Northern Illinois News Association

07/08/2025

More bad news for student journalism

Purdue ended paper distribution and parking passes for Exponent staff. IU rejected student-approved funding for the Indiana Daily Student.

07/04/2025

Watch for our second Documents Project series on the U.S. Constitution starting soon.

06/18/2025

MAKE ROOM FOR THE BOARD: NINA Board member Roger Ruthhart: News can't just be what people suck up from any online source

Roger Ruthhart is the NINA Board’s longest serving member. Since 1986, Roger has devoted uncountable hours to NINA, serving in key roles (including Board president and treasurer), speaking to journalism classes at Northern Illinois University and other universities, and advocating for local journalism and the people who do that work.

Retired from newsroom roles, Roger was managing editor at The Dispatch/The Rock Island Argus in the Quad Cities and managing editor at the Moline Dispatch Publishing Co.

He recently shared career and Board insights with NINA. Here are highlights:

Q. What prompted you to join NINA and serve on its Board?

RR: In the Fall of 1986 I was invited to join the NINA board by Marx Gibson, a very good friend and editor at the Kankakee Daily Journal and later the Joliet Herald-News. I had just been hired as managing editor at The Rock Island Argus in the Quad Cities, a member of the Small Newspaper Group (SNG) along with Kankakee. About the same time, I joined the Illinois Associated Press Board, was later selected as a member of the Lincoln League of Journalists and served there until I retired.

Q. Tell us about your background: jobs, NINA roles, etc. And what are you doing now?

RR: I'm happy to say that I worked during the Golden Age of Newspapers — from Watergate into the exciting early days of the internet. Our papers in the Quad Cities were among the first in the country to post news to an "Online Bulletin Board." Before that, I grew up in Barrington, Ill., and graduated from Bradley University in Peoria; married my wife, Debbie; and raised three kids. My career started at Lakeland Newspapers, a group of 15 weeklies in the suburbs in Lake County, Ill., and southern Wisconsin, where I went from reporter to regional editor to managing editor over 10 years. Twice during that time our papers were named the best weekly in Illinois by the Illinois Press Assn.

I wanted the challenge to do this work at a daily, so I took a job as editor with the then-Times-Press in Streator, Ill., which was in the SNG. We won many state and national awards. With 110% daily circulation pe*******on, we were among the tops in the nation in the 1980s. In 1986, the Small family bought the paper in Rock Island, Ill., and over time partnered it with The Dispatch in Moline. Eventually I became managing editor for the combined paper. We did some awesome local reporting, photography and video and again won many awards, including twice winning second place in General Excellence statewide behind the Chicago Tribune from the Illinois Press Assn. We also won the General Excellence Award for dailies from NINA eight years in a row.

All of this I attribute to an amazing staff, most of which went on to work at major metro papers around the country and world, winning major awards of their own including a Pulitzer Prize. Each morning I am thrilled to be reminded, while watching the “Today” show, that Christine Romans, senior business correspondent for NBC News, was one of our interns. There were many more. The industry needs to keep creating amazing journalists. Do your part!

I retired shortly after the papers were sold to Lee Enterprises. While retired, I still enjoy the challenges of the NINA Board — now in my 39th year. Over those years I have made many amazing friends through NINA, yet challenges lie ahead.

I continue to serve as president of the not-for-profit that puts on the Rock Island Grand Prix, the world's largest go-kart street race, now in its 30th year (If you love racing, come visit on Labor Day weekend), which started out as a newspaper promotion. I also do some writing in support of the Black Hawk State Historic Site Foundation newsletter in Rock Island. It was the site of Saukenuk, the largest Native American village in North America and home to the warrior Black Hawk. Visit the park and museum!

Q. What is the biggest issue facing local journalism right now?

RR: This discussion could clearly go on forever, but the biggest issue has to be raising awareness about news literacy. News can't just be what people suck up from any online source. All I know is that the end isn't where we are today. Change will continue and the fight to survive and adjust must go on.

I'm fortunate enough to have a son in the business at The New York Times. With more than 1,700 journalists I realize The Times is in a league of its own, it’s not afraid to try new things to find the ones that work, including training our future journalists. That's what our members need to be doing at the local level — trying new things and training journalists for the future. I look around and see many towns that don't have local news — no one covering city hall, schools, high school sports, etc. and that has to end. These towns will either implode due to corruption or mismanagement and die, or someone will have the vision to create a local website or blog or whatever the next great thing is (AND provide internships). Whatever we end up with, NINA needs to be there to offer support.

06/13/2025

Congratulations to Editor in Chief Alicja Otap of the Dziennik Związkowy or Polish Daily News published in Chicago. It is the largest and the oldest Polish language newspaper in the United States established in 1908

06/12/2025

The 2025 NINA Newspaper Contest is now open!
We’d love to see your newsroom’s best work represented this year. As in years past, we offer a range of categories including some you won't find elsewhere such as humor, religion and technology. Online-exclusive content is welcome as are all digital news publications.

Members pay $6/entry; nonmembers pay $9/entry. Learn how to become a member at ninaonline.org.

Show off your best work from May 1, 2024, to April 30, 2025
Deadline: 11:59 p.m. Monday, Aug. 11

Full rules and entry instructions:

The Advanced Contest Entry is an easy, affordable way to run your on-line media contest.

06/11/2025

MAKE ROOM FOR THE BOARD: NINA Board member Margarita Mendoza: The most important aim of journalism is to pursue the truth

Longtime NINA Board member Margarita Mendoza is editor of El Observador, the Spanish-language publication of the Diocese of Rockford. El Observador’s coverage area stretches from the Mississippi River to the Fox River — and beyond, thanks to its online audience.
Margarita made NINA history, becoming the organization’s first Latina president. She began that yearlong term as NINA president on Dec. 6, 2019. “Little did I know,” she recalled, “what March 2020 would bring us.”
In the photo, Margarita (left) poses with board members Penny Wiegert and Pat Szpekowski, and the traveling rhino that went from one NINA president to the next.
She recently looked back as she shared career and Board insights with NINA. Here are highlights:

Q: What prompted you to join NINA?
MM: El Observador is a sister publication of The Observer, the official newspaper of the Rockford Diocese. I do news coverage for The Observer, and it has been a member of NINA since 1983.
Q: What are some of the biggest stories you have covered in your career?
MM: There have been many interesting stories, but I would highlight four:
First, I was fascinated by and did a story about Astronaut Tom Jones receiving Communion on the Space Shuttle Endeavour as he orbited the Earth in 1994.
Second, covering Pope Francis’ visit to Colombia in 2017 was fulfilling.
Third, we cover the Silver and Gold Jubilee Mass held in our diocese each year. The Mass celebrates Catholic couples with 25-plus years of marriage. Some have been married for as long as 76 years! Those couples are still sharing their love with their children and families and are living proof that love, marriage and family are worthy.
Fourth, we covered a family crossing the U.S./Mexico border with hundreds of other people.
Q: What's the biggest issue facing local journalism right now?
MM: I call it “an identity crisis.” And it goes beyond local journalism. Let me explain.
Some people, due to easy access to technology, feel that they are journalists, and they report about every single thing and the audience consumes that information and often trusts them.
On the other hand, some journalists act like influencers and it seems like they have forgotten the principles of impartiality, objectivity, and checking as many sources as possible — including those you may disagree with.
The most important aim of journalism is to pursue the truth. The role of journalists is to be truthful, accurate and objective. Nowadays, anyone with access to technology can do “journalism.”
Media outlets still have the respect of readers, viewers and listeners. We need to differentiate ourselves from influencers by investigating the facts and constantly reminding ourselves of the basic difference between opinion and information, even if it does not align with our personal ideology.
It is a huge responsibility and problems start when we forget who we are.
I mentioned this during a recent NINA Board meeting. When Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the White House last February, a reporter criticized his outfit because he was not wearing a suit and tie. President Donald Trump told Zelensky: “I do like your clothing.” A few days later, the front-page headline of a very important national newspaper said: “Ukranians show off their ‘suits’ after Trump’s criticism of Zelensky’s attire.” The headline did not report what really happened. Instead, a media outlet, one more time, was creating division and hate.
Report the truth, even if you personally don’t like it, because you are a journalist. Period.
Q: Tell us about your term as NINA president.
MM: When I started as president of NINA on Dec. 6, 2019, little did I know what March 2020 would bring us. I remember around summertime 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic turned life upside down, some Board members raised their voices, asking about stopping our meetings and events. I understood those members who were concerned, because there was uncertainty. However, I didn’t see it that way. Consequently, we continued our online meetings and events. Since then, we have had Board meetings on Zoom, and the awards ceremony for NINA’s annual contest in 2020 was virtual. In this era, technology is a great tool to continue doing your activities remotely.
Q: Why do you believe journalism is so crucial today?
MM: If the truth sets us free, what would happen to our society if we did not report the truth? The opposite, right?
The U.S. is the bastion of freedom and capitalism. That is the reason why many immigrants from around the world move to this spectacular country. For many reasons, immigrants like me — I’m originally from Colombia — did not stay in the value systems we were born into. We prefer this system.
Q: When you come from other realities, you truly value this country, and you can also sense those who hate the US and have moved here to destroy it from inside.
That is why we can never forget that journalism is not to promote ideologies. Reporting with journalistic rigor is essential. Because the truth sets us free.

06/10/2025

Congratulations to all!

Chronicle Media staff members collected 20 awards, including five first-place finishes, at the Illinois Press Association’s annual convention held Thursday at the Par-A-Dice Hotel and Casino in East Peoria. The Chronicle’s 13 papers fall under three different contest categories based on circulat...

06/08/2025

Congratulations to the Daily Herald journalism team!

06/06/2025

Such a Sunday tradition in Chicago on Sunday mornings to visit our newstand and buy the papers. A lost tradition.

The 6-by-6-foot newsstand that owner Mike Kaage’s grandfather bought for $100 in 1943 “has been my life since I was a little kid." Now 68, he plans to spend more time babysitting his grandkids.

06/05/2025

Today in the news:

The Knight Center for the Future of News aims to help strengthen local and regional journalism by bringing educators, research and newsrooms together