Illinois
Proposed Illinois bills are ‘the most ambitious package of local journalism policy’ – Poynter
![Proposed Illinois bills are ‘the most ambitious package of local journalism policy’ – Poynter Proposed Illinois bills are ‘the most ambitious package of local journalism policy’ – Poynter](https://www.poynter.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Illinois_Sen_Steve_Stadelman_307000172872.jpg)
This article was originally published on Northwestern University’s Medill Local News Initiative website and is republished here with permission.
The ailing local news industry in Illinois would receive compensation from Big Tech companies and benefit from state tax incentives and a new journalism scholarship program under sweeping legislation introduced in the general assembly this month.
“It is the most ambitious package of local journalism policy that I’ve seen,” Anna Brugmann, policy director for the nonprofit Rebuild Local News, said of two bills introduced by state Sen. Steve Stadelman, a Democrat who chaired the bipartisan Illinois Local Journalism Task Force.
“Employment in newsrooms has drastically declined,” Stadelman said. “A third of the newspapers in Illinois have closed over the years. Clearly there is a crisis in local journalism.”
The Journalism Preservation Act would require Big Tech companies such as Google and Facebook to compensate news organizations for the content that they share, display or link to on their platforms. The Strengthening Community Media Act offers a broad array of incentives, tax breaks and scholarships intended to repopulate local newsrooms. Included in that bill is a provision that calls for 120 days’ written notice before a local news organization may be sold to an out-of-state company.
Stadelman said the suggested remedies were brainstormed by members of the state’s Local Journalism Task Force, which Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed into existence in August 2021. (Tim Franklin, director of the Medill Local News Initiative and the John M. Mutz Chair in Local News at Northwestern University, was a task force member.)
Alex Gough, Pritzker’s press secretary, said late last week that it’s too early in this year’s legislative session for the governor to weigh in on the bills.
Illinois is now one of the more than a dozen states that has either passed or is considering legislation to help the local news industry, data from Rebuild Local News shows. At least three cities and the District of Columbia also have taken steps to assist local news. Legislation has been introduced in Congress as well.
According to Medill research, there are now 203 counties in the U.S. that are news deserts with no source of local news, and residents in more than half of the nation’s counties either have no, or very limited, access to reliable local news. The nation is losing an average of more than two newspapers per week.
Stadelman, who spent more than 20 years as a television reporter and anchor in Rockford before being elected to the Senate in 2012, said the lack of reporters attending local meetings and serving as watchdogs presents a problem for democracy. “When you don’t have a spotlight shining on local government, bad things could happen,” Stadelman said. “I thought state government should look at what could be done to help the bottom line of newsrooms.”
Included in the Strengthening Community Media Act are provisions that:
- Call for state agencies to “direct at least 50% of its total spending on advertising to local news organization publications.”
- Offer news employers a credit against the Personal Property Tax Replacement Income Tax for each qualified journalist hired.
- Offer news employers “a credit against taxes in an amount equal to 50% of the wages paid for up to 150 qualified journalists.”
- Offer eligible small businesses a tax credit “equal to the amount paid by the eligible small business to local newspapers or broadcasters for advertising in the State.”
- Create the Journalism Student Scholarship Program to “award scholarships to students who will work at a local news organization in the State for a period of not less than 2 years.”
“The goal here is to directly target these efforts to incentivize the hiring of journalists at the local level,” Stadelman said. “We want to incentivize companies to put more reporters on the streets, more reporters in the newsrooms.”
Brugmann, whose Rebuild Local News nonprofit advocates for public-policy solutions, praised the proposed legislation for identifying pressing problems, such as the loss of journalists especially in the suburbs and Downstate, and taking specific actions to remedy them.
“You’ve got the employee retention/payroll tax credit that looks at how do we incentivize folks to hire local journalists,” she said. “You’ve got what I think is probably one of the most creative pipeline policies that I’ve ever seen, which is offering scholarships to journalism students who commit to serving in a particular area after graduation.”
That last point, she noted, is especially important because “we have a few jobs that a lot of people want, and we have a lot of jobs that no one wants, and a lot of those jobs that no one wants, they tend to be rural, they tend to be at smaller publications. So we need to both support these news outlets and help local journalists maybe not have the student loan debt barrier to going places that need local journalists the most.”
Brugmann also appreciated the requirement that a newspaper give 120 days’ notice before it is sold to an out-of-state company. “When a newspaper might be up for sale, usually we find out after Alden (Global Capital, the investment firm owner of many newspapers) already has bought it,” Brugmann said. “So there are lots of really creative policies in this package.”
To Brugmann the proposals of the Strengthening Community Media Act are a higher priority than the efforts to extract money from Big Tech in the Journalism Preservation Act.
But News Media Alliance President and CEO Danielle Coffey, whose organization represents 2,000 news and magazine outlets worldwide, stressed the importance of the Journalism Preservation Act and similar bills in other states and countries that require Google, Facebook and other Big Tech companies to compensate news organizations for their news reporting.
“This is incredibly promising, but more importantly it’s transformative for our industry, and it’s revenue that we’re owed,” Coffey said. “It’s not a subsidy. It demonstrates that our content has value.”
Illinois now joins two other large states, California and New York, in seeking to require Big Tech to compensate local news organizations for their content.
In November, three weeks before Canada’s Online News Act was scheduled to take effect, Google reached an agreement with the Canadian federal government to pay about $100 million per year to news companies in exchange for the right to continue sharing their content online. Meta responded to the Online News Act, which mandated Big Tech payments to news organizations, by pulling news content from Facebook and Instagram.
Coffey noted that Illinois’s news industry is larger than Canada’s.
In 2022, Google signed a deal with six European Union countries, including Germany and France, to pay news publishers for content. Australia subsequently enacted a law, the News Media Bargaining Code, that required Big Tech to compensate newsrooms, with a reported $200 million collected over its first year from Google and Meta. Google’s press office did not respond to an email request for comment.
“These (measures) are going to benefit the geography of the state that passes them,” Coffey said. “It’s admirable that Sen. Stadelman is insuring that Illinois publications are benefiting like other states are across the country and also countries around the world….We need to receive the value of our content. That’s a fundamental cornerstone of our business.”
Stadelman noted that Illinois’s budget talks won’t get serious until April or May, at which point he will get a better sense of his bills’ viability. “Do I expect everything I’ve introduced to pass? Probably not,” the state senator said. “If I can get a couple things that will help the bottom line of newsrooms, I will be satisfied.”
![](https://newspub.live/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/np-logo.png)
Illinois
2025 Illinois four-star WR Terrence Smith commits to Hawkeye football – Hawk Fanatic
![2025 Illinois four-star WR Terrence Smith commits to Hawkeye football – Hawk Fanatic 2025 Illinois four-star WR Terrence Smith commits to Hawkeye football – Hawk Fanatic](https://hawkfanatic.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/p-2.jpeg)
IOWA CITY, Iowa – For the Iowa football team, this weekend has been productive and rewarding, both on the field and now on the recruiting trail
It started with a 40-0 victory over Illinois State on Saturday in which the Iowa offense under new offensive coordinator Tim Lester produced five touchdowns, including three scoring strikes from quarterback Cade McNamara and two touchdown catches by true freshman receiver Reece Vander Zee.
And then on Sunday, Iowa received a verbal commitment from 2025 four-star receiver Terrence Smith.
The 6-foot-4, 185-pound Aurora, Illinois native picked Iowa over Minnesota, Iowa State and Purdue.
Smith, who is also an accomplished basketball player, is ranked as the No. 49 wide receiver nationally in the 2025 recruiting cycle by the On3 Industry Ranking, which is a weighted average that uses all four major recruiting companies.
Veteran recruiting analyst Tom Lemming, who lives in the Chicago area, is very familiar with Smith and likes his potential.
“He’s one of the better receivers in the Midwest,” Lemming said Sunday. “He’s got really good size and great hands. He can run. He’s got everything you need in a wide receiver.
Smith is the 15th player to commit to Iowa’s 2025 recruiting class and the first receiver to join the class.
He took an official visit to Iowa in June and his recruitment has been priority for Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz and his staff.
Smith is also the sixth player from Illinois to commit to Iowa’s 2025 class.
Lemming is impressed with Iowa’s recent recruiting success in Illinois.
“This past year, they’ve been doing an excellent job in Chicago,” Lemming said. “They’re bringing in ball players that can play, really good athletes.”
Illinois
9 Takeaways From BYU Footballs Decisive Win Over Southern Illinois
![9 Takeaways From BYU Footballs Decisive Win Over Southern Illinois 9 Takeaways From BYU Footballs Decisive Win Over Southern Illinois](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_crop,w_3370,h_1895,x_0,y_72/c_fill,w_1440,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/images/voltaxMediaLibrary/mmsport/cougs_daily/01j6ntggjcss954az3mb.jpg)
BYU did on Saturday night what, apparently, no one in the Las Vegas desert thought they could: dominate SIU by 28 points. BYU’s retribution over the Salukis was a swift and sure 41-13 win that, honestly, wasn’t as close as the score indicated. Some say you can’t learn anything from a win over an FCS opponent but that wont stop us from trying. With that said, here are nine things we learned from BYU’s 1-0 start.
1. Jay Hill: Football Coach
If you are reading this, odds are you have called in sick for something much less than a heart attack. Some spent most of Friday night fearing Coach Hill’s life was in jeopardy only for him to have a headset on in the BYU press box the following night. That kind of dedication to BYU football is enough to make you want to run through a brick wall.
2. Its time to give Jake Retzlaff a fresh start
Go with me on a hypothetical journey. Imagine a world where Kedon Slovis never gets hurt and yesterday was Jake Retzlaff’s first start at BYU. Imagine a world where all you knew about him was that he was the no. 1 junior college quarterback in his class and had a full year to grow into a P4 starting quarterback. Now imagine that Jake Retzlaff put up the exact same stat line in his first start: 66.7% completion percentage, 348 yards, 12 yards per attempt, 3 touchdowns, and 0 interceptions. What would your impressions of him be if that’s all you knew?
An abysmal 2023 aside, Jake Retzlaff was awesome last night. Yes it was an FCS opponent, but plenty of other quarterbacks played FCS teams this week and didn’t play as well as Jake. Retzlaff’s 89.0 PFF grade ranked 16th nationally and 3rd in the BIG12 through week 1 behind only Shadeur Sanders and Noah Fifita. His completion percentage adjusted for drops was 73.3% with an average depth of target (ADOT) of 13.5 yards. The last two instances of a BYU quarterback throwing for a better adjusted completion percentage on a deeper ADOT was Jaren Hall against Utah Tech in 2022 and Zach Wilson vs North Alabama in 2020.
LET IT FLY @jretz11!!
📺: https://t.co/zDOxM9A89H pic.twitter.com/Pgc2y0DEU0
— BYU FOOTBALL (@BYUfootball) September 1, 2024
The film is just as impressive as the stats. Jake showed why he won the starting job with throws like the one above. Watch it. If you are not impressed, watch it again. This ball travelled over 60 yards in the air and right into Jojo Phillips chest for a touchdown. Even the camera man was evidently shocked that ball traveled that far. There is only one quarterback in the state, let alone the BYU roster, that can make that throw, and he made it twice on Saturday.
There were misses to be sure, but second viewing, those misses had more to do with receiver timing (50% of the fall camp reps will do that) and the degree of difficulty of throws rather than the mechanical issues and poor decision making that plagued him a year ago. Most importantly, Retzlaff had zero turnover-worthy plays and made every layup in yesterday’s game, going 4/4 on throws behind the line of scrimmage. It’s certainly not time to crown Jake as the next great BYU quarterback, but coming into the game, BYU fans weren’t sure if Jake Retzlaff was capable of being an FBS level player. At a minimum, his performance put those questions to bed. Time will tell if this was a one-hit wonder or if Retzlaff is a legitimate P4 quarterback, but yesterday was good enough to earn Jake a second chance at a first impression.
3. Chase Roberts is WR1
Chase Roberts message to his Quarterback was evident in his play: “I am available whenever you need me.” Roberts had 7 catches on 8 targets and was 2/2 on contested catch opportunities. All 7 catches went for first downs including two crucial 4th down conversions. The eye test showed Roberts being a big-bodied receiver with sure hands, improved speed and elusiveness to be a true WR1 in the Big12 conference.
4. BYU’s corners are very young
Jakob Robinson did Jakob Robinson things last night. He was targeted just once in 20 attempts, and that one attempt resulted in an interception. The stat sheet looked good for the rest of the BYU secondary, but the film showed plenty of youth . I counted at least three different times an SIU wide receiver got behind the BYU corner group, even if the passes fell incomplete. That makes sense. Evan Johnson, Therrian Alexander, Jonathon Kabeya and Marque Collins were all playing their first meaningful snaps at the FBS level, but the next 11 games will feature quarterbacks that can expose a young secondary if they don’t grow up quick.
5. BYU’s front seven looked stout for week one
BYU was gashed by SIU quarterback DJ Williams’ scrambling ability, but allowed just 2 yards rushing to everyone else on 10 carries. Defensive tackles Blake Mangelson and John Nelson were the stars of the show, accounting for 4 of BYU’s 10 total pressures. That’s a positive sign for a BYU team that has gotten little, if any, meaningful production from the interior defensive line since Khyris Tonga. Isaiah Bagnah and Ephraim Asiata both showed enough flashes opposite Tyler Batty to inspire confidence in the defensive line’s progress this offseason.
The linebackers were stellar all night long, while all 19 “stops” (a play that constitutes a failure for the offense) were forced by the linebackers and defensive line. BYU forced a punt or turnover on 9 of 11 SIU possessions, allowing an average of just 3.8 plays on those 9 drives, largely due to the pressure applied by the BYU front seven.
6. You can catch a football, side step a defender, switch the ball to the opposite hand, and fumble without ever possessing the football
Who knew?
7. There seems to be a drop-off between LJ Matin and the rest of the running backs
The coaching staff was clearly trying to limit LJ Martin’s reps as he recovers from an offseason shoulder injury, but at a certain point, they couldn’t keep him off the field. Martin averaged a near yard more per carry then BYU’s three other running backs and seemed to have the combination of vision, elusiveness and power that made Tyler Allgeier a BYU legend. If he can stay healthy, BYU’s run game will be better. But at 3.8 yards per carry as a team, BYU’s ground game didn’t show enough last night to warrant a ton of optimism without him.
8. The offensive line has improved from last year
The offensive line had a really strong showing. SIU blitzed on 16 of 35 dropbacks, but managed only 7 pressures and on the night. For reference, against SUU last season, SUU generated 10 pressures on 32 drop backs, despite blitzing only 8 times. No single lineman allowed more than 2 pressures according to PFF, while 5 of the top 6 lineman posted a grade of 74.6 or higher. Perhaps most notably, left tackle Caleb Etienne graded out as the third best offensive player last night, behind only Jake Retzlaff and Chase Roberts. Improvement indeed.
9. BYU football’s trajectory is pointed up
BYU did what what P4 teams should do to FCS teams, and that is a massive improvement over where they were a year ago. BYU’s last game versus an FCS opponent featured a nearly identical score with a completely opposite feel. In 2023, BYU outgained SUU by just 48 yards and managed 46 rushing yards on 2 yards per carry. Fast forward one year, and BYU dominated a significantly better FCS team in every facet of the game. BYU outgained SIU by 296 yards, more yards than BYU gained in 7 of their 12 games in 2023. They eclipsed the 400 yard mark for the first time in 644 days and held an opposing offense to under 235 yards for only the second time in the last four seasons.
Does any of this mean BYU will imminently compete for a Big12 title? No. But there is no shame in finding satisfaction in the idea that for the first time in nearly 2 years, BYU looked like a competent, complete football team.
Illinois
11 True Freshmen Played for BYU Against Southern Illinois
![11 True Freshmen Played for BYU Against Southern Illinois 11 True Freshmen Played for BYU Against Southern Illinois](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_crop,w_2537,h_1427,x_0,y_94/c_fill,w_1440,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/images/voltaxMediaLibrary/mmsport/cougs_daily/01j6q24mbgpj847h48ss.jpg)
When BYU released its depth chart for Southern Illinois, 10 true freshmen were listed on the depth chart. BYU offensive coordinator Aaron Roderick said everyone on the depth chart would play and he was right. Against Southern Illinois, 11 true freshmen played on either offense or defense for BYU. 5 out of the 11 played 10 or more snaps, led by former four-star recruits Faletau Satuala and Cody Hagen.
- Faletau Satuala (S) – 14 defensive snaps played
- Cody Hagen (WR) – 13 offensive snaps played
- Therrian Alexander (CB) – 12 defensive snaps played
- Tommy Prassas (S) – 11 defensive snaps played
- Ephraim Asiata (DE) – 10 defensive snaps played
- Tei Nacua (WR) – 8 offensive snaps played
- Jonathan Kabeya (CB) – 6 defensive snaps played
- Viliami Po’uha (DE) – 3 defensive snaps played
- Orion Maile-Kaufusi (DE) – 3 defensive snaps played
- Dom McKenzie (WR) – 1 offensive snap played
- Ryner Swanson (TE) – 1 offensive snap played
Some of the most talented players in the BYU football program are freshmen. If BYU can keep this core of young players together, it would bode really well for the future of the program. Competing for a Big 12 championship in 2024 is probably unrealistic, but competing for a championship by 2026 should be the goal for everyone in the program. This young core has the chance to get BYU to that level if they reach their potential.
Faletau Satuala and Cody Hagen will be fascinating to follow in 2024. They are both in very deep rooms and, on the surface, it doesn’t look like they will be needed to play a lot unless injuries occur. They are both so talented, however, that they might be impossible to keep off the field by season’s end.
Hagen was a contributor on special teams, so it doesn’t look like they plan to redshirt him in 2024. Hagen could start to make the case to be in the regular rotation at wide receiver. Faletau Satuala played meaningful snaps against the Salukis. He was the first free safety off the bench after Tanner Wall and Micah Harper.
This list also highlights the importance of recruiting high-caliber recruits. The higher the star rating, the more likely they are to be ready to contribute early. It’s no surprise that the first few names on the list were highly-coveted recruits.
-
Connecticut1 week ago
Oxford church provides sanctuary during Sunday's damaging storm
-
Politics1 week ago
2024 showdown: What happens next in the Kamala Harris-Donald Trump face-off
-
Politics1 week ago
Why won't Pennsylvania voters have results on Election Night?
-
World1 week ago
Portugal coast hit by 5.3 magnitude earthquake
-
Politics1 week ago
With 13 days until voting starts, 'election season' kicks off sooner than you think
-
Politics1 week ago
White House lawyers who advised Reagan, Bush endorse Harris over Trump in 2024 showdown
-
World1 week ago
Solingen stabbing: Three killed in attack at Germany festival
-
World1 week ago
French police officer injured in synagogue arson attack