Skip to content
  • Subscribe
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Youtube
  • Instagram
  • Email
  • Home
  • News
  • Opinion
  • Entertainment
  • Features
  • Advertise
  • Subscribe to Ray’s Columns
Suburban Chicagoland

Suburban Chicagoland

Original News, Features & Opinion on Chicago, Illinois and America

  • About
    • About
    • Advertise
    • Our Writers
      • Ray Hanania
      • Bill Lipinski
      • Biography: Aaron Hanania
    • Terms of Service
    • Privacy Policy
    • Reach Out
  • Sections
    • Events
    • Opinion
    • News
    • Features
    • Seniors
    • Comic Strip
  • Library
    • “MIdnight Flight” Online Book
      • Midnight Flight Book Overview
      • Midnight Flight Introduction
      • Midnight Flight Chapter 1
      • Midnight Flight Chapter 2
      • Midnight Flight Chapter 3
      • Midnight Flight Chapter 4
      • Midnight Flight Chapter 5
      • Midnight Flight Chapter 6
      • Midnight Flight Chapter 7
      • Midnight Flight Chapter 8
      • Midnight Flight Chapter 9
      • Midnight Flight Chapter 10
      • Midnight Flight Chapter 11
      • Midnight Flight Chapter 12
      • Midnight Flight Chapter 13
    • Villages, Cities & Towns
    • Federal Office Holders
    • County Officials
    • Legislators
  • Subscribe to Ray’s Columns
  • Comment
  • Podcast
    • Ray Hanania on Politics
    • Two Guys on Politics
    • Hanania on Tiktok
  • News Wire
  • Archive 2004-2013
  • Toggle search form
  • Michael Frerichs Illinois Treasurer
    Illinois State Treasurer Michael Frerichs Announces $50 Million Loan Program to Help Federal Workers During Shutdown Economy
  • Kat Abughazaleh 9th DIstrict Congress 2026 candidate democrat
    Federal Grand Jury in Chicago Indicts Six Individuals on Charges of Impeding Federal Agent Engaged in Immigration Enforcement Operations Civil Rights
  • 05-23-25 Jeffery M. Leving
    Little Girl Rescued from Feared Danger and Reunited with Dad News
  • Hastings insurance legislation
    Hastings announces legislation to ensure fair homeowners insurance rates for Illinois families Business
  • Mahnoor Ahmad campaign photo
    Mahnoor Ahmad runs for DuPage County Board seat Democrat
  • Sunday, October 26, the Village of Orland Park formally rededicated its Village Hall in honor of the late former Mayor Fredrick T. Owens
    Village of Orland Park Rededicates Village Hall in Honor of Late Former Mayor Fredrick T. Owens Government
  • Fire at townhome at 13900 block of Berkhansted Court in Orland Park, just before midnight on Monday, Oct. 27, 2025
    Firefighter treated for dehydration battling townhouse fire in Orland Park – no residents injured Fire
  • Firefighters with the Orland Fire Protection District who responded to a fire in an apartment at 15200 block of Al Camino Terrace on Saturday morning said the next day that they did find a kitten that needed respiratory aid that they saved.
    FIRE UPDATE: Fire District releases photos of kitten saved from Orland Park apartment fire Saturday Features
  • two-story apartment building on the 15200 block of El Camino Terrace in Orland Park
    Orland Park apartment fire Saturday morning, no injuries Fire
  • Illinois Senator Michael Hastings addressing the Orland Township Democratic Organization Wednesday Oct. 12, 2022
    Hastings calls for bipartisan action to protect Illinois families from SNAP benefit shutdown Baby Boomers
  • Illinios Industrial Energy Consumers, information ad
    Get information on the Illinois Energy Omnibus Bill in Springfield Business
  • State Senator Mike Porfirio secured over $20 million to support infrastructure improvements and construction in the 11th Senate District.
    Senator Porfirio applauds more than $20 million in infrastructure repairs coming to the 11th District News
  • Dad and daughter reunited Lebving Law firm photo
    Little Girl Recovered and Reunited with Dad After Long Separation Dads' Rights
  • 11-03-25 OFPD Coffee living alone
    Orland Fire hosts meeting on helping Seniors who live alone Nov. 5 Baby Boomers
  • State Senator Michael Hastings introduces law to revive long dormant and degraded Tinley Park Mental Health Center into a Sports Park for the community. Photo courtesy of the State Senate President Don Harmon
    Hastings secures $250,000 grant for Easterseals Academy’s Tinley Park campus Health
State Senator Martin Sandoval, Lyons Mayor Chris Getty, McCook Mayor Jeff Tobolski, and District 103 Board member Jorge Torres denounced the failed leadership of the District 103 School Board majority led by Marge Hubacek.

Media must change its focus from Chicago to the suburbs

Posted on December 11, 2020December 13, 2020 By Ray Hanania No Comments on Media must change its focus from Chicago to the suburbs
SHARE THIS STORY
            
 
  

Media must change its focus from Chicago to the suburbs

The news media needs a reboot, especially in Chicagoland. I’m tired of seeing Chicago news dominate the TV stations in Chicago when the real news stories are out in the neighborhoods and in the suburbs. The TV News Media needs to change its focus on put more emphasis on coverage of neighborhoods and suburbs and stop wasting our time with the daily stories about heinous murders in Chicago. There is more news than Chicago’s sick society

By Ray Hanania

About 40 years ago when I first entered journalism, my focus was politics, specifically Chicago politics because Chicago was the hub of all news.

Back then, journalism worked. Today, that system is broken. I argue we need to fix it by refocusing Chicago’s TV stations away from wasting our time with worthless downtown news and put the focus on the suburbs.

Today, Chicago is no longer the most important part of the state. It’s a leech syphoning off resources, talents and tax dollars to cover its broken system and losing war against crime.

I’m tired of listening to the repetitive stories from Chicago. Everyday it’s the same garbage. What I don’t get enough of are stories from the communities, Chicago’s neighborhoods and the Suburbs.

State Senator Martin Sandoval, Lyons Mayor Chris Getty, McCook Mayor Jeff Tobolski, and District 103 Board member Jorge Torres denounced the failed leadership of the District 103 School Board majority led by Marge Hubacek.
More than a dozen TV news stations and media covered a press conference called to denounce failed leadership at a suburban school district, a story the region wants to hear more than about the repetitive coverage of endless heinous crimes in Chicago.

Chicago’s suburbs, today, are more important than the city. The mainstream news media, mainly the TV stations, doesn’t get it.

Just look at the Chicagoland media industry system.

The media was divided into three levels. National, Chicago regional news, and community news.

Back then, media enjoyed big budgets and staffs. The national media had bureaus all over the world. There was stiff competition so when we heard the word “scoop,” the news story was literally a real scoop.

Chicago’s daily news media also enjoyed big budgets and staffs. They could afford to cover the Chicago, which was for all intents and purposes the news capitol of Illinois. But they also covered the suburbs.

The community news media, which covered Chicago’s neighborhoods and the suburbs, were expanded until the mid-1990s.

It was a predatory system, too. The national media would steal or “big foot” stories reported by the regional news media, like Chicago, and the regional Chicago media would big foot” stories from the community news media, which was never given any respect by journalisms arrogant industry elites.

These days, however, the media system is dysfunctional. It is in disarray regionally and nationally. Staffs and budgets have shrunk, and they survive by exaggerating things like murder, crime, racism and partisan politics even more than they did before. It’s one reason why the today’s media has become advocates for politicians on the Left, why they hated President Trump so much, although honestly, Trump did a poor job of getting his message out.

Some of his Tweets read like the imbecilic blathering of midnight drunks. Notice how the media has suddenly shifted away from the Left to be closer to the Center? (Isn’t it ironic that after all of the liberal media scare and hysteria, the “RightWing” Supreme Court did not violate its commitment to justice and they voted against recognizing Trumps efforts to block the vote in Texas?)

But even all that won’t save the media. The only way to save the media is to refocus the priorities and put the emphasis on the community news, mainly in the suburbs. It should happen across the country, too, because the same patterns of boring news reporting from the big cities is being overwhelmed by better stories from the suburbs which don’t get enough attention but are increasingly becoming more significant.

I’m not blaming the reporters or journalists themselves for this need to refocus. I’m blaming the system that doesn’t work and needs to be changed.

I remember when the Chicago Sun-Times first hired me in 1985 from my job as City Hall reporter at the Daily Southtown to write a political column, and later cover Chicago City Hall. The publisher wanted me to move downtown, leaving my home in suburban Orland Park.

 “You need to get a condo right here in the Loop to become a big columnist. The Talk of the Town.”

I disagreed arguing the news was still driven by one important factor. What was the most compelling story? Not where was the story?

One day it would shift from Chicago to the suburbs where many of Chicago’s residents had already fled to escape the vicious crime and the outrageous costs of living.

Many media tried briefly but gave up in the 1990s because of costs. Eventually they closed many community papers to save money. At the same time, ownership shrunk to five big corporations and 16 billionaires who put their interests first and reduced concerns for the neighborhoods and communities.

That was their mistake. Today, the important stories are in the suburbs. The political clout is in the suburbs. The most important voters live in the suburbs. They want more than stories of crime, murder and racism.

The Internet has given the community media the same clout as the big Chicago dailies and TV stations. I get the majority of my news from the internet and from community media. Even everyday people on social media do a better job than the big dailies and TV stations in reporting news.

Community news is the future. One day, the major news media might understand that before it takes its last gasp and dies.

(Ray Hanania is an award winning former Chicago City Hall reporter. He writes columns on mainstream issues for the Southwest News Newspaper Group, the Patch and Suburban Chicagoland.com, and on Middle East issues as the US Special Correspondent for the Arab News. Visit his personal website hub at www.Hanania.com.)

newswire info
  • Author
  • Recent Posts
Ray Hanania
Ray Hanania
Ray Hanania is an award-winning opinion columnist, author & former Chicago City Hall reporter (1977-1992). A veteran who served during the Vietnam War and the recipient of four SPJ Peter Lisagor Awards for column writing, Hanania writes weekly opinion columns on mainstream American & Chicagoland topics for the Southwest News-Herald, Des Plaines Valley News, the Regional News, The Reporter Newspapers, and Suburban Chicagoland.  

His award winning columns can be found at www.HANANIA.COM Subscribe FREE today

Hanania also writes about Middle East issues for the Arab News, and The Arab Daily News criticizing government policies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Hanania was named "Best Ethnic American Columnist" by the New America Media in November 2007, and is the 2009 recipient of the SPJ National Sigma Delta Chi Award for column writing.

Email Ray Hanania at [email protected].

Follow RayHanania at Twitter
Ray Hanania
Latest posts by Ray Hanania (see all)
  • Illinois State Treasurer Michael Frerichs Announces $50 Million Loan Program to Help Federal Workers During Shutdown - October 30, 2025
  • Federal Grand Jury in Chicago Indicts Six Individuals on Charges of Impeding Federal Agent Engaged in Immigration Enforcement Operations - October 30, 2025
  • Little Girl Rescued from Feared Danger and Reunited with Dad - October 30, 2025
NPV: 66
  • Tweet

SHARE THIS STORY
            
 
  
 
 
 
           
Blogger, Commentary, Crime, General Topics, Media Bias, Opinion, Racism, Radio, Suburban Chicagoland, Television Tags:Chicago, Chicago crime, community, daily newspapers, major news media, neighborhood, news media, refocus, TV stations

Post navigation

Previous Post: Orland Park Village Trustee Daniel Calandriello Will Not Seek Another Term
Next Post: Orland Township Helping Protect Residents During the Holidays

Related Posts

  • US Rep. Thomas Massie, Republican from Kentucky, sponsor of bill to eliminate double taxation on Social Security
    Vote against any member of Congress who doesn’t support this Social Security protection bill Baby Boomers
  • William O. Lipinski former Congressman from Illinois (5th and later 3rd District). Photo courtesy of Wikipedia
    Right from the Middle: Elementary School essay contest on America’s Greatest President now open Bill Lipinski
  • Politics at Moraine Valley? News
  • Southwest Regional Publishing co-owner Mike Thiessen (right) accepts the Illinois Press Association's top General Excellence Award for non-daily newspapers on June 5. Credit: Provided
    Southwest Regional Publishing wins top General Excellence award for nondaily newspapers Chicago
  • Guitars are silenced News
  • Christopher Columbus statue Chicago Grant Park. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia
    Defending the statue of Christopher Columbus Blogger

More Related Articles

Amazon.com's "Day 1" tower in Seattle, WA in January 2017. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia Clifford Law to sue Amazon after employee is killed by tornado at downstate distribution center Environment
Congressman Dan Lipinski, challenger Marie Newman, faced-off in the March 20, 2018 Democratic Primary election in Illinois's 3rd Congressional District. Lipinski won by a slim margin with 50.9 percent of the vote. War heats up between Lipinski and challenger Newman Chicago
La Crepe Bistro in Homer Glen, 13957 S Bell Rd, Homer Glen, IL 60491-8503, +1 708-966-4866 La Crepe Bistro offers genuine French cuisine in Southwest suburbs Cook County
Former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, right, joins 6th District Congressional candidate Sean Kaspar (left) GOP candidate Kaspar says more must be done to fight crime in 6th District Chicago
Dads' Rights Attorney Jeffery M. Leving Out-of-state father wins custody of childduring and after neglect investigation Chicago
Ray Hanania on Politics podcast logo Podcast: The assault of John Kass and the hypocrisy of the Left Blogger

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Login with your Social ID
  • OPINION
  • Cook County Treasurer Maria Papas
    Your Mortgage Company May Pay Your Taxes — But You Still Need to Watch
    October 17, 2025
  • Mohammed Faheem The Lightning Strike Radio Show small
    The Politicization of the Nobel Peace Prize — and Trump’s Fury Over Losing Again
    October 11, 2025
  • 06-04-25 Two Guys on Politics Background Zoom LOGO with images
    Video Podcast: Trump Kimmel Kirk Great American Divide Illegal Aliens polling and Illegal Aliens and ICE
    September 20, 2025
  • Illinois House Speaker Emanuel "Chris" Welch speaking at a West Side affordable housing dedication
    Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch, one of the best candidates to become Illinois Governor
    September 7, 2025
  • Cook County Treasurer Maria Papas
    What You’re Missing on Your Property Tax Bill
    September 5, 2025
Subscribe to Ray Hanania's column graphic

Enter Your Email to Subscribe to Ray Hanania’s Columns

  • The-Kings-Pawn-Book-300-x-300.png

Mohammed Faheem The Lightning Strike Radio

  • NEWS
  • Michael Frerichs Illinois Treasurer
    Illinois State Treasurer Michael Frerichs Announces $50 Million Loan Program to Help Federal Workers During Shutdown
    October 30, 2025
  • Kat Abughazaleh 9th DIstrict Congress 2026 candidate democrat
    Federal Grand Jury in Chicago Indicts Six Individuals on Charges of Impeding Federal Agent Engaged in Immigration Enforcement Operations
    October 30, 2025
  • 05-23-25 Jeffery M. Leving
    Little Girl Rescued from Feared Danger and Reunited with Dad
    October 30, 2025
  • Hastings insurance legislation
    Hastings announces legislation to ensure fair homeowners insurance rates for Illinois families
    October 29, 2025
  • Mahnoor Ahmad campaign photo
    Mahnoor Ahmad runs for DuPage County Board seat
    October 29, 2025
John Kass Columns

Order the book PoweR PR; Ethnic Activists Guide to Strategic Communications

YOUTUBE VIDEOS

CLICK TO SUBSCRIBE TO RAY HANANIA'S YOUTUBE VIDEOS


Click here to view the video on YouTube or use the widget below.

Follow Ray Hanania at
Twitter
Facebook
TitkTok
BlueSky
RayHanania Columns

Creative Commons License
All works on this website is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Do not edit original work. Give credit to the original source.

Categories

Copyright © 2022 Suburban Chicagoland & Urban Strategies Group

Powered by PressBook Premium theme