A community newspaper in Forest Park, Illinois, launched a unique fact-checking initiative during the recent midterm election season, inviting readers to send campaign mailers to its journalists to check for accuracy. Readers sent in nine mailers from various groups such as the Forest Park Chamber of Commerce & Development. Many of the mailers were referendums…
Journalism schools in the Midwest are not necessarily seeing the same bump in enrollment from President Trump’s war on the media as their counterparts closer to the nation’s capital. The Washington Post reported in September that Trump appeared to be “giving a jolt to journalism schools that in recent years struggled to cope with industry…
The public ambulance service in the small northwestern Illinois village of Hanover was used to working in private. When Galena Gazette reporter Dan Burke asked its governing board for meeting agendas and minutes, it refused. When citizens asked for a budget, personnel qualifications and a list of purchases, it also refused. Citizens’ rights to demand…
Angie Muhs, executive editor of the State-Journal Register in Springfield, is the new president of the Associated Press Media Editors. APME and the American Society of News Editors agreed to merge this fall, creating the News Leaders Association. The merger of the two powerful journalism organizations comes at a time when the news media are…
Christy Gutowski waited three years to speak with the white Chicago police officer accused of gunning down black teenager Laquan McDonald in 2014, a killing that exposed the police department’s fraught relationship with the community it is sworn to protect. But when Gutowski, a reporter at the Chicago Tribune, finally landed the scoop, the critical…