Our annual REMEMBERING edition, the last issue of the year, reminds us small-town folks that people we thought we knew we didn’t know as well as we wish we had, and those we didn’t know, we wish we had known. It reminds us that many more have died this year than we could possibly write […]
Fletcher Farrar
Fletcher Farrar is the editor of Illinois Times .
Posted inEditor's Note
Editor’s note
It’s Christmas and the country is falling apart. A week ago South Carolina seceded from the union; a month ago he was elected president. Reporters and job-seekers have flocked to Springfield to see the president-elect, who remains cool, practicing what was called then “a masterly inactivity” as he awaits the trouble and responsibility ahead of […]
Posted inEditor's Note
Editor’s Note
In Springfield Monday Gov. JB Pritzker set the right tone for this season when he and other Jewish leaders assembled to light the state menorah. He first expressed his grief about the mass shooting in Australia which killed 15 at a Hanukkah celebration. Pritzker said he is angry “at those who stoke the embers of […]
Posted inReGen
REGEN – Grownups getting stronger
The articles presented in our special section beginning on page 14 constitute the winter edition of REGEN, for “Grownups getting stronger.” Published quarterly by Illinois Times since 2020 as a standalone magazine, REGEN has highlighted active and energetic seniors (who don’t like being called seniors). The first issue explained, “We reject the notion that older […]
Posted inEditor's Note
Editor’s Note
We who are “upsessed” about Washington must resist being distracted from Springfield and local affairs. It was here our Vachel Lindsay in 1914 preached “the new localism”: “The things most worthwhile are one’s own hearth and neighborhood. We should make our own home and neighborhood the most democratic, the most beautiful and the holiest in […]
Posted inEditor's Note
Editors note 11/27/25
“Accountability, without systemic transformation, is not justice,” the Massey Commission writes in its elegant “Response to the Grayson Verdict,” posted on the commission’s page on Sangamon County’s website (sangamonil.gov). The Oct. 29 verdict brings a “breath of hope” and a “whisper of justice,” the statement reads. “We are called now to listen to the pain […]
Posted inEditor's Note
Editor’s note 11/13/25
Just as everybody knows who started the war in Ukraine, everybody knows the party to blame for the big jump in health insurance premiums. And we know who tried to cut off SNAP benefits, fired thousands of government workers and caused airline chaos. It wasn’t Sen. Richard Durbin of Springfield. He and a few other […]
Posted inLetters to the Editor
Letters to the editor 10/9
When I heard the topic for the guest presenter – alcohol and drugs – I thought these elementary school children would be bored by it. At first, while the speaker droned through preliminary remarks, there was little interest, but as soon as he mentioned drugs, hands shot up. “My dad was on drugs,” one of […]
Posted inEditor's Note
Editor’s Note
This week’s cover story by Dean Olsen, about what federal Medicaid cuts mean for the Springfield area, couldn’t be more timely. That’s because the cuts, enacted by Congress and signed into law earlier this year, have become the focus of the federal government shutdown, which began Oct. 1. Democrats say the cuts are too deep […]
Posted inUncategorized
50th Anniversary special
Beginning on page 13 is our anniversary section, with articles by three who were in the “room where IT happened” 50 years ago: Bill Friedman, founding publisher; Alan Anderson, founding editor; and Jim Krohe, contributing editor. These are followed by our “Gallery of Covers,” seven pages of Illinois Times covers, one for each of the […]
Posted inUncategorized
Maybe freedom of the press isn’t guaranteed after all
As a young newspaper reporter in April 1972 I traveled with friends to the A.J. Liebling Counter-Convention in New York City. Counter-Convention meant this gathering was operating as a counter to the meeting of the American Newspaper Publishers Association, taking place New York at the same time. A.J. Liebling was a press critic and New […]
Posted inUncategorized
PAGE ONE
In the following pages we display one cover a year for each year we’ve been publishing. That’s 51 covers. Since we didn’t get started until late in 1975, we’ve used the first nine months of 2025 to complete 50 years. Does that make sense? The covers we picked, one per year, weren’t picked at random, […]
