The Waterloo Republic-Times in southwestern Illinois launched its email “News Flash” in 2012, just as many of the large legacy news organizations were starting theirs. In the beginning, the paper sent a simple text email to a few hundred email addresses with breaking news important to a small community such as a boil order or a blocked road. The paper then formalized the … [Read more...] about Waterloo paper’s early adoption of email newsletter sets it apart
New logo represents new vision for our 50-year-old mission
Our readers may have noticed that Gateway Journalism Review has a new logo: our name with a section of the famed Gateway Arch in St. Louis. Over the years, we’ve had numerous iterations of this and inconsistent display online, across social media and in our quarterly print magazine. The new logo represents the overhaul we’ve undertaken in the past year to focus our editorial … [Read more...] about New logo represents new vision for our 50-year-old mission
News Analysis: Readers want good visuals, but newsrooms keep laying off photojournalists who can deliver them
As a young photojournalist just a few years out of college, Jason Howell was finally settling down. He had a full-time staff job at the Journal Gazette and Times-Courier in eastern Illinois and had just signed a year-long lease on an apartment in Charleston. As the only staff photographer at a paper that dates back to 1860, he was capturing the bread-and-butter images of a … [Read more...] about News Analysis: Readers want good visuals, but newsrooms keep laying off photojournalists who can deliver them
New statehouse bureau aims to fill gap in coverage for Illinois newspapers
Like many statehouse press corps, the one in Illinois is a fraction of what it used to be. Since the legislative session started this year, about a dozen reporters, including interns, have been assigned to cover what’s going on in the Illinois capital. A decade ago, there were 30 full-time statehouse press reporters in Springfield and even more on session days. It’s loss … [Read more...] about New statehouse bureau aims to fill gap in coverage for Illinois newspapers
Lee’s pricing model for ‘members’ alienates longtime readers
At almost 77, my Midwestern mother has a complicated relationship with her local newspaper. For more than half her life, she’s been a daily subscriber. When she goes on vacation, she has a neighbor save the papers for her so she can go through them upon her return. She clips out obituaries and articles about people she knows in the Central Illinois town where I grew up. So … [Read more...] about Lee’s pricing model for ‘members’ alienates longtime readers
