Reflecting on a cofounder’s legacy.
By Harry Backlund, Darryl Holliday and Bettina Chang
Andrea Hart at last year’s City Bureau Social. (Photo: Darryl Holliday)
Next month, after four years of scheming and dreaming with us, City Bureau Co-founder and Director of Community Engagement Andrea Hart will be transitioning out of her full time position and into an advisory role as she heads to Nashville to pursue a Master of Divinity degree at Vanderbilt University.
We’re thrilled for Andrea, and we can’t wait to see what she does in her next phase. We’ll also miss her dearly, and we’ve been reflecting every day on the impact she’s made on and through City Bureau.
We’d write a recommendation for Andrea for anything, any time. Divinity school didn’t request a letter from us, but we went ahead and wrote her a recommendation anyway, because anyone lucky enough to encounter Andrea should know how she’s changed us for the better.
To Whom It May Concern,
It’s hard to overstate how much Andrea Hart’s partnership has meant to us, and how much her wisdom, care and commitment have shaped City Bureau’s work. That’s why we recommend in the strongest terms Andrea Hart as a colleague, confidante and Carebear in Chief.
Andrea (middle) with CB managing editor Sarah Conway and 345 Gallery owner Corry Williams at a Public Newsroom. (Photo: Pat Nabong)
We first met Andrea in 2015, when she was teaching in classrooms, working with young people in North Lawndale to create media that mattered for their lives and communities. She brought the first City Bureau fellows into that space to mentor and learn from young people, cementing early on that genuine relationships and a philosophy of mutual education were at the foundation of our approach to journalism.
Andrea was City Bureau’s first employee—the first of us to leave her job and go all-in on our work together. As our Director of Community Engagement she trained the first City Bureau Documenters and organized more than a hundred Public Newsrooms that brought thousands of her neighbors into genuine, often difficult conversations about local issues.
Andrea dances at the 100th Public Newsroom. (Photo: Pat Nabong)
When the Public Newsroom launched, it was a space where journalists could workshop their stories with the people they impacted, but under her guidance it went a step further. It has become a space where people who care enough to disagree can hold each other accountable, where conflict and messiness aren’t pushed aside as a footnote, but honored as an occasion for growth and learning. Those conversations aren’t about gathering leads for better stories; they’re about gathering people to make stronger communities.
Andrea’s approach to those conversations has defined City Bureau’s work. Against the backdrop of an existential crisis in local media, Andrea reimagined journalism as a kind of public ministry rooted in the exchange of information, perspectives and experience among neighbors. If it seems like a strange career path from a journalism lab to divinity school, that’s because journalism hasn’t caught up with her vision. If you understand journalism as a practice of critical love and community building, then no path could be more clear.
Andrea also helped us build accountability internally. She reminded us of journalism’s legacy of sexism and white supremacy and called us to reconsider every level of our organization in response. After she told us last fall of her plans to attend divinity school, and as it became clear that City Bureau was headed for a new phase of growth, she guided us through an organizational design process rooted in listening to our staff and community. As a result, the practices of deep listening and co-creation she practiced every day will continue as new roles in our structure.
Last summer, Andrea wrote a set of community engagement guidelines meant to help City Bureau “define ourselves for ourselves.” They weren’t rules to be enforced, she told us, but reflections to shape a dialogue. “We view these guidelines as a beginning, as soil,” she wrote. “We want to see what will grow from holding ourselves accountable.” That might be the most important lesson Andrea left us with: that real accountability happens when you give up control, step away from your labor, and watch what grows from the soil. We’ll miss Andrea very much, but the seeds she planted will be with us for a long time, and we’ll draw on the lessons she taught us as we nurture them.
If you have the opportunity to work with Andrea, take it. Wherever she goes she’ll bring light, accountability and critical love, and we know from experience that everyone she works with will be better for it.
If you have any questions about Andrea’s time with City Bureau please reach out any time. Embarrassing photos are available upon request.
Sincerely,
The City Bureau Team
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