Fifty-five Illinois local news organizations operating 130 outlets have received $4.3 million in state tax credits so far this year under a law designed to encourage the retention and hiring of journalists, according to records obtained through a Freedom of Information request by the Medill Local News Initiative.
It matches the total disbursed in all of 2025, the first year of the program. Just under $700,000 budgeted for this year remains available to local news outlets for hiring additional local journalists.
The organizations that received credits represent a cross section of Illinois’ local news ecosystem. They span major legacy organizations, small community newspapers, digital start-ups and broadcasters, according to state records.
Half the funding went to organizations outside the Chicago area, a similar rate to last year. Nonprofit outlets received 40% of the money, up from around a third in 2025. The vast majority of news organizations in Illinois are for-profit.
“The geographic distribution of these local journalist credits remains one of Illinois’ most impressive accomplishments,” said Matt Pearce, director of policy for the nonprofit Rebuild Local News. “A lot of times, local news outlets outside the big cities can struggle to get equitable access to funding, and this program shows that public policy can efficiently deliver previously needed local news dollars far and wide.”
Pearce said the use of the tax credit program by nonprofit news outlets is impressive. “A lot of nonprofit news outlets spend a larger share of payroll on editorial expenses compared to commercial media outlets, which is why a journalism employment subsidy can be especially financially attractive to nonprofit news outlets, which this data shows are also some of Illinois’ local news job creators.”
Steve Jameson, the president of the Illinois Press Association, said via email the state tax credit program is “really popular” with his member news organizations.
“The program is really helping our members keep journalists employed and helping our smaller members keep their doors open,” Jameson said.
Local news publishers have submitted 71 tax credit applications to the state so far this year, one shy of the total submitted all of last year. In addition to the 55 receiving credits, 15 applications have been denied and one remains pending. The state did not reveal which companies have been rejected nor the reasons for doing so. Some organizations have reported denials because they applied too late and the $4 million earmarked for retaining journalists already had run out, Jameson said.
In addition to setting aside $4 million for retaining local journalists, Illinois budgeted $1 million for hiring new journalists. More than two-thirds of the hiring tax credits remain available. A similar amount went unclaimed in 2025. To be eligible for credits from the hiring pool, an organization must prove it created new journalism jobs in 2025 via a net increase in journalists.
“We’re not seeing a lot of people take advantage of the credit for hiring new journalists so our organization is looking at ways we can maybe help with that in the future,” Jameson wrote.
Once again absent from the list of recipients were the nation’s two largest publishers of local news: USA Today Co., formerly known as Gannett, and Alden Global Capital, the investment firm owner of the Chicago Tribune. Lee Enterprises, which claimed $250,000 last year, has not claimed credits this year. The only major national newspaper chain to have claimed credits this year appears to be Hearst, which owns the Alton Telegraph, Jacksonville Journal-Courier and Edwardsville Intelligencer.
Commercial television stations have yet to receive credits through this program, although commercial radio stations have claimed nearly half a million dollars this year.
La Raza, a Spanish-language weekly in Chicago, became the first exclusively non-English-language outlet to claim Illinois journalism tax credits, though it received the minimum amount possible: $10,000 through the bucket designated for hiring journalists. Borderless Magazine, which publishes in English and Spanish, has received credits in both years of the program.
Illinois’ legislation, passed in May 2024, makes available $25 million over five years for local news organizations that hire and retain journalists in the form of refundable tax credits. The credits are distributed on a first-come, first-serve basis. To receive funding, outlets must apply and demonstrate eligibility based on certain criteria, including consistent publication of original local content and employment of journalists.
Illinois is one of about 20 states that has passed or is considering public policy to help address an ongoing crisis in local news. Rebuild Local News estimates that around $92 million will be generated by public policy for community news outlets in 2026.
About 40% of the nation’s newspapers have closed in the past two decades, an average of more than two per week, because of a collapse in the business model resulting from new technology and a splintering of audience and advertiser preferences.
Medill’s State of Local News Project tracks more than 200 counties without a source of professional local news and an additional 1,500 with only one remaining news source. That covers half of all counties and 50 million Americans. Illinois currently has nine news desert counties, but that number is expected to climb with Paddock Publications’ closure of 13 newspapers downstate last month.
View the complete list of applications and awards below:
Editor’s Note: The amount that Lee Enterprises received in 2025 has been updated. The story has been clarified to reflect that Borderless Magazine, a bilingual publication, has received credits in 2025 and 2026.
