Growing Community Media is proud to announce that one of our local weeklies, Austin Weekly News, has partnered with the highly respected Block Club Chicago to launch a new free newsletter for our readers on the West Side.
The newsletter, which debuted last week, is sent via email on Wednesdays and Fridays, and aims to be a one-stop shop for Austin, North Lawndale and Garfield Park news and events.
Austin Weekly News editor Michael Romain and Block Club West Side reporter Pascal Sabino will co-curate the newsletter. It will also routinely highlight crucial stories being told by other West Side-based or -focused newsrooms, including The Triibe, Austin Talks, Free Spirit Media and City Bureau.
The free newsletter is a new effort but Austin Weekly and Block Club have been quietly collaborating for months. Austin Weekly routinely republishes Block Club’s West Side stories to our readers in-print each week and Sabino and Romain coordinate to ensure they are covering unique stories about the West Side instead of competing.
“Hopefully the partnership between Block Club Chicago and Austin Weekly News can become a model that other media outlets emulate,” Romain said. “Our readers are better served by this economy of scale that gives us more bandwidth — more resources, more reporters — to tell more West Side stories.”
