An online magazine written by Chicago area students
Click here to read and watch the stories
Click below for more stories and videos from past workshops:
"School Days" (Fall-Winter 2009-2010)
"Summer in the City" (Summer 2010)
"Education Nation" (Fall-Winter 2010-2011)

Click HERE to apply for Spring 2012 Journalism Academy
Columbia Links is part of the Chicago Youth Voices Network, a collaborative of 11 Chicago youth media organizations, and its year-long project was just completed. The project, Nuf Said, was funded by Chicago Community Trust, Rappaport and McCormick Foundation. The Summary Report of findings from Nuf Said is published on Issue Lab.
ON COLUMBIALINKS, YOU'LL FIND: What’s going on: Something is always going on at Columbia Links. Find out which workshops and reporting academies are on tap now.
For students: dates and deadlines—competitions, workshops, reporting academies; and the next level—lists of good journalism organizations
For teachers: lesson plans and food for thought—some material you can use in your classroom
Columbia Links is a journalism skills-building and leadership development program for youth and teachers in Chicago Public Schools, housed at Columbia College Chicago. Through workshops, mentoring, and the creation of youth-produced publications, Links works to build expertise, relationships, skills and opportunities that connect students, teachers and volunteers through journalism, in the process revitalizing youth media in Chicago. Read more
Laura Washington, Town Hall Meeting Moderator, 2011
Don Terry 2010
Renee Ferguson 2009
Renee Ferguson, award-winning TV investigative reporter, was on hand to launch the largest issue ever of r_wurd magazine—48 pages. The magazine features stories written by high school students who participated in the journalism academies in the Columbia College Chicago Links program. In this issue, 26 Chicago-area schools were represented.
Ferguson greeted students with news that she had read each of their stories. In her keynote address, she recounted the essence of their stories, acknowledging the students by name and thanking them for their reporting.
Here is an excerpt from her speech: “I feel powerfully connected to you and what you are doing . . . . I came to understand that allowing people to be heard . . . helping the invisible to be seen through the media was a powerful weapon in the fight for social justice in America and in the world. Now I see you taking up that fight for justice. . . . If you students who produce r_wurd and “Green in the City” are the future of reporting in America, I have renewed confidence in what we can become. Whether you’re professional journalists or citizen journalists your generation is fearless in reporting what you see. I am so grateful for that!”

R-WURD: Chicago's new teen magazine; Written for us, by us.
© 2012 Created by Columbia Links.