Medill announces five new services for Chicago media outlets
Offerings will support local news outlets as they develop sustainable business plans
EVANSTON, ILL. – Today Medill announced new services for Chicago area news outlets to help support them as they navigate fast-changing business conditions.
The Medill Local News Accelerator will provide expanded or new service in these categories, starting this fall:
Use this link to signal your interest in benefiting from any or all the services listed above.
The new resources will start with a workshop about AI in Chicago newsrooms on Sept. 8. This will be followed by customized, on-site consultations with 20 newsrooms.
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Offerings will expand in 2026 to meet additional newsroom needs. These may include a legal aid clinic focused on journalism-specific issues, a freelance exchange portal, a training and support network for investigative journalism and other services.
The Medill Local News Accelerator’s mission is to extend and guarantee the promise of accurate, trustworthy, relevant local news to all Chicagoans. To fulfill this mission, the LNA has completed successful strategic consultations with 25 client organizations in the last two years. This expansion will enable dozens more Chicago-area news outlets to benefit by 2028.
The Medill Local News Accelerator is part of the Medill Local News Initiative, a research and development project aimed at providing greater understanding of how digital audiences engage with local news and finding new approaches to bolster local news business models.
“Local news is critical to a thriving democracy. There’s no better place than Chicago to invest in local news, because it is the most dynamic content market in the country,” said Mackenzie Warren, director of the Local News Accelerator. “We believe that these additional resources will bolster the transformational efforts already underway in Chicago, allowing these groups to provide reliable, trustworthy information their communities need.”
The three-year program is funded through a grant from the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.