July 6, 2026
I was recently talking to some local colleagues about some federal public policy and budget issues that were in play and something struck me. Whenever I shifted it to the impact a specific issue had on Chicago or them personally, I realized that they really weren’t cognizant of it or maybe didn’t care or think it was important. Man, how things have changed from the days of all politics being local.
When I was a student at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, a lot of my professors, including my faculty advisor Dick Hainey, were grizzled former Chicago newspaper reporters and city desk editors. They constantly emphasized making national news local such as if there were bills on affordable housing in D.C. or Springfield, figure out how to make it relevant to Englewood, Edgewater, Uptown, Lake View or Humboldt Park.
As part of a Medill local news initiative, my alma mater reported that since 2005, Illinois has lost 36% of its newspapers, amounting to 232 local print outlets shutting down or merging. That is a significant reduction and probably a major culprit in why many people are more knowledgeable about federal public policy than local.
Maybe I’m in the minority or just showing my age, regardless of whether you “identify” as Republican, Democrat, MAGA or Independent, I wish people would think more about how a national or state public policy affects them as a resident of River North, Peoria, Little Village, Metropolis, East St. Louis or Naperville. Who would have thought a few years ago that your political ideology would essentially become your hometown or neighborhood.
When I worked at the Illinois Department of Commerce & Community Affairs for then Governor Jim Edgar, I literally went to all 102 counties in the state and a lot of it was spent communicating to people how what the administration was doing impacted their community. I also talked to a lot of journalists in Springfield back then who represented local news media during legislative sessions to help explain how a particular bill impacted the towns they represented.
I wonder if the days of politics and public policy being local are over. It seems it’s far more important now to identify with an ideology that has a national presence. But what if a policy that aligned with your ideological avatar was actually bad for your community (or you)? I wonder which side most would break to because it’s starting to happen – a lot.
Thanks for reading this article. Hopefully, I didn’t let Prof. Hainey (RIP) down and kept it local.