Tag: Illinois

Illinois wiretapping law restrictive at best

At a time when millions of Americans have a cell phone with video and audio capability and when videotapes of police misconduct often are the stuff of news reports, Illinois is leading the nation in prosecuting citizens who tape officers in public. Illinois has one of the three most restrictive eavesdropping laws in the country,

Hyperlocal sites have many faces

As the first anniversary of the Rapidian, Grand Rapids Michigan’s hyperlocal newspaper, drew near, publisher Laurie Cirivello wrote that there is no official definition for the term hyperlocal. But hyperlocal is a word that has permeated newsrooms and the media landscape for the last two years. So what is hyperlocal?

Reporters tactics a question in Innocence Project

The surreptitious recording of conversations by a reporter - a tricky legal and ethical issue - is the latest charge that prosecutors have raised about the tactics used by David Protess' students at the Medill Innocence Project. State's Attorney Anita Alvarez maintained in a written statement that the secret recording raised "serious legal and ethical

Best Chicago media coverage of 2010 Illinois races

With so much sloganeering and mud-slinging leading up to the Nov. 2 mid-term elections, the challenge for Chicago’s news media—print, broadcast, online—was whether to echo the races’ shallow bombast … or cut through to the issues. By and large, the metropolitan press held to the latter, more difficult course. Which is saying something, given the