When Maudlyne Ihejirika, an award-winning journalist, asked me to meet her at her office recently for our interview, I was surprised. Hadn’t she retired from the Chicago Sun-Times? What was she doing at a high-rise office in downtown Chicago? Ihejirika was in the lobby, waiting for me so she could escort me to the third
Even as some in the Missouri legislature try to unravel the initiative process, they also are trying to undo “the will of the people” on previously passed voter initiatives on government transparency. A bill to undo some of the government transparency requirements passed by voters five years ago in the Clean Missouri initiative is advancing
Illinois enacted the nation’s first public school media literacy law just shy of two years ago. Since then the press has mostly ignored it, teachers have struggled to figure out what it requires, educators have received little training and no one is checking to see if students are learning to be more media literate. I’m
Teachers came out of the COVID-19 pandemic, then they heard about the Illinois’ media literacy requirement. Raquel Bliffen, an English teacher at Mt. Vernon Township High School, said her reaction to the new requirement may have been tainted by her whole mindset since COVID-19, which is “kind of like one more thing.” “I kind of
A windy 27 degrees covered Bedford Park, IL as airplanes from nearby Chicago Midway Airport flew above John Hancock College Prep High School. The bell rang to start the day. In the year following a new Illinois law that requires instruction of media literacy at the public high school level, the state’s educators have been
