Camtastic Newsletter March 2026

SIU’s River Region Returns to the Airwaves

By Journey Short
 
An award-winning Southern Illinois University broadcast program with a long history in the region is back on the air. River Region, a student-produced news broadcast that first launched around 1970, went off the air during the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, the program has returned and is gaining momentum again under the guidance of Jeff Sutker, an assistant lecturer in The Charlotte Thompson Suhler School of Journalism and Advertising. 

For decades, the broadcast has served as a training ground for aspiring journalists at SIU, giving students hands-on newsroom experience. It also covers important news and events across Southern Illinois, which has seen a decline in the number of working journalists in recent years. Sutker, an Emmy award-winning broadcast journalist and a 1987 SIU alum, is now the advisor to River Region. “It was always a passion of mine to mentor young journalists, and to be in a position like this, to help out the next generation of journalists,” he said, “And to come back to SIU is like a dream come true.”

River Region is completely student run, giving aspiring journalists a chance to report real stories in Southern Illinois. One of the first major news stories they covered since reemerging was a major winter snowstorm that shut down campus and affected people across the region. Their Facebook updates provided important live updates for the school community. Sutker said the two students who led the storm coverage together made lasting memories. “You'll never forget that,” he said. “Those two will be bonded forever for having that shared experience. And that's one of the things that's such a great part of being a journalist, is that you get this front-row ticket, and you usually share it with somebody.”

Freshman William Mize said the promise of River Region was a driving factor in his decision to choose SIU. “My involvement started even before the school year began,” he said, calling it “a big selling point,” that he’d get to help rebuild River Region from the ground up. “I pretty much was in it since day one and it kept coming. It was fun”. One of the best parts about River Region is that you do not have to have any prior experience, Mize said.

When alumni heard that River Region was coming back, they reached back out to fellow Salukis. “They are thrilled that we are coming back”, Sutker said. “It’s really fun to know that people who were involved in journalism and River Region here are excited about it coming back."

 
Jan Thompson, the director of The Charlotte Thompson Suhler School of Journalism and Advertising, said she’s thrilled for River Region’s return, and proud of the work put in so far. 

“I’m ecstatic that we have started to relaunch River Region News! This newscast and the courses that support it are the last pieces of our updated curriculum,” she said. “We hired alumnus Jeff Sutker and he has been mentoring our students and doing a terrific job. We have many talented students working on the show.”

River Region will showcase the program and its work to the SIU Board of Trustees at the board’s April meeting.