Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker signed into law Senate Bill 134, which creates the Local Journalism Task Force. A release from the governor's office said the Task Force will conduct a comprehensive study of the status of journalism and make recommendations for improvement to the Governor and General Assembly.“Many communities across our country have become news deserts – through this legislation, Illinois is taking a step toward addressing that challenge,” said Pritzker in the release, which you can read here.
The Task Force is required to meet a minimum of five times and will include representatives from the news media and a few schools of journalism in the state.
Shop Talk is a weekly panel discussion about journalism issues. This week’s program featured Will Buss, who teaches in the Department of Broadcasting and Journalism at Western Illinois University and advises the student editors at the Western Courier, the students at student radio station The Dog, and the WIU chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists; Rajvee Subramanian, who teaches in the Department of Broadcasting and Journalism at Western Illinois University; and TSPR News Director Rich Egger.
