I am pleased to announce that Rainbow Gal Inc., the parent company of Emilie & Friends, has been selected by the Chicago Community Trust to receive a Community News Matters Local Reporting Award for a series investigating the City of Chicago’s Minority Business Enterprise/Women Business Enterprise Program. We were one of 31 individuals and organizations selected to be funded to report on a variety of important issues affecting Chicago’s low income areas, from the plight of Black men in a recession to the impact of federal health care reform on West and South Side residents.

The awards are a direct response to the findings of a 2010 Community News Matters research report that discovered people in the Chicago area do not feel they know enough about the region’s challenges and that residents of low-income South Side and West Side neighborhoods are especially concerned that traditional news organizations do not cover relevant issues in their communities. www.communitynewsmatters.org

Here are more excerpts from a news release distributed by The Chicago Community Trust earlier this week:

“High-quality journalism and analysis is vital to public discourse,” says Ngoan Le, vice president of program at the Trust, the region’s community foundation. “We hope this burst of reporting will ensure that the needs and perspectives of the city’s poorest communities are heard and understood at this critical time.”

The Community Media Workshop and The Chicago Reporter are helping the Trust administer the Local Reporting Awards, part of the Trust’s Community News Matters program, which seeks to increase the flow of truthful, accurate and insightful local news and information and help the region’s cutting edge innovators develop new models for providing news and information. It is funded by The Chicago Community Trust, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the McCormick Foundation, the Richard H. Driehaus, and the Woods Fund of Chicago.

“We’re excited about the breadth of issues, voices, expertise and communities represented in this group of reporting projects,” says Alden Loury, publisher of The Chicago Reporter. Award winners include individuals, nonprofit organizations and for-profit companies with expertise in either journalism or Chicago’s community issues.The 31 winners were chosen from among 108 proposals for a total of $620,000.

Le noted that at a time of significant budgetary pressures and a shift in leadership in city, county and state government, the Local Reporting Awards should produce in 2011 a burst of impactful relevant coverage of, by, and for Chicago’s low-income neighborhoods on the south and west sides that sheds light on current and future decision-making.

While stimulating new reporting and new voices in the nation’s third largest media market, the initiative will also capitalize on the shifting media landscape by developing new ways and channels to spread high-quality, civically relevant information and build interest and engagement among citizens.

“We expect to expand the audience for these community stories by helping their creators publish through many traditional channels and online platforms,” reports Thom Clark, president of the Community Media Workshop.