Last week, Andy Shaw, CEO of Chicago-based Better Government Association government watchdog group, wrote an editorial bemoaning the state of Illinois state government reporting.

It wasn’t that terribly long ago (by which I mean the early 2000s) that all major Illinois newspapers, chains of lower-profile newspapers with Illinois presence, wire ( Read more... )

Posting this up mostly for hettie_lz and annanov's benefit.


Congressman Peter Roskam is about to meet with Crain's Editorial Board. Follow the conversation here:
Posted by Crain's Chicago Business on Thursday, June 1, 2017

Over the past few days, I saw two articles dealing with how two African-American men responded to the ongoing controversy over the relationship between African-Americans and the police - and their place in the American society in general. And their perspectives couldn’t be more different.
( The story of a police officer who felt alienated from the community he grew up in and a man who felt alienated in the majority-white community where he spent his formative years )

On April 1, Chicago Teachers Union went on a one-day strike ( Read more... )

Back on January 9, Illinois State Representatives La Shawn Ford (D-8) and Mary Flowers (D-31) invited residents of Chicago West Side - and beyond - to attend a town hall event about a law that would allow Chicagoans to recall their mayors.

Well, to recall Rahm Emanuel specifically, but the law would apply to every mayor.

It was something that ( Read more... )

Yesterday evening, a system of tornadoes swept through northern Illinois. It swept through Fairdale, a small town south of Rockford (the second-largest city in Illinois) and continued north hitting the cities of Rochelle and Belvidere and several smaller towns and farms before turning northwest, dissipating in Chicagoland's McHenry County ( Read more... )

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been seeing an ad put out by Illinois Office of Tourism. And I found myself a bit frustrated with it.

Click to view

If you are wondering why I have a problem, it's rather simple. Even though the ad is supposed to be about Illinois, it pretty much just shows Chicago. And while I like Chicago, it's hard not to feel bad ( Read more... )

If you don't live in the state of Illinois, you probably haven't heard, but It looks like Republican candidate Bruce Rauner is going to be the next governor of Illinois ( Read more... )

Earlier today, Dave McKinney, the well-respected journalist who has been covering state politics for the Chicago Sun-Times for the past 19 years, announced that he was quitting the newspaper.


( Read more... )

For the past forty years, Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times' gained a reputation for following diametricly opposite editorial lines.

The Tribune was originally created as the Republican counterpart to fiercely Democrat Chicago Daily Journal, and the editorial board carried that philosophy to this day. While it may have leaned left on issues ( Read more... )