When the announcement that DNAinfo and Chicagoist were unceremoniously shut down by billionaire founder and owner Joe Ricketts went viral, a large shudder was felt throughout the entire Chicago media community. I gritted my teeth knowing a good part of my network would be affected.
As the social posts started to appear in my news feed, one common denominator connected the sentiments: grief for the future of Chicago journalism.
It took me a month to sort through my feelings, largely watching those around me grapple with how their friend lost their job, how a past employer was no more, how Chicago would change without these news sites connecting an expansive, and sometimes, divided city.
The closure didn’t surprise me—I’ve long wondered how sustainable the DNAinfo’s business was, having intimate experience with it in Logan Square. As a competitor of LoganSquarist, our existences have been entwined since DNAinfo Chicago moved to the area. After they had built their footing in Logan Square, they started distributing a printed newspaper, free of charge. For a digital media outlet, it seemed like a step backwards for the organization.
Last week, when I finally typed out my thoughts, I felt grief, nostalgia and hope. Odd to see those three feelings together, but it’s representative of my state of mind. I feel grief in the direction journalism is headed, that the industry has still yet to figure out a sustainable business practice that breaks ties from its history. I feel nostalgia as I reflect on media’s complicated past few decades, recalling all the years I spent in college studying media conglomeration. I feel hope that at least in some small part, LoganSquarist will continue to serve a neighborhood I deeply love.
I shared my thoughts on how we can keep local journalism alive, even in the aftermath of DNAinfo and Chicagoist. How as a volunteer-organization, we are still committed to providing news to the neighborhood, and how we even want to do more. I also offered some solutions, including joining, supporting and advertising with LoganSquarist.
Have your own thoughts? I’d love to read them in the comments or hear from you personally. I encourage you to reach to me at kate@logansquarist.com.
Be inspired.
I worked with Kate during my time as a community manager at Lightspan Digital while Kate was my direct manager. Kate’s communication practices really taught me how to navigate the sometimes complicated agency world. As an account manger, Kate smoothly orchestrated 10+ accounts at one time as well as help me manage and prioritize tasks in my role. Kate was a role model during my first few years in the professional world and continues to be so to this day.
Kate has an incredible amount of drive when it comes to LoganSquarist. In the six months that I’ve been involved, I’ve watched the site grow from a pet project to a respected community publication. This success can be attributed to Kate’s technical and leadership skills. From building out the site to off-hours community management and a consistent flow of content, the site improves by leaps and bounds on a weekly basis. When it comes to team management, Kate delegates tasks in an organized and efficient manner, making her an all around great and inspiring person to work with.
Kate is a wealth of knowledge who served as a tremendous mentor for all of our team members while constantly improving processes and workflows. She’s a tremendous project manager, pays great attention to detail, and is able to demand results from her team with respect. At LoganSquarist she has built and led a team of dozens of volunteer contributors committed to her vision of a community resource. I would happily work with Kate again anytime!
One of the best things I've ever done in my career is work with Kate Hamilton. Her enthusiasm for all things editorial, not to mention her energy and passion for any project she's involved with, is contagious. In addition to being a natural born leader, she's also a creative type, a thinker, a stickler for details, and someone with incredible vision and the drive to get things done. I always marvel at how she is constantly teaching herself new things. She always seems to be ahead of the curve on anything related to social media, and she also has an eye for design. This lady rocks! And she continues to be a mentor to me and others in journalism and communications.
Kate is a real professional and a pleasure to work with. She is a great communicator and always put her client's (my company) interest first. She is tremendously personal and had a great understanding of our business and how she could help it. She is great and is a tremendous asset to any company.
I met Kate through the Association of Women Journalists (AWJ) and immediately was impressed (and inspired) by her creativity, drive, work ethic and use of social media. Her passion for journalism, digital media and communications overall is evident in the projects she takes on, including LoganSquarist, an online news outlet that she founded that uses social media to socialize the neighborhood. What I admire about Kate is her vitality as well as her desire to keep learning and growing personally and professionally. Kate is a modern-day renaissance woman who is multitalented (ask about her travel, knitting and marathon exploits!) and who brings instant value to any team or organization.
Kate has been a fantastic resource for all things digital, whether redesigning my website on Wordpress, fine tuning my social media profiles, or understanding Google Analytics. She's an excellent communicator, and I will absolutely hire her again in the future.
Kate did and excellent job with our website. We have received several compliments on how nice it looks and how easy it is to navigate. She also went above and beyond to make sure that we were able to update and the website ourselves through Wordpress. I cannot gush about how awesome she is and how happy we are with the site and her dedication to the project.