Change most often comes in increments, and the progress of incremental change is tough to judge without taking a pause to reflect. Before legalization, once aspect of cannabis news coverage I loathed was when professional news broadcasters would snicker, make jokes, or lose all seriousness as they reported cannabis news, a pattern I never noticed with any other news topics. Even if the news coverage was positive, that type of reporting only perpetuated the stigma of the plant. Since legalization in Illinois, though, cannabis news coverage has slowly changed.

Saturday, Paul Wilcoxen from WSIL News 3 covered the Academic Cannabis Conference (produced by News Joint Events) and then ran a video story Sunday that reaffirmed what I had already been noticing—news outlets are now taking cannabis reporting seriously. We could not be happier about how WSIL News 3 covered the Academic Cannabis Conference. One main goal for Illinois News Joint has always been to normalize all aspects of the plant, and this type of straightforward reporting helps.

This incremental change in news reporting is a reminder that, though not quick enough, the normalization of the plant is moving forward and that it’s often difficult to notice incremental change without reflecting back to news reporting that treated cannabis as a joke, degraded cannabis users, interviewed only negative stoner stereotypes, and/or focused on only negative aspects of reports, research, and studies.

The purpose of the Academic Cannabis Conference is to combine academia, the cannabis industry, and the cannabis community. We believe it’s one of the best paths to normalizing the plant and look forward to working with and incorporating more professors, universities, students, and colleges into the Illinois cannabis community and industry with our events and reporting. We have plans for more connections and collaborations with academia, including another event later this year, so stay tuned!

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