What happens when a community stops waiting on institutions and does accountability’s work itself? In Los Angeles, the gay community banded together to investigate a cold case murder and push it toward resolution — the subject of Rachel Mason’s new film My Brother’s Killer. It’s happening nationwide as legacy news organizations scale back and new local news outlets emerge: Chicago-based City Bureau trains community members to cover public meetings; Outlier Media in Detroit involved citizens in connecting residents to money the county owed them after selling their homes at auction. Other news platforms train citizens in filing FOIA requests, with OpenAI even providing a generator to automate the process. This session is about building a record where none exists — tools for everyone, and the networks to use them safely.