We’re celebrating our ultimate civic nerd and long-time City Bureau employee as she hits her five-year work anniversary!
By Natalie Christian-Frazier
Portrait taken by Caroline Olsen
We are excited to celebrate the impact of India Daniels, City Bureau’s Civic Reporter!
City Bureau has been reimagining local news since 2015, and India Daniels has been a part of that mission since the fall of 2018 when she was hired as Field Coordinator. India came to City Bureau with more than five years of experience in newsmaking and local civic meetings.
To mark her five-year work anniversary milestone, we asked India to share a little bit about her experiences, background, and what she’s brought to her roles with City Bureau. Here are some of the highlights, edited for length and clarity.
How did you learn about City Bureau?
Facebook! Someone I went to school with posted about how City Bureau was doing really deep and thoughtful community-focused programming via the Public Newsroom, which was weekly back then. I had graduated college a year earlier and just completed a term as an AmeriCorps VISTA designing curriculum and supporting workshops for a student literacy and family engagement nonprofit in North Lawndale. I had also just moved to Woodlawn, down the street from Experimental Station where City Bureau was based at the time, so I decided to check it out. My first Public Newsroom was #69: How Should We Report on Crime in Chicago? in collaboration with Block Club Chicago. It was a discussion of how crime reporting can perpetuate harmful narratives. I remember co-founder Darryl Holliday shared his perspective as a “reformed” former crime reporter and then we had breakout discussions about what more responsible journalism could look like.
What stood out to you about City Bureau’s approach to nonprofit journalism?
It felt so different. It continues to feel very different. Many traditional nonprofits and media outlets get hamstrung by limited resources or stuck perpetuating the status quo. I think some of City Bureau’s early impact can be chalked up to being in the right place at the right time to challenge convention in journalism and nonprofit worlds. But there was and continues to be this strong commitment to social critique, praxis and creativity in the work of journalism that is in service of communities.
What were the first few years on the job like?
A few months after I started, we launched Documenters.org, which created a master calendar of all open meetings held by local government agencies in Chicago. As field coordinator, I assigned Documenters to take notes on or live-tweet certain meetings, edited their submissions, shared feedback and built rapport. I also worked with co-founders Darryl Holliday and Andrea Hart on trainings and resources.
Also, prior to COVID, Documenters were going to all of these meetings in person! These days, we give them a choice and, not surprisingly, most folks do it remotely.
How did COVID impact the Chicago Documenters program?
The pandemic forced the program to change in some really interesting ways. Documenters cover meetings that are subject to the Illinois Open Meetings Act (OMA), a transparency law that requires government bodies to make decisions in public. It also requires that members of the board or commission be physically present. With the COVID lockdown, folks couldn’t gather in person, but meetings could not legally happen remotely. Eventually, Governor J. B. Pritzker suspended the in-person requirement, but didn’t spell out what a remote open meeting ought to look like. Documenters witnessed a lot of bizarre and inaccessible remote meeting scenarios at first, but in the long run, the pandemic really forced these agencies to rethink the letter and spirit of the OMA—which was written when the Internet wasn’t a thing—and adopt new technology to make their meetings and documentation easier for the public to access remotely.
Today, the in-person OMA requirements are back in place, but most agencies have retained some livestream or recording element. There have been some rough transitions when it comes to hybrid meetings (think: Facebook Live stream from the farthest back corner of a conference room with no microphones), but overall it’s easier for folks to keep tabs on what’s happening in local government when they don’t have to worry about getting to City Hall, getting in, finding a good seat, charging their phone, etc.
What does your role look like today?
In 2021 I shifted to a producer role with the launch of the Newswire, an email newsletter that recaps Documenters coverage and shares other civic info and context. I’m doing more reporting and am less hands-on with day-to-day assignments, but am working with the team to overhaul and develop new assignment types, trainings and resources.
With the expansion of the Documenters Network to other cities, it’s been cool to not only show new programs the ropes, but also learn from their fresh approach and local government context. Cleveland Documenters introduced us to the concept of “community of practice” (a group of people who are doing the same thing and sharing tips and learnings with each other as they go) and that has become both a guiding framework and the name for a specific type of space we regularly hold with Documenters.
What is your favorite part of the work?
My first three years were largely spent reading, editing, fact-checking and giving feedback on Documenters submissions. People think of me as the person who knows all this wonky civic stuff, but I really didn’t know that much when I started; I learned it all from interacting with what Documenters were observing and questioning. I have learned so much from Documenters, even from first-time Documenters, and that’s very powerful to me. The task of taking notes on or live-tweeting a public meeting is pretty narrowly defined on purpose, but the things that do and don’t get discussed at these meetings surface all these interesting rabbit holes. I like to think that we’re all contributing to this collective knowledge base and I love when folks share their perspectives, lean into their curiosity and learn from each other.
To connect with India, feel free to reach out at india@citybureau.org.
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