Pressure of Truth
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Outlet profile

Block Club Chicago

U.S. center-left

Owned byIndependent nonprofit; Block Club Chicago NFP (501(c)(3)), governed by a board of directors — no corporate parent or individual owner
FundingPrimarily reader-supported through approximately 20,000 paying subscribers; supplemented by foundation grants (including $1.6 million from the McCormick Foundation, $1.6 million from the American Journalism Project, and grants from the MacArthur Foundation) and limited advertising; seed funding at launch came from a 2018 Kickstarter campaign and the Civil media platform
On the administrationbroadly critical

Background

Block Club Chicago launched in June 2018, founded by three former editors of DNAinfo Chicago — Jen Sabella, Shamus Toomey, and Stephanie Lulay — after DNAinfo and Gothamist were abruptly shut down by owner Joe Ricketts in November 2017. The founders used a Kickstarter campaign that raised over $183,000 from more than 3,000 backers, plus seed capital from the Civil blockchain-based publishing platform, to hire an initial team of five reporters. The outlet was structured from the start as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, a deliberate break from DNAinfo's for-profit model. Its newsroom grew steadily on the strength of paid memberships and foundation support, reaching roughly two dozen full-time staff by the mid-2020s. In 2022 it received a $1.6 million grant from the McCormick Foundation to build a dedicated investigative team. Media bias trackers rate it center-left (Media Bias/Fact Check) to left (AllSides, with low confidence) to center (Ad Fontes), reflecting its broadly factual, local-news focus with a coverage mix that reflects the politics of a major Democratic-leaning city. The outlet's coverage of Trump-era federal immigration operations in Chicago has been extensive and skeptical; in 2025, four Block Club reporters were injured by federal agents during an ICE facility operation, and the outlet joined a press-freedom lawsuit against DHS Secretary Kristi Noem. Block Club discloses all donors giving $5,000 or more per year.

Sources

  1. Block Club Chicago – About Us
  2. Block Club Chicago – Founding Members / Kickstarter
  3. Block Club Chicago Awarded $1.6 Million Grant From McCormick Foundation
  4. Block Club Chicago – American Journalism Project
  5. Block Club Chicago – MacArthur Foundation
  6. Block Club Chicago Bias and Credibility – Media Bias/Fact Check
  7. Block Club Chicago Media Bias – AllSides
  8. Chicago journalists covering Trump's immigration policies – Poynter
  9. Block Club Chicago wants to bring local news back – Built In Chicago
  10. Block Club Chicago – Wikipedia

Profile compiled 2026-08-31; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.

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