This transmedia storyteller is joining our team to help us create accessible and engaging content and reach wider audiences.
By Caroline Olsen
Headshot of Ireashia Bennett
We are very excited to welcome a new team member, Ireashia Bennett, to City Bureau as our Marketing and Communications Manager.
Ireashia is bringing their background as a filmmaker, multimedia artist and interdisciplinary researcher to our team to help us think creatively about how to better communicate our work. Before joining City Bureau, they worked at Ci3 at UChicago where they combined transmedia storytelling with reproductive health research to uplift young people’s lived experiences. You may also remember them from our Public Newsroom on telling better stories about queer Chicago.
Here’s a little bit about Ireashia.
You have done a lot of creative storytelling work both personally and professionally! Tell us about your previous work and what draws you to storytelling?
My grandma was the first storyteller that I knew. At night, before we went to bed, she would tell us these detailed stories that were really about kids being resilient and making the big scary shadows not as scary. So I really took to storytelling because of that. I eventually took up journalism and filmmaking. And as a young journalist, I found that the power that journalists had to create these narratives about whole communities just felt really uneven. People were subjects, but they didn’t have ownership of how their stories are portrayed. That power dynamic didn’t feel good to me, and so I shifted from journalism into participatory research and ethnography. That led me to the Ci3 at the University of Chicago, where I worked with young people and created media that centered their lives and well-being and that talked about how systemic and social issues impact them and their development, which was really cool.
I dabble in a lot of things. I think one of my strengths is that I have a large capacity to have my hand in different projects, mediums and disciplines. But the throughline is always storytelling, and it's always people. It takes a lot of intention to be present with other people's stories, and that connection and deep listening is really sacred to me. When I think about my legacy, I want to be known as a storyteller, but also as a person who connects with other people on a very genuine tip.
What are you looking forward to bringing to your role here from your past experiences?
I'm excited to use my media skills and background to conceptualize new campaigns to really bolster the work that City Bureau is doing, to reach different audiences in more engaging ways. And I'm just excited to experiment and explore and test things out, really looking at what has worked in the past and adding multimedia or transmedia projects to tell the story of City Bureau and all the great work that this organization is doing.
What initially drew you to want to work with City Bureau?
I’ve been following City Bureau’s work since it started in 2015, and what I loved about this organization is that there seems to be a real commitment to decentralizing power in journalism and doing the hard work of building trust between an organization and community. Community doesn't seem so abstract here. It feels very present and very integrated into the work instead of an afterthought. The core values of this organization aren't just lip service, there's a lot of proof in the pudding. And it just felt like a good place for me to be right now in my career.
Tell us a bit more about your relationship with Chicago.
I love Chicago for so many reasons. But I think what made me stay in Chicago after coming here initially for college was the real sense of vibrant community. There’s this feeling of reciprocity and a genuine energy that people want to connect with you, and I really appreciate that! When you pour into your communities here, it’s gonna pour back into you. Over the 10 years that I’ve lived here I’ve seen a lot of good and a lot of the challenges that come with building community. I’ve seen how the conversation around community accountability has evolved in Chicago and how there's even more emphasis now on reducing harm as much as possible.
Chicago is the place where I felt like I could actually be my biggest, fullest self. I grew up in Chicago, and I am still growing. I currently live in Washington Park, and this is the first neighborhood where I am actively engaging with my neighbors and we really look out for each other. I just feel the most at home and at ease here—there’s this trust that we got each other.
To connect with Ireashia, reach out at ireashia@citybureau.org.
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