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Cicero Independiente is a community-driven bilingual newsroom serving the Latinx communities of Cicero and Berwyn, two suburbs immediately west of Chicago, Illinois. Founded in 2019 as a volunteer-run organization of Cicero residents, it was created to fill the gap in independent, inclusive, and accessible bilingual news for communities of color in Chicago's southwest suburbs. The Town of Cicero is a majority-Latine community in which more than 60 percent of residents speak a language other than English at home, and the Independiente publishes in both English and Spanish with a focus on transparency, civic engagement, and community empowerment.
Cicero Independiente was founded by three Cicero residents: Irene Romulo, Ankur Singh, and April Alonso. Romulo, a City Bureau fellowship alum, had become discontented with how undocumented and immigrant communities were portrayed in the media and wanted to create a publication in which people affected by social issues could be involved in telling their own stories. She had been organizing in Cicero, including filming interactions with immigration enforcement, and was angered by how people with institutional power abused it and how residents were kept out of decisions affecting their everyday lives.
The cofounders launched the organization in July 2019 with a summer block party and a documentary screening about youth in Cicero, and they began publishing stories online in August 2019. From the beginning, the response from residents was enthusiastic: people reached out to volunteer, parents thanked the journalists for speaking up at public meetings and asking questions, and readers said they valued the report-backs from government meetings, the events coverage, and the more complete view of the people living in Cicero. What began as an all-volunteer effort has grown into a newsroom with full-time staff and a steering committee.
Cicero Independiente describes itself as a community-driven newsroom dedicated to serving Cicero and Berwyn's diverse and vibrant Latinx community. Its mission centers on highlighting injustice, fostering civic engagement, and amplifying local voices through community narratives. The newsroom's philosophy holds that everybody is an expert in something and has something to teach, a value Romulo carried over from her time at City Bureau, the Chicago civic journalism lab known for equipping community members with reporting tools.
The publication was founded on the conviction that mainstream media had long misrepresented majority-Latinx communities, reducing residents to eye-catching stories of trauma, crime, and outrage while ignoring the complexity of their lives and the resilient, powerful ways people survive and organize. Cicero Independiente seeks to portray residents as full humans with agency, capable of creating and capable of telling their own stories. That philosophy shapes everything from story selection to the newsroom's fellowship programs.
All of Cicero Independiente's journalism is published in both English and Spanish, reflecting a community in which the majority of households speak a language other than English. The bilingual model is not an afterthought but a core accessibility commitment: in a town where more than 60 percent of residents speak a non-English language at home, English-only journalism would exclude most of the community the outlet exists to serve.
The newsroom's bilingual approach extends to its community programming. Its reporting fellowships, events, and printed materials operate in both languages, and its leaders have emphasized that language access is a prerequisite for genuine civic engagement. The publication's work has been recognized as a model for how bilingual journalism can serve communities that mainstream outlets overlook.
A signature of Cicero Independiente's journalism is its consistent, dogged coverage of Cicero town government. The newsroom routinely sends its journalists to town board meetings, where they report back to residents and at times speak during public comment periods to ask questions or present their journalistic findings. In a suburb long governed by an entrenched political machine, this watchdog presence has been both impactful and contentious.
The outlet's reporting has drawn the attention of town leaders. After a series of stories critical of town leaders and local regulators, Cicero Town President Larry Dominick publicly criticized the Independiente's journalists at a December 2023 town meeting, calling them "jerks" and threatening to bar them from speaking during public meetings because they did not stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. First Amendment experts said such a ban would be a clear violation of the Constitution, noting that a 1943 Supreme Court decision established that acts of patriotism cannot be compulsory. The confrontation drew national attention to the small newsroom and underscored the stakes of its accountability reporting.
Cicero Independiente's most decorated work is "The Air We Breathe," an investigation of air quality in Cicero and Berwyn produced in partnership with MuckRock, the Boston-based investigative news organization specializing in public records. The investigation examined the environmental burdens borne by the area's predominantly Latinx residents, bringing scientific rigor and public-records reporting to a question of environmental justice.
In 2024, Cicero Independiente and MuckRock won the Victor McElheny Award for Local Science Journalism, given by MIT's Knight Science Journalism Program, for the investigation. The award recognized the collaboration as an exemplary instance of local science reporting serving a community directly affected by the issues it covered. The honor placed the small suburban newsroom in national company and validated its model of partnering with larger organizations to punch above its weight.
Civic engagement is built into Cicero Independiente's structure through fellowships and community programs. The newsroom runs reporting fellowships that train community members, including older residents, in journalism skills, and its leaders have observed that participants discover strength in standing together in solidarity. The fellowships reflect the founders' belief that journalism should be a mutual enterprise: the newsroom provides opportunities for people to learn and grow, and the community provides the knowledge and perspectives that make the journalism possible.
The organization has also worked to reach residents who are not online, planning print versions of its stories to serve those without internet access. It has held public events in Cicero to discuss its stories and provide training, seeking to bring people together around shared information needs. A 2025 case study of the outlet's revenue development noted that it had created a mentorship program for local businesses in Cicero and Berwyn, helping them with digital marketing, social media, and community engagement, and had developed its first-ever media kit as part of a partnership program designed to generate revenue while deepening community trust.
Irene Romulo, a cofounder of the organization, has been its most visible leader. A City Bureau alum, she received a 2020 Voqal Fellowship to support her work building the newsroom. April Alonso, another cofounder, serves as digital editor and brings a background as a multimedia content creator, including a fellowship with The Chicago Reporter and work on "La Verdad," a bilingual podcast. The third cofounder, Ankur Singh, helped launch the organization alongside them. The newsroom now operates with full-time staff and a steering committee, a significant evolution from its volunteer origins.
The leadership's youth and rootedness in the community are central to the organization's identity. As young Latina media leaders, Romulo and Alonso have been celebrated by journalism support organizations as examples of a new generation building civic media from the ground up. Their work has been featured by the Listening Post Collective, the American Press Institute's civic media initiatives, and national journalism podcasts.
Cicero Independiente operates as a nonprofit news organization supported by foundation grants and donations. In May 2024, it was among thirteen Chicago-area newsrooms that received grants from the MacArthur Foundation totaling $1.6 million to strengthen local journalism, alongside organizations including Borderless Magazine, Injustice Watch, the Invisible Institute, and the Windy City Times. The organization has also worked with the Listening Post Collective and the Local News Initiative on developing sustainable revenue strategies.
The newsroom's approach to sustainability is explicitly tied to its mission: rather than pursuing revenue streams disconnected from its community, it has sought to build programs, such as its small-business mentorship initiative, that serve local needs while generating income. Its leaders have acknowledged the challenges of the early years, when Romulo worked on a volunteer basis while building the organization's infrastructure, and have worked steadily to professionalize the operation without losing its community roots.
Beyond the Victor McElheny Award, Cicero Independiente's work has drawn recognition from across the journalism world. Its confrontation with the Cicero town president was covered by national press-freedom organizations as a First Amendment case study. Its model of bilingual, community-driven journalism has been studied by researchers and featured in case studies by the Local News Initiative. Journalism podcasts and publications have profiled its cofounders as innovators in civic media.
The organization's influence extends to the broader Chicago media ecosystem, where it is part of a flourishing network of nonprofit and community newsrooms serving neighborhoods and suburbs long underserved by legacy media. Its partnerships with organizations such as MuckRock and City Bureau demonstrate how small newsrooms can leverage collaboration to produce ambitious journalism.
Cicero Independiente operates in a challenging environment: a suburb with a history of machine politics, a community with limited English-language media options, and a nonprofit news funding landscape that demands constant fundraising. Its journalists have faced direct hostility from the town government they cover, a reminder that accountability journalism in small jurisdictions can carry personal risks.
Looking ahead, the organization continues to deepen its roots in Cicero and Berwyn. Recent initiatives include a community zine, "No hay de otra: The many shapes of resistance in Cicero and Berwyn," inviting artwork, photography, poetry, and short stories inspired by the struggles facing the community, from immigration enforcement to the environmental crisis, with contributors paid for their work. The project exemplifies the newsroom's expansive view of journalism as a community practice, one in which residents are not merely an audience but participants and creators.
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