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A new statewide collaboration
Seven public media stations in Illinois are partners in a $715,000 grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) to launch a journalism collaboration titled the Illinois Newsroom, led by Illinois Public Media (WILL-AM-FM-TV).
Illinois Newsroom (working title) will expand the partner stations’ in-depth reports, series, investigations and video programs for all platforms. It will also bring together community members, civic leaders, students, and journalists through events, discussions and workshops around issues of importance to them. With funding from CPB and the public media partner newsrooms, eight journalists will focus on reporting across three key topic areas: political issues, education, and health and environment.
The collaborating public media stations will work with the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting (Champaign-Urbana) and with Brant Houston, Knight Chair in Investigative and Enterprise Reporting at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign College of Media, opening up opportunities to students and faculty across the state. The collaboration will produce journalism for partner stations and work with national programs, including PBS NewsHour and NPR’s Morning Edition and All Things Considered.
Read more at Illinois Public Media
Free webinar from Poynter on the U.S. Visa System
Our own Brant Houston will host this free webinar at Poynter on January 13.
From Poynter:
"More than 9 million people a year legally enter the U.S. There are dozens of types of visas in the U.S. system, deeply affecting nearly every community and many U.S. industries.
With the continuing concerns over immigration, journalists need the resources and knowledge to report on the visa programs that allow some to pay their way in and force others to wait years for a change in status.
This Webinar will cover student visas, worker visas and lesser known visas like the investor visa, which gives immigrants residency in exchange for an investment in the U.S. economy."
Sign up now https://www.newsu.org/courses/reporting-visas
Your donation counts double
Your donations are matched dollar for dollar thanks to a generous grant from Ethics and Excellence. Help us raise $2,500 by Dec. 31 with a gift of $25, $50 or $100. Donations are tax-deductible and can be made via PayPal (no account needed) by visiting http://bit.ly/givetomidwest. Thanks!
Investigating meat, poultry and eggs
A new federal report released Dec. 10 continues to cite the federal food safety for "inconsistent oversight". Although there have been some improvements made to the nation's food safety system, there continues to be a need for improvement.
"Ensuring the safety of poultry products is particularly important because poultry products contaminated with pathogens cause more deaths than any other commodity; specifically, Salmonella and Campylobacter cause more than 2 million human illnesses per year," the report stated.
Take a look back at our 2013 reporter's guide on investigating some of these federal food safety systems.
Jurisdiction and responsibility can fall to more than one agency, depending on where in the distribution chain a problem was detected. The process also varies depending on the end product. For instance the inspection process for shell eggs -- eggs eaten by consumers in one form or another -- is different than that of hatching eggs -- eggs that will result in a live animal intended for meat production.
Opinion: New vaccine for pigs could help relieve prices at the grocery store // By Dave Dickey
It has been a tough couple of years for U.S. livestock producers.
First a severe drought in 2013 shrunk the U.S. cattle herd to its lowest level in six decades. Along the way beef prices at the retail level hit an all-time high.
Then livestock producers were hit with a double whammy.
Avian influenza – better known as bird flu – decimated the nation's poultry barns.
First detected in December of 2014, the virus was responsible for more than 30 million deaths in at least sixteen states.
The result for the consumer has been a shortage of eggs with prices topping $3 a dozen. Hog producers also have felt some pain.
Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea Virus has killed an estimated 5 million U.S. hogs in 26 states since it was discovered in May 2013. Consumers initially saw higher pork prices until hog producers responded to the outbreak by bringing heavier than typical pigs to market to make up for the losses.
And foreign markets acted predictably to the outbreaks; many nations stopping import of U.S. poultry and pigs.
A tough couple of years to be sure. So when the University of Missouri announced Dec. 8 that it has discovered a vaccine that prevents piglets from contracting Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS) that's big news.
The vaccine prevents pigs from producing the protein CD163 which is necessary for the illness to spread. The University of Missouri wants to commercialize the vaccine and has signed a deal with Genus plc to do just that.
Here's hoping they are successful.
Not only could it save the hog industry hundreds of millions of dollars annually, but it also is a step toward securing more stable prices at the retail level.
