An Illinois town was at risk of becoming a local news desert. Then a startup newspaper began publishing. – WBEZ (Chicago)

“I think if you have a situation where local news outlets are run by, you know, some guy who’s got a part-time job elsewhere, and he spends, you know, 10 hours a week working on it, and then there’s another three or four people doing the same, that’s healthy,” said Mark Jacob, a long-time editor at the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times, and now a member of Illinois’ Local Journalism Task Force. “That’s people chipping in to make their own news environment better, and we just need to see that. America needs local news.”