Happy Monday. This edition is jam-packed with GOOD STUFF, starting with some recent Project C research and then rounding up a ton of updates and opportunities. Things are starting to snowball (with apologies to my friends in the Northeast who are digging out today) as the momentum around creator journalism is picking up, umm, more snow. ❄  

Last year, Project C published The News Ecosystem 2025 - a framework capturing the range of news sources available to American consumers at a moment in time. It was based on a good amount of study and common sense, but had never been tested in an actual market – until Mackenzie Warren at Medill’s Local News Initiative suggested we do that test in Chicago. 

The results of our research and analysis are now live. You can read some of our major findings in this graphic - or dive into the full report.

My suspicion as I set off on the work with researcher Eric Rynston-Lobel was that there were likely dozens of news sources not captured by Medill’s existing list of Chicago news sources. I thought we’d find scores of creator-model journalists working and reaching audiences in Chicago outside mainstream media channels. 

We did. And we’re continuing to index them in ongoing work with Medill and Press Forward Chicago. You can scan the growing list of Chicago-based creators here in the Independent Journalism Atlas (just click on “Chicago” and build your own shareable Starter Pack - like mine below). National names like Parker Malloy who call Chicago home are listed side-by-side with Chicago-focused folks like Chicago 312’s H Kapp-Klote, historian Sherman Dilla Thomas and sports-obsessed The Bigs.

But we found even more of what we ended up curating in a new category, Niche for Profit – small publications, some digital, some print, some hosting real life events – quietly serving very specific communities, identities or topics in Cook County. Outlets like Chicago Southsider, Lumpen Radio, and Chicago in Arabic.

We also added one more new category to the taxonomy – Community Utility – to capture hyperlocal information providers that function more as essential resources than traditional newsrooms.

In all, we uncovered about 100 previously unindexed news and information sources providing real service to Chicago-area audiences. Read more about them, how they’re serving Chicagoans and sustaining their own businesses in the full report.

Huge thanks to my partner in this work, Eric Rynston Lobel, and to data viz whiz Amanda Shendruk for designing the final report and making it all those numbers make sense visually.

📌 Reuters is in the creator business, per an email blast that went out Saturday touting a new Reuters for Creators program that promises to connect content creators with “ready to publish video, live news feeds, breaking news text, graphics” and content from “over 100 trusted media partners.” What does this cost? How does it work? Not clear. I’ve reached out to ask for more details, but if anyone has gotten an answer or if someone from Reuters wants to fill us in, just hit reply to this email. 

📌Johnny and Iz Harris’ NewPress – flush with four creators and an expanded staff including former AJ+ executive producer Jon Laurence (full disclosure: a friend) – announced the launch of its next phase: a paid community where subscribers get access to curated stories from Johnny, Sam Ellis, Christophe Haubursin, and Max Fisher and the opportunity to interact with them.

📌Aaron Parnas says he’s “decided to pursue a career in journalism as my full-time job.” Which kind of reminds me of that time in 10th grade when I told my friend Kathi I had “decided to be totally punk in my own way.”

📌Stop me if this sounds like you: A new Pew study finds that three in 10 Americans get news from newsletters, but many admit they don’t read all the newsletters they get. 

📌Substack and Polymarket are teaming up to add more predictions into the many newsletters you subscribe to but don’t read.

📌Media observer Lachlan Cartwright reports he’s matched his legacy media salary after just one year of Breaker Media.

📌 On latest episode of Creator Spotlight, Francis Zierer talks to From Boise’s Marissa Lovell, who went from barely paying her bills to making six figures in one year. How’d she do it? She hired a hungry, motivated new-to-sales rep.

📌 Vivian Tu, aka super-successful creator YourRichBFF, is diversifying her already successful business by launching a new AI-driven service called Ask Dolly, billed as “an AI chatbot designed to be a personal wealth advisor in your pocket.” Meanwhile, Feed Me’s Emily Sundberg launched a dating site, KissMe, for her readers.

📌 In more Project C news, I’m delighted to join ASU’s Knight Center for the Future of News as one of two inaugural fellows. I can’t wait to get to know fellow fellow Rashida Jones and work closely with Knight Center director Andy Pergam.

📌 IMI is funding 50 video creators across the U.S. (one in each state) to publish 50 videos in celebration of American science. See the details and apply here.

📌 The Next Challenge added a new category this year: The Pioneer Award for Local Creator Journalism will award up to $50,000 to an independent creator journalist using emerging digital platforms to strengthen civil discourse in their local community.

📌 If you live and work in one of the 26 Knight Cities, you may qualify to apply for the Knight Cities Challenge. Awards will go resident-driven solutions to local challenges and help promising ideas take root and grow (including strengthening local news and information systems.)