Intermediate News Reporting

Below is a sample of an Intermediate News Reporting course.

1 unit.

This course is an intensive news reporting class focused on Local and State Government and Illinois Statehouse reporting. We will conduct this class like a newsroom as part of the Medill Illinois News Bureau (MINB) based in the Medill Chicago Newsroom, in partnership with Capitol News Illinois (CNI), which will run some selected stories of the student fellows admitted to this course. Students in this course must apply for admission to the class by filing the Medill Illinois News Bureau Spring Application in February and getting accepted into the program as MINB Fellows in advance.

The course will prepare eight to ten admitted students to report on all aspects of local and state government and Illinois stories influenced by national politics. Stories will range from breaking news and light enterprise to features, investigative and deeper dive stories covering the Illinois and Chicago news beats. This includes state government officials and agencies, the Illinois General Assembly, the governor’s office and the executive branch, and for those interested, even some stories on the Illinois Supreme Court, as well as stories about Chicago’s City Hall, Chicago Public Schools and Chicago news conferences with an Illinois focus. This is also a general election year for local offices, statewide officials and Congressional and Senate races, so there may be some opportunity for Statehouse Fellows to cover some aspects of the 2026 election campaign season.

Students will be required to travel to Springfield periodically when the legislature is in session, and students will be getting invaluable, on-the-ground experience reporting from the Illinois State Capitol. This also means students admitted to this class should not schedule classes on Wednesdays or Thursdays if possible in the Spring Quarter to allow for Tuesday-Thursday travel to Springfield on any given week. Students will explore reporting assignments with Medill’s partner, Capitol News Illinois, and work through an innovative new Medill bureau to place stories if selected and approved by CNI. This course will include discussions, readings and some guest lectures and field trips, and the class will operate like a newsroom with news meetings and one-on-one editing sessions to prepare students to report for the new Medill Illinois News Bureau. MINB Fellows started working in the Fall Quarter publishing stories for CNI, and Fellows will continue publishing there through the spring and summer quarters. There is no guarantee that everyone will get published, but we will pitch, write and try to get as many as possible published with CNI—vetting them all in advance with CNI editors and shaping them accordingly. With the Trump administration moving into its second year--dispatching ICE agents to Illinois, sparking protests and cutting federal funds to the state on multiple programs, the students may cover aspects of state government and politics that intersect and clash with this administration and its policies—with an eye toward specializations and related work in the MSJ quarter to come.