The Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications is launching a new program where students will have the opportunity to report on Illinois’ government, according to a Monday news release.

The Medill Illinois News Bureau will send a team of undergraduate and graduate students to report from Springfield during the legislative session. They will primarily work and produce content from the newsroom of Capitol News Illinois, a nonprofit organization that comprises about 700 print, digital and broadcast news outlets across Illinois and neighboring state cities.

“This new Medill Illinois News Bureau is intended to help strengthen coverage of state government at a time when the Statehouse press corps has been depleted and after most newspapers have closed their Springfield bureaus,” Medill Dean Charles Whitaker said in the release. 

Students will also have the chance to work on enterprise stories and cover breaking news in Chicago when the legislative session is in break.

Medill lecturer Bob Rowley, a former national and foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, will also serve as director of the new bureau.

The program is also being funded by a grant from the Robert R. McCormick Foundation, which also supports the Medill Local News Initiative. The initiative is a yearslong project to spur engagement with both local and national newsrooms.

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