The Chicago Headline Club has received a two-year, $25,000 grant from the Robert R. McCormick Foundation to support FOIAFest. The Headline Club’s annual daylong conference leads up to Sunshine Week and aims to celebrate the importance of access to public information.
“This grant will allow the Headline Club to broaden its work to educate journalists on how to access information and how to keep government accountable,” Headline Club President Odette Yousef said. “This is critical work, and we are pleased and honored to have financial support from the McCormick Foundation for it.”
The Chicago-based foundation supports a variety of endeavors, from journalism and the First Amendment to early childhood education and civic engagement.
Save the date for this year’s FOIAFest: March 12 at Loyola University Chicago’s Water Tower campus. Andy Shaw, president and CEO of the watchdog group the Better Government Association, is a keynote speaker. More than a dozen panels and workshops are in the works on everything from uncovering police misconduct and public officials using private emails to conduct public business, to digging for data and crafting a public records request.
Stay tuned at headlineclub.org and foiaillinois.org, our website dedicated to FOIA issues, for more details.
Want a FREE TICKET to FOIAFest? Become a Headline Club member by Jan. 15. Contact membership@headlineclub.org to get this limited-time offer