Among hundreds of Chicago non-traditional news sites, Windy City Media Group (WCMG) was ranked second according to a Chicago Community Trust report issued in June. WCMG was the top-ranked LGBT news site, and the only one in the 60 top sites ranked. WCMG is publisher of Windy City Times and Nightspots, and also produces WindyCityQueercast.com and QueerTVNetwork.com.
See report at: http://communitymediaworkshop.org/newnews/
The report, commissioned by The Chicago Community Trust, surveyed media professionals and users across the Chicago area, and used a complex rating system based on several self-reported statistics, third-party rankings, and a qualitative assessment by Community Media Workshop (CMW).
Several mainstream media sites, for example the Tribune, Sun-Times and TV sites, were not included, but Web sites for NPR, the Chicago Reader and other independent and online-only media were included.
The following is how CMW ranked the top 20:
1: Chi-Town Daily News
2: Windy City Media Group
3: Gapers Block
4: Progress Illinois
5: Windy Citizen
6: WBEZ Chicago Public Radio
7: Chicago Parent
8: Catalyst Chicago
9: Chicagoist
10: Midwest Vusiness
11: CTA Tattler
12: The Beachwood Reporter
13: Newcity
14: The Chicago Defender
15: District 299
16: The Chicago Reporter
17: The Urbanaphile
18: Chicago Carless
19: 600 Words by Esther J. Cepeda
20: Marathon Pundit
This announcement comes just weeks after The Reader named WCTimes the "Best GLBT news source in Chicago" and days after the completion of WCMG's 7th annual Windy City Gay Idol promotion with over 1000 attending Semi-finals and Finals competitions.
Windy City Times is online at http://www.windycitymediagroup.com
See http://www.communitymediaworkshop.org or http://www.newstips.org.
Mazel tov! Didn't your mom work for "The Chicago Defender?" She'd be proud of how WCMG beat it in the rankings.
Posted by: Sarah Siegel | July 25, 2009 at 11:55 AM
Nice blog, Tracy! I was just looking at my web hits for June for the Chicago Reporter (you know I work for Community Renewal Society now?) and this came up.
Posted by: JT Newman | June 17, 2009 at 04:38 PM