PSPPI header - David Greising

July 06, 2022

Better Government Association president to discuss journalism, advocacy work

CARBONDALE, Ill. — David Greising, president and CEO of the Better Government Association, will talk about the organization’s Pulitzer Prize-winning journalism and good-government advocacy next week in a virtual conversation hosted by Southern Illinois University Carbondale’s Paul Simon Public Policy Institute.

Greising will join John Shaw, institute director, at 11 a.m. Wednesday, July 20, for a virtual conversation. Greising and Shaw will discuss the association’s role as a watchdog in Illinois through investigative journalism and policy advocacy for ethical and effective government.

The Better Government Association is a nonpartisan and nonprofit news and advocacy organization working for government transparency and accountability in Chicago and Illinois, according to its mission statement. The BGA — along with the Chicago Tribune — won a Pulitzer Prize this year for an investigative series about deadly failures in Chicago’s building- and fire-safety code enforcement.

“The Better Government Association has championed responsible government in Illinois for more than a century,” Shaw said. “David Greising has been a strikingly creative and effective leader of the BGA, taking it to a new level of relevance and respect.

“We are eager to learn more about Mr. Greising’s vision for the Better Government Association.”

The event is free and open to the public and will be held via Zoom. Registration is required at paulsimoninstitute.org/events. Attendees are encouraged to submit questions with their registration form or send them to paulsimoninstitute@siu.edu.

Greising joined the BGA in 2018. He previously worked at publications including the Chicago Sun-Times, City News Bureau of Chicago, Business Week magazine, Reuters and the Chicago Tribune, and he co-founded the Chicago News Cooperative. He now writes regular columns for the Tribune and Crain’s Chicago Business.

This event is part of the institute’s Understanding Our New World virtual conversation series with government and private sector leaders, policy experts, political analysts, authors and journalists.