“What’s happening to the local news?” is the question posed to the three of us on the panel at the Citizens Club May 26. It led to a generally gloomy discussion, moderated by Randy Eccles, NPR Illinois general manager, about the changing media environment in Springfield and across the nation. Social media, polarization and misinformation has splintered the audience that once consumed fact-based, edited, local news. That splintering has dried up traditional funding sources and media jobs, to the point that Jason Piscia, director of the UIS Public Affairs Reporting program, has trouble recruiting students who want to be journalists. Trying not to sound Pollyannish, I said Illinois Times still gathers an audience and advertisers around an old-style newspaper, with reliable news, commentary and arts reporting. We’re not perfect, but we’re weekly, and have been for nearly 48 years. – Fletcher Farrar, editor
This article appears in The Pet Issue 2023.
