A new Web site developed by the faculty of the Columbia Journalism Department has received a $45,000 grant from the Chicago Community Trust to showcase news stories and residents from Chicago’s Austin neighborhood.

The site, AustinTalks.org, is expected to launch in spring 2010, and will be a “clearinghouse of news and information, featuring stories, photos, videos and audio about the people, places, events and issues important to the West Side neighborhood,” according to a statement issued by the Chicago Community Trust.

“What we want to do by the spring is actually launch a Web site that will be for and by the people of Austin,” said Suzanne McBride, associate chair of the Journalism Department at Columbia. “It will, I imagine, include typical multi-source news stories that you see now on ChicagoTalks,” she said, referring to Columbia’s citywide neighborhood news site.

ChicagoTalks.org was created by McBride and Barbara Iverson, associate professor of journalism at Columbia. The Web site started in February 2007 and “combines professional journalistic reporting, mainly from Columbia students, with community contributions,” Iverson said.

After working on ChicagoTalks for several years, Iverson and McBride noticed that Austin was underrepresented in media coverage. To try to better represent the Austin community, Iverson and McBride said they are bringing civic journalism to the area. Civic journalism is an effort to work with community residents to improve the community, local civic associations and community life in a neighborhood area specifically through journalism.

The Austin project was one of 12 selected for $500,000 in awards from the Chicago Community Trust. The project was selected out of 86 other applicants, which were seeking more than $5.7 million in funds.

“I was thrilled [to find out the Austin project got the grant money] because there was a lot of really good, stiff competition,” McBride said. “Just to have the opportunity to even apply for the money is a good thing, and then to find out that you were one of the lucky few to be chosen, that’s very exciting.”

Several areas of the project have already been earmarked to receive a portion of the $45,000 grant, McBride said. Those areas include recruiting professional freelance journalists, hiring a neighborhood liaison in Austin and

possibly purchasing netbooks.

“We can take [netbooks] to meetings, if people actually want to check out the Web site or sit there after a meeting and give their two cents,” McBride said. “After a meeting, they would have the opportunity to do it right then and there [with the netbooks].”

The hyper-local Web site will be featured on ChicagoNow.com, a Chicago Tribune Web site that had 1.4 million unique visitors and 4.4 million page views in October, according to Bill Adee, the Chicago Tribune’s digital media editor.

“This was Columbia’s idea and we loved it,” Adee said. “We’ve wanted, on ChicagoNow, to start going into neighborhoods in the city. The idea that we could work with Columbia on Austin seemed too good to pass up.”

Plans for the AustinTalks Web site are still in the early stages, McBride said, but there are several areas where students and faculty at Columbia will benefit from the site, as well as the

residents of Austin.

According to Iverson, the hope is that the residents of Austin will learn to write local stories and become

citizen media editors.

Much like ChicagoTalks, AustinTalks will give students a chance to gain real world experience, have their articles published and be on the cutting edge of media technology, McBride said.

“I think it’s very exciting for Columbia students to have that chance, to be able to be involved in [AustinTalks],” McBride said. “We’ve published the work of more than 150 students on ChicagoTalks. Many of them have been published multiple times. I love that students are going to have another venue, another place that’s going to get them attention for people to see their work.”

Students and faculty at Columbia will benefit from the site, as well as the residents of Austin.

According to Iverson, the hope is that the residents of Austin will learn to write local stories and become citizen

media editors.

Much like ChicagoTalks,  AustinTalks will give students a chance to gain real world experience, have their articles published and be on the cutting edge of media technology,  McBride said.

“I think it’s very exciting for Columbia students to have that chance, to be able to be involved in [AustinTalks],” McBride said. “We’ve published the work of more than 150 students on ChicagoTalks. Many of them have been published multiple times. I love that students are going to have another venue, another place that’s going to get them attention for people to see their work.”