This panel brings together industry leaders to share insights and perspectives on fostering community collaboration, emphasizing the importance of building bridges to strengthen connections within the media landscape.
Meet the Panelists
Tonika Lewis Johnson is a visionary photographer and social justice artist deeply rooted in Chicago’s South Side Englewood. She illuminates the shadows of injustice within real estate and land use practices, advocating for transformative change, especially in historic preservation.
Her ongoing opus, Folded Map, transcends visual storytelling by unraveling the stark disparities among segregated Chicago residents, compelling them to engage in meaningful conversations. Meanwhile, her poignant “Inequity For Sale” project unearths the living history of Greater Englewood homes sold under discriminatory Land Sale Contracts in the 50s and 60s, urging a critical reevaluation and the creation of positive change.
Jamie Kalven is a writer and founder of the Invisible Institute. He is the author of Working With Available Light: A Family’s World After Violence and the editor of A Worthy Tradition: Freedom of Speech in America by his father, Harry Kalven, Jr.
He has reported extensively on patterns of police abuse and impunity. He was the plaintiff in Kalven v. Chicago, in which the Illinois appellate court ruled that documents bearing on allegations of police misconduct are public information. His reporting first brought the police shooting of Laquan McDonald to public attention, and he co-produced 16 Shots, an Emmy Award-winning documentary on the McDonald case. His 2016 series “Code of Silence” in The Intercept exposed the criminal activities of a team of corrupt Chicago officers operating in public housing and has contributed to the exonerations of 183 individuals.
Mauricio Peña is an award-winning journalist and editorial director at Borderless Magazine, where he leads the nonprofit newsroom’s coverage of immigration and immigrants.
He began his career as a crime and breaking news reporter at DNAinfo Chicago. He was a founding member and Southwest Side reporter for Block Club Chicago. Mauricio also worked as an investigative reporter covering immigration at the Desert Sun for the USA Today Network, an education reporter at Chalkbeat Chicago, and an associate digital editor at Chicago magazine.
Shamus Toomey is a publisher and one of three co-founders of Block Club Chicago, an independent, nonprofit newsroom covering Chicago’s neighborhoods. Block Club launched in 2018 with eight staffers. It now has a full-time staff of 36 and a growing group of Chicago freelance writers and photographers. It features daily newsletters, a weekly TV show on The U and CW26, multiple podcasts and regular appearances on local media, including WGN-AM’s “Bob Sirott Show.”
Toomey previously served as Managing Editor of DNAinfo Chicago and Metro Editor at the Chicago Sun-Times, where he supervised the team that won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting. Toomey started at the Sun-Times as a general assignment reporter. He previously worked at the Daily Herald and the City News Bureau of Chicago.
