TCR Celebrates 50 Years of Reporting
When the din of typewriter keys in newsrooms across the county got quieter and many owners decided to close shop, a Chicagoan named John McDermott embarked on a mission in Chicago and brought a vision for news that has lasted 50 years.
The first edition of The Chicago Reporter (TCR) hit the streets in 1972 on the coattails of the Civil Rights Movement, the War on Poverty, and the bombing of Hanoi. McDermott saw the unrest during that time as the crux for TCR’s mission: to do deep investigative journalism focusing on race, poverty and social justice.
Fast forward to 2022 and The Chicago Reporter’s mission has not changed. Over the decades, TCR has challenged the status quo and made a positive difference, not only in the lives of Chicagoans, but also for residents of Illinois.
The results of the paper’s probative mission have been a trove of awards and recognition from the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Association of Black Journalists and The Society of Professional Journalists, as well as many others.
TCR is a fertile training ground for aspiring and entry-level reporters, giving them the basic skill-set to propel them on to key positions in newspaper, television and radio reporting across the country. Many former TCR editors honed their skills at this publication and moved on to lead newsrooms across the country; all the while maintaining their roots in investigative journalism.
TCR today has gone beyond reporting problems and issues in the areas of race, poverty and social justice to investigating and offering solutions to address that stifling trio that has held back our Black and Brown communities.
Our commitment remains as strong as ever to this challenging work.
Support independent reporting by The Chicago Reporter.
Glenn Reedus
Interim Editor and Publisher
The Chicago Reporter
The Chicago Reporter is a program of Community Renewal Society and is editorially independent from the community organizing and advocacy work of CRS.
Leave a comment below
