News brief
Block Club Chicago launches Death by Podcasting, a weekly comedy show about city politics
Block Club Chicago, the nonprofit newsroom that covers Chicago neighbourhoods, launched a weekly comedy podcast called Death by Podcasting on October 26, 2026. The show takes on Chicago politics, the beat the newsroom is known for.
By Source: Block Club Chicago · Published · Announcement date
Block Club Chicago launched Death by Podcasting on October 26, 2026. The show is a weekly comedy podcast about Chicago politics, announced on the newsroom's own site. Block Club is a nonprofit, reader funded newsroom that reports on Chicago's neighbourhoods, and politics coverage is a core part of its work.
The launch post presents the show as a lighter companion to the newsroom's reporting. The comedy format lets the same journalists who cover City Hall talk about the week's politics in a looser register, and the weekly schedule ties the show to the news cycle its reporters already follow.
Death by Podcasting joins the newsroom's existing audio work and publishes through the usual podcast apps as well as the Block Club site.
WHY IT MATTERS: A local nonprofit newsroom is using a comedy podcast to do two jobs at once. It gives readers a cheaper show to make than a documentary series, built on reporting the staff already does, and it gives the membership pitch a weekly habit to attach to. Local outlets that treat podcasts as prestige projects can compare that with a format that runs on the newsroom's own beat.
Announcement date: October 26, 2026.
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