The Chicago Community Trust recently selected the South Suburban News to be one of 12 area organizations to receive a grant to participate in the Trust's Community News Matters initiative.

The News' project is aimed at increasing the amount of balanced news coverage in under-reported communities - primarily those in the lower economic strata of the South Suburbs. The News will achieve this by training local residents to work as "citizen journalists' using iPhones and a dedicated software that will allow live video reporting of local news.

This year the project will focus on Markham.

Markham residents will be given priority for the 20 training positions available. There are no fees.

Besides learning how to apply the iPhone technology, trainees also will learn the basics of news, news reporting, editng and basic photography.

The News is the only outlet in the country using this technology to train non-journalists.

"Our aim is to attract people who hopefully will expand on what they learn in this project and secure jobs at larger news outlets," Glenn Reedus, News publisher said.

He added, that citizen journalists will report on "hyper local" news - neighborhood association and block club meetings; high school academic and sporting events, community events of all kinds. "No one can tell the stories of a community better than the people who live there," Reedus noted. Citizen journalists training will begin in January. If you are interested and would like to be considered for the training please phone 708-283-9000 ext 10.