Gov. JB Pritzker no doubt hired a lot of so-called experts and probably expensive talent to guide his new $5 million “It Only Works if You Wear It” campaign to encourage Illinoisans to wear a mask.

But the campaign isn’t spending a dime in newspapers.

Instead, it’s using various forms of broadcast, billboards and social media to spread the word.

The governor hired an ad agency to place the advertising, a world class photographer, development talent, an agency to provide creative direction, and another agency that specializes in understanding and simplifying. Then, there’s a firm that provides that data insights. And let’s not forget the COVID-19 modeling team, whatever that is.

But here’s one thing all of these media “experts” missed that the governor and his team do know, and it’s been in front of them every day — the newspapers of Illinois.

We’ve finally been told by the governor’s office that the goal is to reach a younger demographic and that’s why print advertising in newspapers wasn’t part of the mix. Ironically, a study conducted by Civis that was used to guide the campaign showed that with the exception of adults 65 and over there is little difference in the percentage of mask wearing between various age groups.

They missed the newspapers that covered his daily news conferences to update Illinoisans about COVID-19, and more importantly, they missed the local newspapers statewide like the Rochelle News-Leader, Ogle County Life, Ashton Gazette, Amboy News and Mendota Reporter that kept every community informed about the pandemic. These hometown newspapers provide a fact-based lifeline of much needed information, which we all know is critical in times of crisis, and in many cases our local newspapers are delivered and read every week in our local schools by students.

Analytics and metrics are great, but how do you measure what’s staring you in the face every single day?  Maybe the analysts involved in this campaign should find a way to measure the impact that newspapers have had in communicating critical information to the governor’s communities across the state. That would be a very substantial metric.

Recently, the City of Rochelle ran an independent survey asking local residents where they looked to find local city news. Outside of the city’s own social media page, the Rochelle News-Leader was the second most relied upon source by a wide margin over all other local media options.

We understand the value of broadcast to the governor’s campaign. Just like newspapers, broadcast media have been there every step of the way to get the message out about COVID-19 and the state’s response. But there were no reporters from Facebook or any other social media platform at any of the governor’s news conferences. If we missed them, we apologize. In fact, it seems the only fact-based reporting on social media is from credible news outlets like newspapers and broadcast outlets, and it didn’t cost the state anything. Yet, Mark Zuckerberg profits while Illinois newspapers continue to struggle with economic hardships exacerbated by the pandemic. 

So, newspapers have carried the message, but when it’s time to get the benefit of a paid campaign they weren’t included.

This is just the latest of a series of snubs of newspapers from state government. Others include the secretary of state’s recent campaign to reopen facilities, and the Department of Aging’s effort to report elder abuse.

The more than 400 newspapers in Illinois deserve much better treatment and respect from the governor, who has relied heavily on print journalists to deliver the much-needed fact-based information during these trying times.