In six short years, Capitol News Illinois has grown from a team of three Statehouse reporters to one that includes 13 full-time professionals covering the state from Chicago to Carbondale.
Through all that we’ve kept an eye on our mission: Promoting Illinoisans’ understanding of government and its impact on people through unbiased reporting, watchdog journalism, and shared coverage, all while developing the next generation of journalists.
You’re reading this because we’re launching a new product, Capitol News Insider. Picture it as a repository of the institutional knowledge our Statehouse team has built over collective decades of state government reporting.
During session — and on busy news days outside of it — we’ll use our new Capitol News Insider page to maintain a live blog giving short and timely updates of what’s happening behind closed doors.
And it will be a two-way street.
Those of you who subscribe can access our “Ask the Insiders” portal — a place to submit questions that we’ll try to find the answer to. We’ll dedicate time each week to answer those questions in an exclusive video stream or in one of our insider posts or columns.
Driving that effort will be Brenden Moore, the latest addition to our Statehouse team who joined us from Lee Enterprises. In this space, Brenden will revive his popular column — now named “Moore in Springfield” — that he wrote at Lee and at the State Journal Register in Springfield before that.
But Brenden won’t be alone in the effort. Peter Hancock and I have held down the CNI Statehouse office since we launched in 2019, and we’ll regularly contribute insights — the tidbits we know to be true but don’t find their way into our reporting. Ben Szalinski, too, has helped anchor our Statehouse team for the past year and will be a regular on our Insider pages, particularly as it pertains to budget news.
The platform’s going to grow and evolve.
We intend to give early looks and after-the-fact explainers of our investigative and enterprise coverage, anchored by Beth Hundsdorfer in the Metro East, Molly Parker in Carbondale, and Hannah Meisel and Maggie Dougherty in Chicago.
And we’ll add other features and interactives along the way.
But we’re launching now — on budget address week — because following the dollars and cents is our bread and butter, and we know there’s more we can bring to our most fervent supporters.
Still, our mission — and the amount of news we provide daily to our readers and partners — isn’t going to change.
For seven years, we’ve been the eyes and ears at the Capitol for hundreds of news outlets throughout Illinois. Our media partners will always be able to reprint our regular news stories freely. And news consumers will always be able to access our main site with no paywall.
But our Insider product will be a premium subscription-based offering. While initially free, access will soon be restricted to paying members as we get our Capitol News Insider membership initiative in full gear.
Over the past year, we’ve redesigned our website to a user-friendly, adaptable platform that allows us to promote our standalone brand, built over seven years of bootstraps, unbiased reporting. We’ve bolstered our video presence on YouTube and social media. We’ve also remained committed to training young journalists.
Catering to our Capitol News Insiders is the logical next step — and we look forward to hearing from you as we build this product.
It’s been a whirlwind for Capitol News Illinois since our launch as a little-known startup in 2019, but I can confidently say our best days are yet to come.
As always, thanks for reading.
Jerry Nowicki
Capitol News Illinois
Editor-in-Chief
In the meantime, you can sign up for our twice-weekly Capitol News Insider newsletter. You won’t be charged, but will have the option to become a paying subscriber to retain access to coverage like this once we fully launch Capitol News Insider.
