Gateway talked to industry professionals and press associations in eight Midwestern states, including Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois and Indiana. This story originally appeared in our spring 2021 issue. The following are some of the dispatches from these states. Missouri Mark Maassen takes umbrage with the University of North Carolina’s Hussman School of…
It could have been worse. Much worse. In fact, the executive director of the Missouri Press Association expected the COVID-19 pandemic to gut a local newspaper industry already reeling from more than a decade of competition from free digital content, rising newsprint costs and circulation declines. Seven of the state’s 200 or so newspapers ceased…
Back when misinformation was a slow burn, as opposed to the raging inferno journalists are currently fighting, Mark Baldwin was already enlisting help to douse the flames. About 10 years ago, the recently retired executive editor of the Rockford Register Star began bringing Alan Miller of the News Literacy Project to Associated Press Media Editors…
NORMAL, Illinois – Each week, John Plevka sits down with his blue gel pen and critiques the weekly edition of The Vidette. It used to be daily. He felt like it found its sweet spot in 2015, when financial realities forced the paper to go down to twice weekly, before the screws tightened in August…
CHICAGO – Adam Rhodes, the social justice reporter for the Reader, said the importance of re-examining how we cover anti-LGBTQ groups is matched by a reckoning with how we cover the gay community. “The media industry has just started to give a shit about trans people,” he said. “We’ve been trained to not care about…