Police misconduct records are either secret or difficult to access in a majority of states — 32 of them including Washington, D.C. But the breeze of openness is blowing. Seven big states have opened records in recent years — California, New York, Illinois, Colorado, Massachusetts and Maryland. Nineteen states now have laws that allow these…
The ways people communicate change over time. And our laws, including the First Amendment, adapt to those changes. But it isn’t clear that recent changes and trends are adapting to our needs for truthful and reliable information, and for outlets of dissent, reform, and renewal, within today’s electronic communications environment. When the Bill of Rights…
A new local journalism task force is gearing up to examine the growing news desert in Illinois under a new mandate that goes into effect the first of the year, but the majority of the people who will do that work have yet to be appointed. The task force, established by law and signed by…
Late last month, my son and I were photographed outside of Columbia College Chicago for a story about my employer’s new policy limiting children on campus. The Chicago Tribune photographer captured him in a wrap on my back, his blue Vans untied and a floral mask covering his face. It was my baby’s first newspaper…
Art Cullen was on a traditional career path, moving progressively to bigger and better paying newspapers and positions before he ended up winning a Pulitzer Prize in 2017. He certainly never imagined along the way that he would ultimately be scraping for dimes to support local journalism as he does as editor of a small…