* This SJ-R story caught my eye…

The State of the Nation Project released its 2026 State of the States report in June, which compares each state when it comes to 15 key topics. […]

Civil Liberties

This is one of the few topics that has only a single measure: freedom of the press.

Illinois’ progress in this area has been negative.

According to that story, Illinois ranked 47th in the nation in freedom of the press.

* So, I went to the State of the Nation Project’s website, and it indeed does have Illinois ranked 47th in the nation…

Summary of Results.

This is one of the few topics that has only a single measure: freedom of the press. Illinois’s progress in this area has been negative.

Freedom of the Press

Specific Measure

Rate of press freedom violations per 1 million population, including assaults and arrests of reporters, damage to their equipment, and subpoenas/legal orders for anonymous sources and restricting coverage.

(Source: Authors’ analysis of US Press Freedom Tracker data).

Why did we include this measure?

The press is seen as so important to holding the government accountable and keeping the public informed that it is sometimes called the “fourth estate,” placing it on par with other “estates,” including the government itself. The specific measure we chose was the only one we could find that consistently and objectively measured press freedom. Other data sources focus on assessments of press freedoms by experts and reporters themselves, but these are more subjective and difficult to interpret than our measure, which focuses on actual, documented events that seem to violate press freedoms.

* So I went to that source, the US Press Freedom Tracker. That data claims just two incidents in Illinois this year. But both of those incidents are actually the same incident…

That assault was horrific…

Three men were charged on July 1, 2026, in connection with an attack two days earlier on a WBBM-TV photographer and reporter in Chicago, Illinois.

The crew from the CBS-owned station was preparing for a live shot when two of the men approached, threatened them, directed racial slurs at the photographer and began destroying their equipment.

One, Jon Twist, faces two felony charges — a hate crime and criminal damage to property — along with a misdemeanor charge of resisting a police officer, according to the nonprofit news site Book Club Chicago and other news outlets.

* But a whole lot of other states had more reported incidents than Illinois: California and New Jersey each had 67 incidents. Minesota had 24. DC had 15. Oregon had 8. Virginia had 5. New York had 4. Maryland had 3.

And somehow we’re 47th?