Prairie State Wire

The co-founder of an Illinois-based political activist group has asked a Rockford-based television station for a correction to a July 23 Associated Press news story about a lawsuit against Gov. J.B. Pritzker's COVID-19 pandemic restrictions.

In his email to 23 WIFR news director Maggie Hradecky, Edgar County Watchdogs co-founder and writer Kirk Allen took issue with the way the Associated Press story posted to the news station's website described the lawsuit. The litigation was filed by residents in six central and southern Illinois counties, with Allen acting as a plaintiff from Edgar County.

"The story contains a false statement as to what these cases are about and a correction should be run," Allen said in his email to Hradecky, which he shared with Prairie State Wire.

In addition to 23 WIFR, the AP story was carried by dozens of news outlets, including MSN, Effingham Daily News, Chicago Sun-Times and U.S. News.

Allen co-founded Edgar County Watchdogs with John Kraft in 2011. 

He maintained in his email that a paragraph in the AP story erred when it described the lawsuit as seeking "court orders declaring that there is no public health emergency as defined by Pritzker’s Public Health Department."

That isn't so, Allen said in his email.

"Anyone who actually read the complaints would know, this is not about how the governor's Public Health Department defines a public health emergency," Allen said in his email "These complaints are about the law, which just happens to actually define public health emergency.

"The Illinois Department of Public Health could define a 'public health emergency' in any way they choose, and it would have nothing to do with these cases because the legislature already defined that term in the Illinois Emergency Management Act.  I would appreciate a correction ASAP as the way it stands it provides a totally false impression as to what these cases are about."

No correction to the AP story has been posted.