When the Covid-19 pandemic first hit, weekly and smaller newspapers scrambled to provide coverage of the huge global story affecting their readerships even though they had much smaller staff and fewer resources than the city’s larger media outlets. But for publications like the South Side Weekly, Wednesday Journal and Loop North News in and around…
Growing up in rural Iowa, Becky Vonnahme didn’t have access to many local news sources. Now, as part-time executive director of the Western Iowa Journalism Foundation, Vonnahme has discovered why. Small publications, like small businesses, have a hard time getting funded. After all, ad sales alone just don’t support local journalism anymore. The foundation works…
TV stations could not refuse to run Eric Greitens’ political ad showing him with an armed tactical squad in hunt of “Rino” Republicans, as long as he paid for the air time. No matter how objectionable, defamatory or wrong a federal candidate’s TV ad may be, the Communications Act of 1934 has a “no-censorship no-liability…
Ed Martin’s success in claiming Phyllis Schlafly’s mantle has brought him not only continued prominence but also a comfortable income. Martin is president of at least three Schlafly-related entities. Very little money passes through one of them, Phyllis Schlafly’s American Eagles, and Martin draws no income from it. But that’s not the case with two…
Jon Marshall, “CLASH: Presidents and the Press in Times of Crisis.” Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. Potomac Books. 2022. 413 pages. $36.95. Widely acknowledged as one of the leading scholars writing about the intersection of presidential history and American journalism, Jon Marshall of Northwestern University, has made yet another critically important contribution to the…