SPRINGFIELD — People often ask what I love most about my job covering Illinois politics and government. My answer is quite simple: I’m an ordinary person who gets to see and do extraordinary things all while holding the state’s most powerful to account.
Illinois Capitol committee rooms where bills are debated. The third floor rail where lobbyists work angles and exert influence. The Springfield watering holes where Statehouse denizens cut loose in the evenings.
There are few thrills greater than being in the rooms where power brokers make and shape decisions impacting the nearly 13 million people who call this state home.
Statehouse reporters are firsthand witnesses to this history, and we write its first rough draft. It’s an awesome privilege — and a responsibility not to be taken lightly.
I’ve had a front-row seat during what’s proven to be a consequential period in Illinois history paired with the interesting times we find ourselves nationally and globally. It began during a formative stint at The (Springfield) State Journal-Register, then for nearly five years as Lee Enterprises’ Capitol bureau chief, and now as a reporter for Capitol News Illinois.
I wrote a weekly column when I was at The SJ-R, kept it up when I shifted over to cover the Statehouse for Lee. And I’m happy to announce that you’ll also be hearing directly from me at least twice a month in this column, which is appropriately titled “Moore in Springfield.”
I’ve always viewed a column as an effective way to add analysis and perspective that doesn’t always show up in day-to-day news coverage of Illinois politics and government. It’s a way to cut through the noise to the root of a topic.
To put it another way, my goal is to write in the same frank way I’d talk to you in a bar where the conversation starts, “So this is what’s really happening…”
The column is just one part of an exciting larger project I’ll be a part of at CNI, which has grown from a plucky startup with a noble mission into the largest state government-focused news organization in Illinois in just seven short years. It’s one of the truly indispensable prongs of the state’s news ecosystem.
Our mission is simple but crucial: promote Illinoisans’ understanding of their government and it impacts their lives. My colleagues have been doing that work long before I arrived, through essential daily reporting and in-depth, watchdog investigations — made freely available on our website and distributed to newsrooms across the state.
That won’t change. But we’ll soon be adding a new dimension to this mission with the launch of our new premium product, Capitol News Insider, on budget address week.
Think of it as everything you’ve come to know and love about Capitol News Illinois but tailored to the professionals who need, and the political junkies who want, to know even more about what’s happening underneath the Capitol dome.
We’ll crack open our reporters’ notebooks, tap into our deep wells of institutional knowledge and leverage the sourcing we’ve cultivated to go even further. The truth is reporters often know more than what’s in the final story, but some information has less salience with a broader audience. Now, those extra details have a home.
We’ll take you inside the caucus room, offer expert analysis and provide forward-looking coverage of the issues driving the day among Illinois’ movers and shakers.
I’ll be quarterbacking the effort, but it will be a team enterprise.
Here’s what you can expect from us: Insider dispatches regularly during non-session and more frequently when lawmakers are in town. On busier session days, we’ll publish a live blog featuring real-time, bite-sized updates on what’s happening inside the Capitol.
We will also have an “Ask the Insiders” feature where my colleagues and I answer questions you directly submit to us. And we’ll also share what we uncover through public records requests. We’ve already got a list of ideas — but we’ll crowdsource, too.
Two-way communication will be a cornerstone of this project. Illinois’ government is enormous and its politics brash and brawling. Tell us what you want to understand better. And don’t be shy about sharing what you know with us.
Say hello if you spot me along the third floor rail or at the end of the bar. Feel free to stop by the my office in the Capitol press room. Or just drop me a line at bmoore@capitolnewsillinois.com.
This is just the beginning.
We will fine-tune and add more as we ramp up. So stay tuned.
