Chicago’s oldest community newspaper has new leadership

 

South Side papers merge, creating new model for community journalism

Chicago’s oldest community newspaper has new leadership

The Hyde Park Herald and the South Side Weekly, two groundbreaking Chicago newspapers, have joined forces. The merger paves the way to create a new and sustainable business model for community newspapers across the country.

“This is an opportunity to build a scalable framework for community news, one that combines the Herald’s 140-year long commitment to neighborhood reporting with the Weekly’s community-centered approach to newsgathering on the greater South Side,” said Jason Schumer, the Weekly’s Managing Director. Ultimately, Schumer said, the partnership will strengthen both papers’ ability to support community journalism on the South Side of Chicago.

Both papers will continue to publish as standalone publications uninterrupted, now under the nonprofit organization South Side Weekly NFP.

On July 1st 2022, Bruce Sagan, the Herald’s longtime owner, transferred the Herald to the Weekly through an asset merger, converting the paper into a nonprofit. The papers will maintain their respective editorial teams but share a common back-office.
Sagan, who is 93 is and has been working in Chicago journalism since he was 22 years old, is retiring.

Sagan spoke to the changing economics and challenges facing local journalism. “This merger offers an opportunity to find new solutions to the economics of newspapers at a time when funding for journalism has become increasingly precarious. This important journalistic experiment will show what content is supportable by their readers and by communities in general.”

Both papers provide critical coverage of local news, politics, and the arts on Chicago’s South Side, but their approach to developing news stories differs. The Herald is the oldest community newspaper in Chicago and has served the Hyde Park-Kenwood community since 1882. It takes a more traditional approach to community journalism, with staff generating ideas and writing news stories.

The Weekly launched in 2013 to serve the greater South Side through a collaborative teaching and learning model, inviting community members to co-produce and publish a free weekly newspaper. Today, many of their stories are still sourced from within the community and many are reported by citizen journalists. The Weekly’s team of editors and fact-checkers works closely with each contributor from pitch to publication.

Sagan bought the Herald in July 1953 when he was just 24 years old, saving it from closure due to financial challenges. He built one of the largest chains of community newspapers in the country, revolutionized journalism curricula for the internet age, and helped change how newspapers are printed and distributed around the world.

Reflecting on Sagan’s legacy, Schumer said, “One of the things that Bruce has shown is just how big of an impact a community newspaper can have on a neighborhood. When you look at the stories, big and small, that have shaped Hyde Park over the last 69 years – urban renewal, the fight for an integrated community, saving the Robbie House from demolition – you’ll find that the Herald played a critical role in shaping their outcome.”

When Sagan bought the Herald, Hyde Park was just beginning to face two profound American problems: race relations and the decline and rebuilding of inner city neighborhoods. The Herald reported on these complex issues, providing a local, frontline perspective. "For me, the community newspaper has always been one of the things that has made a community,” says Sagan.

“Community journalism can be a powerful agent for change,” said Schumer. “What we’re doing with this merger and what the Weekly’s model has always tried to do is distribute that power within the community.”

“The difference between the papers’ models is really a bottom-up versus top-down approach to story production,” said Schumer. He sees ways to blend the models by creating opportunities for Hyde Park residents to be more involved with the newsroom and by sharing dedicated editorial staff across both papers to respond to breaking news and to focus on longer-term investigative projects.

There’s also a difference in the scope of their coverage, which Sagan sees as beneficial for experimenting with new revenue models. "We've put the Herald into a new situation with South Side Weekly. The Herald deals with the very local back-and-forth, and theWeekly deals in a broader way with the city and the South Side. Those two approaches, I think, are both very useful in the development of content that people will pay for," he said.

But Schumer doesn't plan to put up a paywall anytime soon. "Accessibility is super-important,” he said. “Everyone has

 the right to access reliable information about their community.”
He plans to launch a membership program across both publications that keeps the core content free. A survey Medill did last year of South Side Weekly readers found that two-thirds support such a membership program.

Schumer pointed to an ongoing co-investigation exploring rising housing costs in the wake of the Obama Presidential Center as an example of how the papers can work together while still continuing to serve their respective audiences.

The goal, says Schumer, is to build an investigative journalism hub with dedicated staff that source and co-report stories with community members. “When you work closely with the community, you hear a lot of interesting stories about things happening at the local nursing home or housing co-op. Unfortunately, we don’t always have the capacity to look into them. A shared, dedicated infrastructure for this kind of reporting will boost our ability to work with community members to hold institutions accountable on the South Side.”

Sagan is retiring on the 69th anniversary of taking ownership of the Herald on July 23, 1953. "I'm doing this now because I believe this is an opportunity for the business model to be developed in a way that could be very meaningful to the whole industry," Sagan said. "It gives me great satisfaction to know that we may develop some ideas that prove the model for the future.”

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