May 12 Chicago Community Trust "On The Table" Event Post Mortem

This update comes two days after the May 12 events. Wanted to wait until news coverage of this event had rolled in. Here's what I've found so far - please send links if you've seen something worthwhile that escaped my attention.   

From the Chicago Community Trust:

• CCT President and CEO Terry Mazany gives this recap: "On May 12, 2014, more than 11,500 people—representing every Chicago neighborhood, every residential zip code in the city, and 11 counties in the metropolitan area—gathered to share their vision on how to make our community stronger, safer and more dynamic."
• CCT "Share Your Ideas" Page (add YOURS here!)
• CCT "impact page" of Media links (prior to event)
• CCT On The Table Hub

From the Chicago Sun-Times and Chicago Tribune:

• From the Chicago Tribune
• From the Sun-Times website
• From Sun-Times CSTtv site (10-minute video of "intimate lunch" of Sun-Times editors, columnists, reporters):

• Same video on YouTube, with viewer count and space for feedback
• Sun-Times "Voices" coverage of the video by Emily McFarlan Miller

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Cheezborger, Cheezborger II: Ideas for our May 12 On The Table event at Billy Goat's, 420 Michigan Avenue, 5 to 9 pm.

For details of the event, which runs from 5pm to 9pm, see our May 6 post, below. We'll be looking for answers to this question:

How can dynamic uses of PRINT and ELECTRONIC media in Chicago empower CHICAGOANS OF ALL AGES to address YOUTH VIOLENCE as no American city has ever done before?

These young men know the score. Given the chance, they will help Chicago address (and solve) youth violence as no American city has ever done before:

Members of the 50-strong Delivery Team for THE AUSTIN VOICE NEWSPAPERS serving Austin, Lawndale and Garfield Park

 On Monday we'll discuss the four ideas below.
For a printable version with two informative links, click here (in color) or here (black).

For Discussion Monday. Got ideas? 
Write a comment below or  email me (Steve) at sewall2020@comcast.net

Cheezborger, Cheezborger I: Join us May 12 at our ON THE TABLE at Billy Goat's, 420 N. Michigan Ave., lower level, 5 to 9pm

On the VIP Table in the rear of Billy Goat's, that is

From 5pm to 9pm: that's four full hours. Come and go at any time. Expect to meet from 3 to maybe 10 people when you arrive. Young people, media people, education people, and the Thinking Man's Rapper, DA Smart:

Diagnosing the Problem: "Walk With Me": 
Your Tour Guide to Chicago Gangs is Rapper DA Smart

Link to Part II

This Feb 18 Sun-Times story announced the event. And it's a good one from the Chicago Community Trust (CCM). Quite creative. On Monday May 12, an anticipated 10,000 Chicagoans will be convened by hundreds of volunteer hosts (like me) in order to 

At its website, CCT has created nifty online pages for each host. Here's ours.

If you can join us, and so we can hit the ground running, feel free to state your ideas and/or add links in the Comments window at this page. (We are table 18 but at Billy Goat's ask for the VIP table).

Since CCM is all about young people and media, we're hoping this question will guide our discussion, at least at some points:

How can dynamic uses of PRINT and ELECTRONIC media in Chicago empower CHICAGOANS OF ALL AGES to address YOUTH VIOLENCE as no American city has ever done before?

Event Details:

• Young people are welcome at Billy Goat's tables but not Billy Goat's bar.
• We'll be holding forth from 5pm to 9pm. 
• Kindly let me know what you plan to arrive and if you'd like to bring a guest.
• Space is somewhat limited. Email Steve Sewall at sewall2020@comcast.net if you can attend 

Here's how CCM has given students a voice in media since 1989:

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A State of Mistrust: Civic Discourse in Chicago

Here it is, folks, the whole sorry (yet nonetheless somewhat promising) picture. Below is a mini-version of the full mind-bending graphic:

Whither the Windy City Now?

The "Chicagoland" TV Series Scandal: How big a blow is it to the "Tribune's New Plan of Chicago" and the Chicago Community Trust's May 12 On The Table Event?

First things first: Welcome to our new online home. Our old home will be maintained as an archive of 20 years of youth-centered, media-related work in Chicago. Most recently, this work includes our coverage of the Tribune's April 25 expose of City Hall's undisclosed ties to CNN's recent "Chicagoland" TV series. Scroll down and you'll find

• Extensive running coverage of the pros and cons of the Tribune's New Plan of Chicago, launched last October, and the Chicago Community Trust's May 12 On The Table event, launched this past February in the Sun-Times.

• Coverage of the West Side Drug Area Shutdown Program, a citizen-participatory, police supported effort to permanently close 73 identified public drug dealing areas in Austin's 15th police district. Implemented with The Austin Voice newspaper and other media in the late 1990's. Its success thanks to citizen participation caused the Shutdown Program to be implemented in two adjacent police districts, the 11th and the 25th.

• Numerous civic media formats designed to make citizens and government, and especially young people and adults, responsive and accountable to each other in building a Chicagoland that works for city and suburban residents alike.

Now for current business. What concerns us is not CNN's "Chicagoland" series or the scandal attending it but their impact on two promising civic projects aimed at giving Chicagoans (at long last) a meaningful role in shaping the city's future:

• The Chicago Tribune's "New Plan of Chicago"
• The Chicago Community Trust's May 12 On The Table event for (it's hoped) 10,000 Chicagoans.

This impact is harmful. It could prove fatal to both plans, whose success in our view calls for mutual cooperation and support, not the pretense that the other plan doesn't exist. Prior to "Chicagoland" all we saw was this mutual pretense. But what we're seeing now is actual animosity between the two papers: thundering condemnations of the scandal coming from the Tribune and deafening silence from the Sun-Times, which finds itself tainted by the scandal due to the papers all-too-visible visible link with one of the parties involved in it: Jasculca Terman Strategic Communications (JT), a Chicago-based public affairs firm with a thumb, it seems, in every pie, including strong ties to the Chicago Community Trust, the Sun-Times, and Mayor Emanuel.  

"Chicagoland": the real Chicago or an Emanuel puff piece?  

Let's review these ties:

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