Last year, I was invited to a very cool convening. Tracy Baim, who runs Press Forward Chicago, brought together a group of creators working in the Chicago area, along with a handful of publishers and funders. The idea was to hear more from creators about their work, the realities of how they are sustaining their businesses, and what they need.

What we heard that day was that the content creation for these folks is the easy part. They know what they're doing, they know how to reach their audience, and they are, in most cases, really killing it in that regard. It's the business side – the contracts, the rates, the grant applications, the liability questions, the "should I take this partnership or does it compromise me?" conversations – where people get stuck.

All of this tracks with what we’ve learned from the 200+ member-strong Project C Community and surveys like these from CNTI and Video Consortium.

So I'm really proud to share something today that is an attempt to help solve for the business side of creator journalism.

This Monday, June 8, Independent Journalism Atlas co-founder Ryan Kellett will be in Chicago at Navy Pier's Chicago Shakespeare Theater for a summit hosted by Press Forward Chicago and The Onion. At noon, alongside new data from a landscape analysis of Chicago's creator journalism ecosystem, they'll be releasing a new comprehensive guide we produced for Chicago area creators: the Chicago Creator Journalism Toolkit. We'll also be releasing a new, updated Chicago ecosystem scan from the Independent Journalism Atlas hand-crafted by our very own Justin Bank.

The toolkit is a practical guide for independent creators producing journalism, civic information, and accountability. Honestly, most of what's in it applies whether you're in Chicago or not. This is our attempt to write a business manual for creator journalists and we hope you find it useful. Its yours, free, thanks to support from Press Forward Chicago.

Here's what's inside:

The toolkit is live now. You can read it and share it here: Chicago Creator Journalism Toolkit →

If you're in Chicago: The release event is Monday, June 8, noon–2 PM at Chicago Shakespeare Theater at Navy Pier. It's free, and in addition to the toolkit release and a panel of local creators and media, Press Forward Chicago will share details on an upcoming open call for collaboration grants between traditional newsrooms and independent creators. (WBEZ tours after.) The event is hosted by Press Forward Chicago, Project C, and The Onion, and moderated by Chicago Public Media’s Kimbriell Kelly. RSVP here to reserve your spot!

📌 Ameer Al-Khatahtbeh runs @Muslim (12 million followers across platforms, 6.7 million on Instagram alone) basically by himself. The 27-year-old Palestinian journalist started the account in 2019 at Rutgers because he couldn't find the right outlet to warn fellow Muslim students about Trump's travel ban. It exploded during COVID Ramadan (250K followers by graduation), then more than doubled again after October 7. His formula: digestible enough for a fifth grader, shareable by a boomer, written for three distinct audience segments: traditional Muslims, cultural Muslims, and non-Muslim followers who trust @Muslim to cover stories mainstream media ignore. The whole operation is him and one other person. The WIRED Middle East profile is worth your time – especially the part where Meta banned @Muslim in India under a secret government order, locking out 330 million potential followers with no appeal process. The platform gave him a legal citation and nothing else. 👉 WIRED Middle East

📌 The way the wind is blowing – The Washington Post’s super-popular weather section, The Capital Weather Gang, has gone indie after nearly 20 years – breaking away from The Post and rebranding as Capital Weather.

📌 Flipboard's Surf platform launched "social websites" – Surf, built by the Flipboard team, is letting publishers and creators build their own curated social destinations pulling from Bluesky, Mastodon, Threads, YouTube, RSS, and podcasts. Early adopters include 404 Media, The Verge, WIRED, and Project C member Andy Dehnart. 👉 TechCrunch wrote about it back in April.

📌 Substack is building tools for bigger publishers – Hamish McKenzie confirmed to Business Insider that Substack is working on enterprise tools for multi-person newsrooms: multiple editors and writers, video and community features. The question for us: Does Substack serving bigger publishers help or hurt the independents who rely on network effects there? 👉 Business Insider

📌 beehiiv meanwhile, would like your attention – beehiiv CEO Tyler Denk announced this week another upcoming feature release event, scheduled for July 16th. The last event, held last fall, saw beehiiv’s introduction of an updated website builder and enhanced analytics. 👉 RSVP here

📌 Boeing is hiring a News Creator Engagement Lead – The company wants someone in Seattle to identify independent news creators, cultivate relationships with them, and, "collaborate with news creators to provide information and brand messaging so they may create content that resonates with target audiences." Take note: We have arrived at a moment where a Fortune 50 aerospace company has a dedicated headcount for managing creator journalists. 👉 Boeing job listing

📌 The duPont-Columbia Awards - Columbia University's audio and video counterpart to its Pulitzer Prizes - honor original reporting in the public interest with a compelling narrative. Platforms include online, documentary, podcasting, and broadcast - both national and local. They are looking to expand their reach to this kind of journalism in the creator journalism space. Work that appeared for the first time to a U.S. audience between July 1 and Jun 30 is eligible. 👉 duPont.org for more information and a link to enter. Deadline July 1.