Cover Story
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…
Local Journalism Matters
More than 200 people gathered at Pole Barn Chic on Sept. 25 for “A Legacy and Vision: 50 Years of Illinois Times.” Longtime owner Fletcher Farrar recounted the early days of the publication and milestones along the way. Publisher Michelle Ownbey then addressed the future plans, designed to address the community’s need for more local…
Planting a new paper for Springfield
I grew up in a Springfield dominated by the Journal and Register (later the Journal-Register). Not only in newspaper terms but sociopolitically as well. The paper was owned and directed from San Diego by Jim Copley and his Copley Press, a very conservative operation. It was a classic case of absentee ownership. The J-R had…
Fuddy-duddies
It was no internet in terms of its impact on communications but in the 1960s and ’70s cheap web offset printing allowed anyone who had a gripe, a dream or even just an itch they needed to scratch to “put out a paper.” All you needed was some rubber cement and a typewriter and an…
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…
How we started IT
In 1968 I returned from three years in the Amazon and embarked on a path toward a career in science journalism. I joined Time magazine as a science reporter, when I met Bill Friedman. After several years in New York, Bill and I began to feel restless and wondered what was happening in the rest…
