SIU Grad Returns to Restart Student Newscast
As college students finish finals and head home for the holidays, a TV veteran is finishing his first semester of teaching. Jeff Sutker was hired to breathe new life into the program where he was once a student, River Region News at Southern Illinois University. “I love SIU,” Sutker said during a November interview. “The program that I went through helped the trajectory of my career.”
Sutker has spent most of his career a 5 hour and 30 minute Amtrak ride away from SIU, in Chicago. After short stints at WSIL and CNN, from 1989 to 2025 he was at FOX32, as an editor, producer and eventually Chief Photographer. Assignments have taken him from Washington to Haiti to Rome, and he’s covered riots, mass shootings and earthquakes. He was there, with a camera, when Barack Obama won the presidency, and when the Cubs won the World Series.
Every experience has prepared him for this new role. “Throughout my career I’ve always taken great pride in mentoring young journalists who were new to the market or new to the industry. I’ve made a career of that.”
In his first semester, he’s been teaching Writing Across Platforms, and a History of Media course. In Spring he’ll add Sports Reporting and Multimedia News Production.
He’s also working on breathing life back into the River Region newsroom, which was hit hard by COVID and some university issues. “Over the past couple years the school has been restructuring. We’re no longer part of the Radio-TV program (now Radio, Television and Digital Media). We’re now in Journalism and Advertising (SOJA).”
He says the changes allow convergence and collaboration, with the Daily Egyptian, Saluki SportsView, and the Ad Lab.
“We’re hoping to launch a newscast in late January/early February. We’ve used this semester to get to meet the students who are interested. We meet once a week. We practice interviewing, writing, reporting, anchoring, all while stressing that to have success as a journalist, you need to have an ethical foundation, professionalism, and to be a compassionate human being.”
Sutker gives credit to the support of his School Director, Jan Thompson. He also speaks glowingly of his instructors in the mid-80s: especially Richard Hildreth, who passed away in 2009, and longtime INBA member Ken Keller, who retired in 2000, but is still alive and well and living in Bloomington. Sutker calls Keller an icon, and says he owes a great deal to him. They still stay in touch, and Keller’s number was one of the first he called when he landed this new job. Sutker also remembers going to INBA conventions as a student.
The new lecturer ends this semester with the first three members of his new student leadership team in place: News Director, Executive Producer and Operations Manager. The objective is for the news operation to be completely student-run, with Sutker functioning as an advisor.
“Our goal is to give our students a great education in broadcast journalism, and simultaneously provide trustworthy local, campus news.”
But as much as he’s giving to the students and the university, he’s receiving something as well. “I’ve envisioned having the opportunity to do something like this for a very long time. It’s almost a dream come true.”