Illinois Code § 5

§ 5.

Findings. The General Assembly finds and declares: (a) Illinois benefits from robust local news services that provide trusted and essential information to the community that limits corruption, encourages citizen participation, helps combat misinformation, and mitigates community and individual alienation. (b) Local news in Illinois and throughout the country is struggling with newspaper advertising dropping 82% nationally since 2000, contributing to a 57% drop in the number of reporters at newspapers and thousands of closures. (c) Local news outlets are trusted sources of information for communities throughout Illinois and advertising spending with these outlets carries a substantial benefit for the effective dissemination of important government information to the communities it serves. (d) Government initiatives to increase spending on local news advertising have been manifestly successful in both supporting local news outlets and improving the information diet of communities in several major cities. (e) The public has a right to know where government is spending its advertising dollars and what proportion of those dollars are going to local news outlets in this State. (Source: P.A. 104-77, eff. 1-1-26.)