City Bureau is launching our most ambitious strategic plan yet
By Jody Chong, Executive Director
A decade ago, City Bureau’s co-founders asked some questions that were genuinely radical at the time: What if we could reimagine journalism entirely? What if community members helped create the information their neighborhoods need? These questions were especially resonant in Chicago during City Bureau’s founding and early years, in the context of the aftermath of the murder of Laquan McDonald, #BlackLivesMatter actions and calls for systemic change, the abrupt collapse of the local news site DNAInfo, and a more consolidated local media landscape than we have in Chicago today.
Those initial questions about reimagining local news produced something remarkable—a civic media lab that has grown into national infrastructure for people-powered journalism. More than 5,000 Documenters across 20+ communities, 170+ Public Newsrooms, and a Civic Reporting Fellowship that has launched careers and equipped people to serve their communities in ways that reach far beyond any newsroom.
Those results matter to me personally, and so does the mission behind them. Since those early City Bureau days ten years ago, journalism, technology, local news, the city of Chicago, and our broader democratic landscape have all changed dramatically. So now, we’re asking some new questions: What information do people truly need—and how do we ensure they can find, use, share, and act on it? How can we best leverage our unique ability to both innovate deeply in Chicago and build national infrastructure at scale? In an era of AI and misinformation, how do we put people back at the center of civic life?
Before joining City Bureau, I spent a decade in public policy, advocacy, and coalition building. I saw firsthand how journalism can actually widen the gap between communities and the institutions that serve them—not because journalists don’t care, but because the structures and incentives of journalism as an industry weren’t designed with communities at the center. As soon as I came across City Bureau, I knew it was different—practicing a radically community-centered way of doing journalism—and that’s the mission that drew me here.
The vision we’re presenting in this new strategic plan is ambitious. We are radically reimagining journalism as an everyday civic act—something people can do for themselves, rooted in community, and in service of the information people need to navigate their lives. We’re equipping Documenters not only to take notes at their local public meetings, but also to be trusted messengers that share actionable information with their communities. We’re aligning all of our programs in Chicago around one big issue: the affordability crisis happening in Chicago right now. And we’re continuing to scale the infrastructure—practices, networks, research, and policy—to make people-powered journalism a lasting feature in civic life.
With our talented team and community of Documenters, Fellows, and partners, we are making civic life more accessible, more transparent, and more vibrant. I’m all in on what we’re building together. I have never been more convinced that the work City Bureau does—and the people who do it—are exactly what this moment demands.
This plan was built with our community and will come to life there, too. It took shape over six months of inquiry and conversation with our staff, board, partners, program alumni, and field leaders from across the country. It reflects their ideas and hopes for what City Bureau can be. We’re deeply grateful to everyone who contributed.
What we need to make this happen: you. One of our values is “collective action over individual heroics.” This work needs all of us, and it’s better when more people are part of it: our ideas for strengthening civic life and information in our communities, our voices, our contributions, our presence, our networks.
So with much gratitude and excitement, I invite you to explore our 2026–27 Strategic Plan, share it with someone who should know about it, and if you see yourself in this work, we’d love to connect with you.
Want to learn more about City Bureau’s bold future? Explore our strategic plan here.