A new community journalism program for Houston City College students plans to launch in Fall 2026, and it is looking for students to participate.

Houston City Voices, a student-led multimedia journalism initiative, working to fill local information gaps in underserved communities across Houston. A part of The Egalitarian, HCC’s student media outlet, HCV seeks to train students techniques to produce news content in their respective communities.

The project is part of the Journalism + Design Lab’s Community College Civic Info Challenge. Over the next year, students will produce bi-weekly video vlogcasts, monthly podcasts, live-streamed civic events, and written journalism, all of it community-focused and student-driven. These are students genuinely motivated to build real skills in reporting, production, and ethical storytelling. What’s needed now is exposure to working professionals who can show what this looks like.

According to the Journalism + Design Lab, the Community College Civic Info Challenge invited community college faculty and staff across the South to propose innovative and collaborative ways to bolster local news infrastructure. HCC was selected as one of eight awardees from across the region. Each organizational recipient received $5,000 in seed funding to support the development of their ideas in collaboration with the J+D Lab in 2025–26, as well traveled to Asheville, North Carolina for a two-day design summit where teams work alongside educators, journalists, media leaders, designers, and community engagement experts.

HCC’s selected proposal, as described by the J+D Lab, centers on creating a program that will train students as trusted local news sources across Houston neighborhoods currently underserved by media. Using HCC campuses and multilingual staff, the team plans to establish Community Information Centers, develop a certification program, and partner with ethnic media and community organizations. Participants will learn to gather, verify, and share information through digital platforms, newsletters, and community forums with the broader goal of boosting civic engagement and community resilience.

Houston City Voices is offered in the Fall 2026 semester as COMM 2389 (Academic Cooperative), held Wednesdays at 11 a.m. in the Central Campus FAC’s Room 232. The course number is 20127. The project is open to all currently enrolled students. Questions regarding HCV should be directed to Fredrick Batiste at [email protected].