of this might sound a little different from how we’ve done the fellowship. 

Formerly the Civic Reporting Fellowship, City Bureau’s longest-standing program has  trained over 170 people over the past 11 years in the basics of community-centered journalism. That grew out of City Bureau’s founding mission to tackle crises our co-founders saw in local journalism, issues that shut out communities and journalists of color, and created unstable business models. 

Chicago's media landscape looks different now than it did when City Bureau started.  Block Club Chicago, Borderless Magazine, Cicero Independiente, The Triibe, ProPublica’s midwest division, Injustice Watch, Investigative Project on Race and Equity among others have all launched since City Bureau started our work—many of them employ fellow alumni—expanding what gets covered and how.  

So the fellowship is evolving too, not because the old model wasn’t working, but because the moment calls for something more. City Bureau's 2026–27 strategic plan marks a broader shift: from proving that people-powered journalism works to building the infrastructure that makes it last. That means training people not just to report information, but to close information gaps in their own neighborhoods and help their neighbors act on what they learn.

The Civic Reporting Fellowship has followed suit, evolving into the Civic Information Fellowship. 

The new program  will bring together six fellows working collaboratively over six months to develop new ways to inform people about the issues they care most about. If we are successful, our neighbors will get information they can trust, know where to look to find out more, share what they’ve learned with their social circles, and maybe get more involved with this issue on a broader scale.

You don’t need any specific professional experience. Applicants must live in (or very near) Chicago. Previous experience as a Documenter is a huge plus, and we’re especially interested in people with lived experience and community engagement work on the South and West sides. 

This fellowship could be a fit if you:

  • Are a chronically inquisitive person

  • Have deep connections to Chicago’s South or West sides

  • Have a demonstrated interest in civic issues and engagement, community organizing, public policy or journalism

  • Are passionate about storytelling, building community and finding creative ways to connect people with critical information

  • Love working in a team to accomplish shared goals

Fellowship alumni are welcome to apply, as well

If this sounds like you — or you know someone who might be great for this applications are open until 11:59 p.m. CST Aug. 11. 

If you’d like more information to decide if this is a good fit, check out the recording of our webinar where I break down some key questions on the application, what you can expect from the program and more. 

If you have any questions in the meantime, hit us up at fellowship@citybureau.org.