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 to target … [Read more...] about ‘Publishers can only do so much by themselves’
News and Opinion
TV ad called objectionable, but stations couldn’t refuse it
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 rule”, says Mark Sableman, a partner at Thompson … [Read more...] about TV ad called objectionable, but stations couldn’t refuse it
State of rural journalism: Buyers needed, news deserts expanding
The challenges of rural journalism are mainly the challenges of the communities it tries to serve, and many of those challenges are daunting. But they are not dispositive. That was made clear at the National Summit on Journalism in Rural America by some sharp, innovative and courageous editors, publishers, academics and other journalism supporters. "Community newspapers are … [Read more...] about State of rural journalism: Buyers needed, news deserts expanding
D. John Sauer: Scion of a well-known and powerful St. Louis family
Missouri Solicitor General D. John Sauer was the man who rounded up 17 Republican attorneys general to support the Texas claim that the electoral votes of four other states should be thrown out of the 2020 presidential tally. As important as that role was, Sauer is not well known to the public. His family, on the other hand, is. Sauer’s maternal grandfather, the … [Read more...] about D. John Sauer: Scion of a well-known and powerful St. Louis family
Book Compares Presidential Press Treatment
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 … [Read more...] about Book Compares Presidential Press Treatment