Chicago Headline Club Foundation awards $10,000 in grants to nonprofit news shops

Chicago Skyline, courtesy of Bert Kaufmann from Roermond, Netherlands - Chicago, under license CC BY 2.0

The Chicago Headline Club and the Chicago Headline Club Foundation have selected Borderless Magazine and the Evanston RoundTable as recipients of the 2021 Intern Grant awards.

The Chicago Headline Club Foundation annually awards two $5,000 grants to fund internships at non-for-profit media organizations. The funds are designated to support the direct costs of internships from July 1 through June 30, 2022.

The foundation board selected winning news outlets from a diverse array of applicants representing nonprofit print, broadcast, and online news organizations in the Chicago metropolitan area. The foundation assessed the candidates and evaluated their plans to provide hands-on, impactful experiences and stipends for journalism interns.

“The Chicago Headline Club Foundation is honored to be able to support vital internship opportunities at these important news organizations. Internships are essential positions for training rising young journalists in the essential skills and values needed to excel in a competitive news market,” Foundation President Molly McDonough said. “We are thrilled to support the work of small non-profit news organizations that are making an impact.”

Chicago-based Borderless Magazine works with immigrants and their allies to tell their own stories and trains journalists to more ethically report on immigration issues.

“The Chicago Headline Club Foundation grant will help us deepen our work creating pathways for emerging journalists from immigrant communities in Chicago and beyond,” said Nissa Rhee, co-founder and executive director of Borderless Magazine. “We believe who tells the story of immigration really matters. We appreciate the foundation’s investment in Borderless Magazine’s work making our industry more representative of the people we cover.”

The Evanston RoundTable works to foster civic engagement and address complex issues facing Evanston’s diverse community. It has been recognized for its in-depth, objective coverage of Evanston’s city government, schools, social issues, arts and culture, and sports.

“This grant will help the RoundTable to recruit and mentor a budding journalist from a historically marginalized community to help us report on the groundbreaking attempts to combat systemic racial inequity in Evanston,” said Tracy Quattrocki, senior editor at the RoundTable. “We expect to use the funds to deepen our reporting on educational equity in Evanston, the impact of remote learning on student achievement, the redistricting of racially diverse neighborhoods, and the push to open a school in the city’s predominantly Black Fifth Ward.”

Applications for next year’s grants will open in February of 2022.

Visit headlineclub.org for more information about the Chicago Headline Club and its Foundation, which provides funding to support professional, student, and citizen journalists for the enhancement of responsible and ethical media practices.