Category: 1990s

Local news publisher Justin Kerr announced that grants from the Robert R. McCormick Foundation and the Chicago Headline Club will power local journalism for the McKinley Park neighborhood of Chicago in the era of the COVID-19 pandemic. The McKinley Park News, Kerr’s micro-local news outlet that covers a single Chicago neighborhood, will use these funds to power a new journalism initiative to support the community.

“We are honored and humbled by this critical support for our publication,” Kerr said. “The pandemic has upended the already-battered news industry. This funding for Chicago journalism ensures our communities stay informed with reliable, high-quality news and information.”

The McKinley Park News is one of 48 recipients of the McCormick Foundation grant, which were awarded to both commercial and non-profit community news publications. The Chicago Headline Club disbursed grants of up to $500 each to help local journalists with their news reporting expenses.

The coronavirus crisis gets personal with the recently completed COVID-19 Writers Project (C19WP), a multimedia archive by Medill graduate Clara Zawadi Morris.

The COVID-19 Writers Project is a nod to the Federal Writers Project (FWP) conceived by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) that produced the Slave Narrative Collection. These first-person narratives are archived in the U.S. Library of Congress and are considered some of the most important historical records to date.

Similarly, C19WP is a hyperlocal examination of the pandemic through first-person narratives (10 videos, and 10 written and photos essays) from inside one of the virus’s early hotspots – Brooklyn, NYC. The COVID-19 Writers project was supported by The National Geographic Society’s COVID-19 Emergency Fund for Journalists, ThePulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, and The American Medical Association. From the formerly incarcerated, to the struggling college student to the emergency room doctor, these first-person narratives offer an inside view of the pandemic’s diverse impact on America’s everyday citizens, ultimately helping to answer: What is the crisis telling us about who we are as a society today?

A career marketing leader, Gina Mehmert recently joined the team at Kheiron Medical – a tech startup committed to transforming cancer diagnostics through the power of deep learning – as Vice President of Global Commercial Marketing.

Gina will lead the global launch of the company’s first commercially available product, Mia – a breakthrough AI-enabled solution for breast screening that gives every woman, everywhere a better fighting chance against breast cancer.

“The Kheiron team is filled with incredibly smart, talented, driven people,” Gina said. “The culture here is one of passion and collaboration – and I’m thrilled to bring my marketing superpowers to the team.”

Prior to joining Kheiron, Gina held a variety of senior marketing positions with brand leaders such as GE Healthcare, HP, and Poly. After Medill she received her MBA from the University of Bristol in the U.K.