Misleading campaign mailings circulating

Shoved in your mailbox, the Chicago City Wire looks like any other local newspaper. Printed on a newsprint and folded like a traditional tabloid, its front page reads: “Real data, real news.” 

Conservative groups, critical of current Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, have taken to this form of misleading election propaganda. Through printed publications, political action committees like the Chicago City Wire blast Democratic candidates and stances that support topics from a criminal justice reform bill to gender identity. 

In the weeks leading up to the Nov. 8 election, conservative-funded mailers have been widely sent to Illinois voters. Styled as newspapers, these politicized mailings are not marked as campaign material and have gained traction in areas where local newspapers have been on the decline. 

“[These mailings are] put out by this right-wing network of newspapers that we all know exists in Illinois, and they’re trying to take over where local, real journalism unfortunately has receded,” Gov. Pritzker said in an interview with NBC5.

As these mailings continue to circulate, there has also been a growth in politics-oriented and unbiased news sources this election cycle.

Students are encouraged to actively seek out credible and local sources. 

“It’s important to look at if the organization follows the basic, principal journalistic ethics: does it retract factual mistakes, does it have a robust legal staff that keeps it on its toes? Where does it get its news from?” history teacher Cynthia Jurisson said. “Those are really important questions, so just a lot of the stuff you see [on social media] doesn’t follow those principles.”

According to Dr. Jurisson, some news sites have advertisements that use manipulative or deceptive headlines to encourage viewer clicking.

“They want you to click and click and click, and they know that more [emotionally manipulative] headlines cause people to click, and advertisers’ fees to advertise are based often on traffic — how many clicks, how many listeners, how many viewers you get,” she said.

Dr. Jurisson emphasized the importance of fact-checking and developing familiarity with established and credible news outlets, specifically utilizing exterior fact-checking sites. 

“You can look at sites that rate the credibility of news, like say factcheck.org is a great site. Their attempt is to say, ‘Let’s determine if this is factually correct reporting,’” she said.

As the availability of local news declines, national news outlets and social media have taken their place. With this shift come concerns about credibility and accuracy. 

Susan Augustine, a high school librarian, said, “I do think people are starting to realize that maybe social media isn’t the best place to find reliable stories and that they sometimes have to dig a little bit deeper or look at multiple sources to get accuracy.” 

News outlets cannot be completely unbiased, but they hold a responsibility to acknowledge and try to prevent biases in their reporting, according to Dr. Jurisson.

“What’s best is to acknowledge we have biases, ones we are aware of and ones we’re not aware of, so we know that news sources also can not be completely unbiased,” she said.

She said that sources like The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal both have transparent editorial policies, which distinguishes them from being manipulative. 

Ms. Augustine emphasized the importance of broadening the array of news media individuals consume by listening to political debates and interviews. 

“Let’s say you read the [Chicago] Sun-Times, diversify that by reading the [Chicago] Tribune or reading the Hyde Park Herald, which is going to have information on local candidates,” she said.

When researching the major candidates in the upcoming election, Ms. Augustine suggests using a trusted organization to research the ballot. 

“If there’s an organization that you trust, like the League of Women Voters, they have people within their organization that do the research and determine who they think is a good candidate and they will give you a list,” Ms. Augustine said, “and when you don’t have a lot of time to do all the investigation yourself, that can be really helpful.”

Additionally, Dr. Jurisson recommended subscribing to long-form journalism publications and websites to access and support credible journalism. 

“There are journals – The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Harpers, a number of long-form essay journals that have similar principles of journalistic integrity,” Dr. Jurisson said. “You want to have credible news yourself but we need to support responsible, integrity-filled journalism.”