The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press announced today that it will expand its ProJourn program to journalists and newsrooms in Illinois. ProJourn currently assists journalists with public records access in California, Georgia, New York, North Carolina, Texas, and Washington, as well as with pre-publication review and business-related legal needs nationwide.

“We are thrilled to expand ProJourn to Illinois, where there is growing momentum in support of nonprofit newsrooms and independent journalists delivering exceptional investigative reporting,” said ProJourn Director Flavie Fuentes. “As a program that proactively supports newsrooms serving historically marginalized communities, including those whose first language is not English, we look forward to supporting Illinois’ ethnic media and providing crucial legal assistance to all local journalists.”

Among the initial law firms partnering with ProJourn that have offices in Illinois are Akerman and Davis Wright Tremaine.

Since the program was piloted by Microsoft and Davis Wright Tremaine in 2020 and 2021, ProJourn has provided free legal support for more than a hundred local journalists and news organizations, filling a critical, growing need. 

Operated since 2021 by the Reporters Committee, with a generous investment from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, ProJourn unites law firms and corporate in-house counsel to help with pre-publication review, public records access, and business legal needs — adding capacity to the Reporters Committee’s existing efforts, including the organization’s litigation program and Local Legal Initiative, and the Free Expression Legal Network, a national network of law school clinics.

In 2023, attorneys working with ProJourn logged nearly 2,500 pro bono hours supporting local journalists and newsrooms. In Vallejo, California, for example, ProJourn helped the nonprofit newsroom Open Vallejo obtain public records that paved the way for its groundbreaking local journalism that exposed how city officials intentionally destroyed key evidence related to police shootings.  

“ProJourn has been absolutely transformative to our work,” Open Vallejo Executive Editor Geoffrey King told the Reporters Committee at the time. “It’s important to have powerful allies in the fight for truth.”

Last year, attorneys working with ProJourn also vetted 45 stories before publication, handled 25 public records matters, and led 14 trainings — including several in Spanish — teaching journalists everything from how to access public records to how to mitigate legal risks before publishing.

For more information on ProJourn, visit rcfp.org/projourn.

ALTON, Ill. – A park in Alton, Illinois, closed on Wednesday after a giant sinkhole opened up in the middle of a soccer field.

Footage captured by 618 Drone Service shows the large hole, estimated to be around 100 feet wide in the turf at Gordon Moore Park.

The sinkhole, which formed at around 10 am on Wednesday, was the result of a mine collapsing, local media reported.

“The New Frontier Materials underground mine in Alton, IL today experienced a surface subsidence and opened a sink hole at Gordon Moore City Park,” a spokesperson from the mine said.

Nobody was on the field at the time of the collapse or hurt, Alton Mayor David Goins told local media.

All scheduled events at the park were cancelled on Wednesday and Thursday as investigations continued.

WATERMAN, Ill. (CBS) – Illinois is the top grower of soybeans in the U.S., most of which is used to feed the chicken and beef eaten by consumers, but climate change is affecting local farmers and may end up affecting what shoppers pay at the store.

About an hour west of Chicago, the pace is a little slower in DeKalb County, where Ryan Frieders, a seventh-generation farmer, and his family grow crops on about 2,400 acres, an area about 10 times the size of Millennium Park.

“We have some of the best soils in the world,” Frieders said.

And no one watches the weather more closely than a farmer.

“Honestly, I think I have five different weather apps on my phone, and I probably check them over a dozen times a day,” he said.

The land has been in the Frieders’ family for 60 years, and Ryan’s father, Ronald, lives just a few miles down the road.

“I graduated in 1970 and basically walked out of high school and started farming with my folks,” said Ronald Frieders.

The elder Frieders said that weather has “always been a challenge,” but it seems that challenge is getting more extreme.

“Everything’s changing it seems like, the temperatures are getting hotter than normal, the water levels are lower than normal,” Ronald said.

Ryan added they’re faced with longer periods of a lack of rain, or what might be called a “flash drought.” Sometimes, they’re faced with more rain than usual, which could delay the planting of their crops.

“It affects our entire year of the farm,” Ryan said.

The changes are all consistent with the Fifth National Climate Assessment’s expectations for Midwest agriculture in a warming world, which include:

• “Excessive spring rain delaying planting.”
• “Rapid transitions between flood and drought.”
• “Warmer temperatures stressing crops.”

Ronald said 2021 was the most difficult harvest that he’s ever experienced.

“Our crops were flattened,” he said.

That came about due to worsening thunderstorm wind damage, which is also linked to climate change in a new study. Ryan said the changes in weather patterns and their effect on crops also has an affect on the farm’s income.

Michael Langemeier, a professor of agriculture economics at Purdue University, said the weather changes are something farmers are discussing more and more.

“I don’t know if it’s directly impacting what the consumers pay to a large degree, yet,” Langemeier said.

He and his team have surveyed 400 farmers nationwide. He asked farmers about how worried they were about the changing weather patterns, and about 25% said they were either “very worried” or “fairly worried.”

“I thought that was a relatively high percent,” Langemeier said.

He added the farmers didn’t talk much about what those changes might be attributed to, “They just talk about it as different, and we’ve got to think about how we’re going to respond to these changes.”

Ryan said it might be difficult to understand how glaciers melting at the earth’s poles affect their farm, “but then you see things happening that aren’t the same as they used to be, and you tend to wonder if the things are more related than you ever thought they were.”

The Frieders farm installed solar panels to lower their carbon footprint and has made changes to their operation in response to the changes in the weather.

Data from the Illinois Soybean Association show that crop yield has not changed significantly over the last decade.