Posts filed under 'Uncategorized'
April 28th, 2008
This 180-degree project came out of a lightly attended Editorial Board meeting. Linda Cunningham, Judy Emerson and I were the only ones who met that day.
Judy mentioned she had talked to an attorney who said he could set up an interview with Karl Fort, the leader of the Gangster Disciples in the early ’90s.
Fort’s name had us reminiscing about the “Rout at dawn” headline that led the newspaper on July 29, 1993 and how a similar arrest a few years ago hardly grabbed our attention and didn’t even make it to Page 1.
Linda talked about Fort’s influence on the drug trade, gangs and crime in general. We talked about how much Rockford has changed over the years. Linda said it’s time we took a look at how Winnebago County came to have the highest crime rate in the state. The seed for the project was planted and started to take root over the next few weeks.
Since then there has been a lot of conversation, brainstorming and hard work by Judy and others on the reporting staff. We started talking about crime, but the project has grown to envelop all aspects of life in the Rock River Valley.
The project ties in closely to our Editorial Agenda. Lots of work needs to be done yet, but stories should be available soon.
We eagerly await your reaction and suggestions.
April 28th, 2008
My role in this projects is to collect numbers. Just in this morning is a bevy of religious data from The Glenmary Research Center.
According to Glenmary, the number of religious bodies with churches in Boone, Ogle and Winnebago counties grew from 38 in 1980 to 47 in 1990 and to 53 in 2000.
These numbers do not include historically African American churches who rarely respond to Glenmary’s surveys.
Among the religious groups now with churches in the Rock River Valley that didn’t have a presence here in 1980:
American Baptist Association, American Carpatho-Russion Orthodox Greek Catholic Church, Apostolic Christian Church of America Inc., Baha’i, Buddhism, Church of God of Prophecy, Community of Christ, Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, Muslim, National Association of Free Will Baptists, New Testament Association of Independent Baptist Churches, Serbian Orthodox Church in the U.S.A. and The Wesleyan Church.
The Catholic Church remains the single largest religious body with 78,151 adherents as of 2000. That was up from 47,880 in 1980.
April 24th, 2008
    We are working full-speed right now on a new project aimed at finding creative solutions to entrenched problems facing Rockford and the Rock River Valley.
We’re calling it a campaign because it will be bold, and go far beyond the usual five-part series in the newspaper. We’re taking a hard look at crime, the schools, the local economy, government and sense of place. Where are we now? How did we get here? What will it take to move the community forward?
We want to answer those questions and more. We hope to break new ground and we want our readers to be with us every step of the way, hence this new blog.
Over the next few days, you’ll be hearing from the reporters, editors, photographers and designers who readying the project for launch. As they say, watch this space.
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