Voices of Freedom - Interview with Chris Krug

Episode Date: March 24, 2026

An Interview with Chris Krug, Publisher, The Center Square One of the keys to a healthy American democracy is an informed citizenry. Yet the decline of local news has left millions of Americans without reliable coverage of the institutions, policies, and elected officials that shape their daily lives. Statehouse reporting in particular has withered — leaving citizens in the dark about the decisions being made in their state capitals. Our guest today has dedicated his career to changing that. He leads one of the most ambitious efforts in the country to fill the local news void with high-quality, government accountability journalism that puts taxpayers first. Our guest on this episode of Voices of Freedom is Chris Krug, Publisher of The Center Square, a nonprofit news organization launched in 2019 to provide statehouse and statewide coverage across the United States. Drawing on more than 25 years of experience in the media industry — from sports journalist to major market editor and publisher — Chris has built The Center Square into one of the country's most expansive sources of state and local government reporting. Topics Discussed on this Episode: Chris's path from sports journalism to leading one of the country's most ambitious local news organizations What it means for communities and democracy when local news disappears How The Center Square's taxpayer-first sensibility shapes its coverage Earning reader trust and what keeping that trust means to The Center Square How The Center Square navigates the pressures of AI, social media, and the struggles of legacy news organizations What gives Chris optimism about the future of local journalism

Hello and welcome to Voices of Freedom, a Bradley Foundation podcast. I'm Rick Graber, President and CEO of the Bradley Foundation. On the podcast, we'll explore issues that affect our freedoms with a focus on free enterprise, free speech, and educational freedom. So let's get started. One of the keys to a healthy American democracy is an informed citizenry. Yet the decline of local news has left millions of Americans without reliable coverage of the institution, policies and elected officials that really shaped their daily lives. State House reporting in particular has withered, leaving citizens in the dark about the decisions

being made in their state capitals. Our guest today has dedicated his career to changing that. He leads one of the most ambitious efforts in the country to fill the local news void with high quality government accountability journalism that puts taxpayers first. Chris Krug is public. Publisher of the Center Square, a nonprofit news organization launched in 19 to provide statehouse and statewide coverage across the United States. Drawing on more than 25 years of experience in the media industry, sports journalists to major market editor and publisher, Chris has built the Center Square into one of the country's most expansive sources of state and local government reporting. Chris, welcome to Voices of Freedom. It is a pleasure to have you.

It's great to be with you, Rick, and thanks for having me on. My pleasure. Well, if we can, let's talk a little bit about you to start. You started your career as a sports journalist at a small Pennsylvania newspaper, worked your way up through some of the country's largest regional newsrooms. What drew you to journalism in the first place, and what has that journey taught you about what the craft is supposed to do, as perhaps opposed to what it is doing in most cases today?

Well, I appreciate that question. And yeah, I came up as a sports writer. And I thought about being a journalist, you know, came frankly very early on in life. When I was a kid, it was viewed as a noble profession. And the idea for me, I mean, I played sports up into college and not particularly well, but I did hang around for a while. And yeah, I mean, I just, I really just kind of wanted to be connected and connecting those two things. I had a passion for sports and I had a passion for journalism. And that's where I started. And I'll take it. I'll take it. I mean, I really just kind of wanted to be connected. And I really just kind of wanted to be connected. And I'm connecting those two things. I had a passion for sports and I'll take tell you, it was like the best training ground ever. I mean, sports journalists work while other people play, so you have to be dedicated. You're going to work nights. You're going to work weekends. You're going to spend maybe Christmas Eve at the Silver Dome in Detroit. And maybe Christmas Day, you know, it's Soldier Field or wherever you might have to be. But, you know, the job itself is, it requires your ability to process things that everybody is watching in full view, you know, the thousands of people that are in the state.

and the many more thousands at home that are watching it and condense, you know, what it was that everybody saw in such a way that makes sense and is accurate and fair and direct and reflects the facts of what happened. And in that regard, I mean, for the practical experience that I've brought to my work, of course, I later jumped over to news, but I mean, but I think in terms of how the doing gets done, I mean, it's that work on deadline and that pressure. and being around big events that people care about. I was able to be around the Jordan Championship era and covered that.

Of course, being able to measure yourself, you know, from a competitive standpoint, there were a lot of really important and valuable lessons that I learned in doing that, and then I passed on to the people that have ultimately come to work for me. Do you think there's been some loss of emphasis on accuracy? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think that, you know, in the industry and the last, really, I'd say in the last 15 years, that, that, you know, this injection or infusion of, you know, what's called Solutions Journalism has been bad for the industry. You know, this willingness that publications have and that this willingness that editors have to allow reporters to kind of, you know,

build the story to where they want it to be or to impose their own worldview into what it is their reporting, it obfuscates a huge part of what journalism, you know, is all about. which is, you know, the genuine curiosity and seeking the facts and bringing truth to light. I mean, maybe that's okay in things that don't matter. But, you know, in the coverage of government, it's a huge issue and why we specifically forbid it, you know, at the center square. Absolutely. Let's continue on your path. You know, as you mentioned, you moved into news.

You moved from the newsroom into leadership, executive editor, vice president, CEO, publisher. Why did you make that jump? Why that shift? You know, I'll tell you, you know, and it wasn't just working nights and weekends for the first 13 or 14 years of my career, although, you know, that certainly had a little bit of influence over my thinking. But September 11th, 2001 was a kind of an epiphany for me. You know, I mean, I'd been largely focused exclusively on sports and hadn't had to think a whole lot about, you know, government or, you know, the world or even the country or, frankly, the city, you know, or state that I'd lived in. And I was in Denver at the time at the time. the Denver Post. And I don't know what it was. It just sort of, it just awoken something, you know, in me. Thinking about like the, not to say that sports writing is inconsequential.

I mean, it's important. And I have a lot of respect, like I said, for sports writers. They have a very challenging job and they do important work. But there are other things that are out there that are more important in the news, in my view. And certainly, you know, the world, the country, the state, the city that I lived in, I think just kind of came into focus for me in a different way. that time and sadly it was around that tragedy but you know for me ultimately it was it was I guess

the moment where I just decided like what what I was doing really wasn't maybe what I was there or here to do and I you know and it prompted me and this was tough because I had just moved my family to Denver I'd only been there for about a year I had even been there frankly for a year when 9-11 happened and by the time that my wife and my daughter and my mom who was living with us, you know, came. I pretty much told him, you know, like shortly after signing papers on a new house that I don't know that this is going to be a long-term thing for me here and that I don't know that this is what I'm doing. What we came here for me to do is exactly what I should be doing. And I'm very grateful that I have, frankly, an incredible wife and a very understanding

family. And I had an opportunity to go back to where I was with the Shaw family in the Chicago with suburbs, take on something different. I became the managing editor for training, which allowed me to do some of the things that I wanted to do. And I'd really become a believer in system practices, you know, with regard to how the news gets put together to ensure that it's very best and that this communication between reporters and editors

was incredibly important to get to the best story and editors being more than copy editors, reporters, of course, being more than stenographers. At the time, I mean, it was kind of a big jump because I made my way all the way to a Metro. If you would have looked at the industry at the time, you would have said, well, that's a destination paper. And I could have maybe stayed there forever. I could theoretically still be there if things had gone, you know, the way that maybe they could have gone. I mean, it's hard to say with the changes in the industry.

I just felt that there was something more for me to do. And that opportunity that I took to go back to the Chicago suburbs was ultimately the best one for me because I had an opportunity to do things I probably wouldn't have been able to do young enough in my career to become an editor at I think I was 34, maybe 35 years old. I was 15, you know, maybe 20 years ahead, you know, in that regard and having that responsibility for an entire paper.

And that happened very fast after I got back to Chicago. You a tough editor? I'm a tough but fair editor I think it's like you have to consider this like who are we doing this for you know who is this work for is it for the reporter no is it for the is it is it for the editor no

is it for the editor's boss's boss's boss which in this case would be mean out no not really it's I mean it's for the people that were that we're trying to serve in the audience that we're trying to build right so you know that consistency in the accuracy velocity and frequency of how we publish at the center square underlying all that is is consistency and getting to the part of the news that that we feel is the most important, which would be that

taxpayer's perspective. I mean, we've narrowed our lane, right? I mean, we're purely focused on government accountability with only a few exceptions. I mean, we will go upstream on a natural disaster or, you know, for example, yesterday. I mean, you know, the shootings that took place around the country. I mean, our people responded to them because there's going to be public, you know, interactions. First of all, there's public interest, but there's going to be public action and what is the government response and how was the government response? You can't always get that on day one, but I mean, that would be our interest in that. And I think telling the whole story, because none of this I've ever just packed up very nicely in one story, but telling the whole

story and being there at the beginning is important. Let's drill into that a little bit more. You know, as you said, and you launched Center Square in 2019 with a specific need in mind, and that's high-quality statehouse and statewide reporting focused on government accountability, economic news. Why did you pick that particular gap that you saw? And then beyond that, you've gone with a nonprofit model. A little different. Well, let me take on the first part first. I mean, you know, I mean, it's, I'm a little bit of an oddball in my industry and that I'm a journalist who has an MBA.

And I mean, and I did that later in life. And for those people that are out there thinking about like, does an MBA make sense for me? You know, do I really need to do that? I mean, it will confirm a lot that you already somewhat know and it will absolutely expose you to things that, you know, that you haven't had to think about before. And I would be an advocate for at least some portion of all people who, want to work in journalism or build an organization related to journalism to think about at least getting some of that training, whether you get the degree, you know, or not. But, you know, years ago, I was president of the Illinois Associated Press editors,

and my suburban papers were just woefully underserved by, you know, by what stood for statehouse coverage and what we were, you know, what we were getting from them. it just didn't resonate with the people that were in the communities that we served, that are our audiences. And really where the biggest gap was was around, again, size, scope, and cost and effectiveness of government. I mean, we don't need the political horse race. We don't need the bluster from, you know, this particular state rep or that particular state senator. I mean, people want to know, and they deserve to know, you know, what government is doing for them, you know, who are the beneficiaries of whatever this action is, and who's going to pay for it. And in a lot of cases, that is, you know, not to say willfully omitted by anyone, but just omitted in favor of whatever the crying need of the day might be.

And left to pay for it ultimately would be, you know, typically, you know, the way it worked out would be the people that were in the communities that we served. And these were economically diverse communities, but they specifically weren't Chicago. So, you know, taking that mindset, you know, along with me, you know, through the, through that, you know, the arc of my career and trying to implement that or implementing it successfully has been core to the work that we've done. We don't do a whole lot more philosophically around the way that we approach the news. And I would say, you know, Dan McKalb, our chief content officer would argue that we don't do anything beyond the way that he and I used to produce the news when we work together. whether, you know, back in Crystal Lake, Illinois, then what we are doing now, which is to focus on things that matter to the most people.

And I believe firmly that this taxpayer-centric approach to the news is the most genuine and authentic way to put a check on government that a journalism organization, whether nonprofit or for-profit, could, you know, the question with regard to, like, nonprofits, I think is it also is a very good one. And, I mean, I think one of the things that, you know, that, well, first of all, I mean,

legacy news is having an absolute brutal time. And I mean, the industry itself, newspapers specifically peaked in 2007. The housing crisis really did a lot of damage to the viability of local market advertisers and really changed the game. And at that same

time, you know, you had broadband that was really peaking. And so online players, Google very specifically, you know, could do things in a local market that the local ad teams were not yet capable of doing or weren't incentivized to do, that there was still a grip, you know, on the paper. And now we see that even, you know, the most staunch newspaper companies are

now fully focused on digital and trying to play in that space. Rick, when I was in the industry, sort of in midstream before things really started to go sideways, our circulation and distribution department was budgeted either to break even or to make a small loss because we were just keenly interested in building the circulation, which, you know, which you're fighting that churn and you're just trying to bring new people and keep the people that you have. Now, circulation is a revenue driver. And so, I mean, there's been a lot of changes. But as far as nonprofits go, I think maybe the most important thing here is that, you know, the nonprofit model flips the hierarchy. Journalism is the reason why the organization exists. It's not, it's not designed to be a profit center. You know,

and I think the vast majority of legacy media operations are really that that is where they're struggling, that they've had to shave the sides off of their, off of their, and the newsrooms have been greatly reduced. And they haven't necessarily been able to change the expectation that any one of the readers would have with regard to being fully capable of covering everything. And so the papers that are succeeding, I'm speaking specifically to newspapers, are the papers that have allowed, their new staffs to focus on what's actually happening in the community and building audience around that and then utilizing services like us, you know, like the Center Square to cover state and federal things and even complement what they're doing where we can in local markets. That that's frankly, I mean, we're kind of built for this moment intentionally because, I mean,

there's just a tremendous amount of opportunity to give back to an industry that I care so much about. And I think that there's a philanthropic interest in, you know, the kind of news that we produce, which is just, it's fact-based. We don't do any opinion of our own, which is also another, I think, important differentiation. So what you get from us, if it runs with a byline, this is the center square on it, is original fact-based, straight news reporting. And where that used to be a commodity, that's kind of become a specialty, you know, in the marketplace now.

So a lot of the growth that we've had and has become, you know, possible through the model that we've taken where we've picked a very distinct lane. We stay in that lane, like I said, with only, you know, some exceptions. And we deliver something that's consistently good and valuable on a daily basis for the benefit of our republishing partners, of which we now have 14,000 nationally. And they can rely on it. I mean, which is great. How many states are you in now?

So we're distributing across all 50. I mean, we have eyes on all 50 states. We can't be everywhere. I mean, our newsroom, Wilde has grown. I mean, we're, I think our FTA. He count, you know, the newsroom is about 42. And we're, you know, we're pretty agile. We're pretty nimble.

I mean, we have focus, you know, in certain states where, you know, the news opportunities, I think, are the greatest. And frankly, where our work matters the most. But if you take a look at a full day's worth of work from the center square, you'll see some of the neighborhood is 65 to 70 stories from all across the country. the vast majority of them moving, you know, at the speed of news. And, you know, where we aren't capable of doing that, you know, we're coming back with second-day stories that are probably more impactful or more

meaningful than what was reported the first day because of the context. I mean, let's take a step back and talk a little bit more about your industry. I look at our local newspaper here in Milwaukee, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Yeah. It's just a shell of itself. And I got to assume that's the case in most. cities and towns across the country, you seem to say that there's some papers that are still doing okay or in fact thriving. But what does it mean for our communities, for democracy at large

when a local news organization just shuts its doors or just doesn't have the capacity to hold government accountable? That's a, it's a great question, and that's a tough question. And for the publishers and broadcasters in local markets, it is the question, right? I mean, it's like, how do we how do we make this work? And the bottom line is, I mean, you know, when a news town is in decline, that's bad for everyone. I mean, you know, except for the people that are in government. You don't have nobody watching it, right? I mean, at least through the lens in which we look at the news, if you connected directly to the taxpayer when a, on a news organization is debilitated or diminished or just can't be at City Hall every day all day long, that means a lot less scrutiny

and a lot less accountability. I hear quite often from my friends in Wisconsin that they have no idea what's going on in Milwaukee until it's done. And then maybe they don't. They might pick it up in some other publication later on. And that's not good. I mean, you know, the details on the mechanics of government decisions are important.

You know, like to truly inform the people of what government is doing, And, you know, it's not as simple as an episode of law and order where you can, like, you know, state your case, make your case and close your case in an hour and then beyond to watch the nightly news. There's pacing. There are things that happen. Ideas come up and ideas go down. Then they come back up in a slightly different form. And, I mean, you know, ultimately, every person is going to have their life in some way impacted positively, negatively, but in some way by the decisions that government. government make. And if they have no view or vision on that, you get, you get what you get.

And in a lot of major cities, you know, there are just massive gaps. But I would say even here locally, and, you know, and I live in like in, like I guess people in Chicago would consider to be the deep suburbs. You know, today my best source of news, and this is sad for me to say, but it's from the government itself telling me what it's doing and publishing meeting notes and and then, you know, allowing me to, you know, watch if I didn't get to watch it in real time, what my, you know, what my village board and the mayor have to say about certain issues. And that's just not, like, that's not healthy. You know, we talk about, you know, democracy.

And I think in, you know, in journalism or democracy is often, is often misused or confused for something else. You know, I mean, having an idea of what your government is doing is core. to the value of what are the news. And if it's not there, then where do you get it? You have to go get it yourself. And not to say that that sends us off into like an agrarian, you know, society. But I mean, it's a digital agrarian society. You're having to do it on yourself.

Or simply trust what the local chat group on Facebook has to say about it, which I'm not sure that that's exactly my top go-to source. Exactly. Staying at 10,000 feet, most institutions in our society trust in the media is at not good at maybe a historic low. How do you at the Center Square approach that challenge? And what does earning and keeping reader trust mean to your organization? Yeah, I appreciate that question too. I mean, it's an amazing question, right?

And as I've been working to pull together my thoughts, you know, we're now almost seven years in with the Center Square. And, you know, from an idea with literally no partners and a staff of like four, we built this into something that functions and operates and delivers news every day. But, you know, it's like, what is it that we're, you know, that we're really trying to do? And the number one thing that we're trying to do is restore trust in the media. And I think the best way to do that is to, is to play it straight, you know, to make a commitment. First of all, for a nonprofit, you know, what's your mission? What is the focus of your work? What are the things that you're looking at and being transparent about that, which we're at a very select small group of organizations across news

for-profit and nonprofit that are wide open, transparent about that we're keenly interested in government and what government is doing. Being consistent, being on time, you know, being factually correct, and being able to do that consistently is how you build trust. Those numbers that you're talking about that Gallup poll from the fall was, I guess, somewhat surprising, but maybe not terribly surprising. I mean, trust in media and in journalism, you know, as a whole is low. It's very low. 28%, you know, is measured in the last poll. The number, you know, hasn't exceeded 33% you know, since the 80s. And it hasn't been above 50% since the, like since the late 1960s or the early in 1970s, you know, right now that 28% is composed of, of, you know, when you look at the cross

tabs on it, Democrats are somewhat, you know, trustworthy of the news and Republicans are absolutely not. Eight percent on the last measurement, you know, when you get into the cross tabs, and that's startling, right? I mean, you know, you've got half the country, maybe more than half the country based on the last election that doesn't, that doesn't have much trust for the, you know, for the news as it's reporting about things that matter to it. Well, that's bad. I mean, let's talk about some of the work you're doing. I mean, your organization has truly built a reputation for investigations that have sparked real policy responses. Give us a couple of examples of the work that you've done, which really speaks to the role that state house journalism can play.

Yeah, I appreciate that question as well. I mean, you know, like, we have always been focused on trying to be first and fast. And, you know, in some ways, you know, the daily beast feeding is, you know, is how we built, you know, our reputation. Within the last year, we've created this enterprise and investigations unit that allows us to come over the top of that daily reporting and to really dig into things that matter. And I think that the inclusion or the infusion of this group, Arcane runs that group. just a fantastic editor with, you know, a lot of a real world metropolitan experience. And of course, Dan McAlewell loves investigations too. But having people that have the ability to look at the bigger picture while you're also, you know, chipping away at the small picture every day is really

changed what we're able to bring to the market with the longer investigations. You know, I'll just call out a couple. Yeah, out in California, it was our investigation into pension investments that led to, you know, state level investigations triggering a congressional investigation where three congressmen cited the center square in their letter, that signaled a national, I don't like necessarily the word narrative so much, but it really kind of changed the conversation on ESG investing, in particular in public pensions. The issue there being that, you know, because California, and this is where this story centered, had put such a large investment into ESG-focused stocks without regard for, you know, what the potential growth of those stocks would be,

I think that the fund lost something like 71 percent. And meanwhile, you know, I mean, you know, I think the vast majority of the people that, you know, that are paying attention to government, well, if a pension fund loses 71 percent, the pensioners don't lose 71 percent, that that money has to come from somewhere else and it comes right back to the taxpayers in some form or an ask. locally in Wisconsin, this felony grooming story that we were working on for John Stife, who's on the ground in Madison and in and around the state of Wisconsin, he advanced a story that no one really else moved on at all,

stayed with that story and stuck with it through the legislative hearings, and it's led to laws being signed. DPI demanded a retraction of the story. They weren't happy with we were writing, but there were no factual inaccuracies that they could point to. So they just didn't like it because, I mean, it, you know, it peeled back the layers of government that otherwise wouldn't have been exposed. And for us, that really shows like, you know, a bunch of things that matter, like our velocity, the tenacity and, you know, accountability with regard to closing the loop. I mean, we're not, you know, we're not advocates. You know, that's not our role.

That's not our job. It's not what we do. But, you know, the reporting, like, for the benefit of people who just simply want to understand what's going on in their state or in their – it's absolutely. of journalism like this that helped to put a finer point on. We're in Wisconsin, so I know we're at a time here when the Republican legislature and the Democratic governor almost never agree on anything. And in the case you're referring to, they did.

Yeah, I mean, and that's a rare case. Yeah, I mean, when it comes to what's going on with kids and behaviors that are rampant. And I mean, this is not, there is not just something that's exclusively, you know, isolated to Wisconsin. That's not a Wisconsin problem. I mean, I think that that's a fundamental problem. And, you know, what's going on, you know, with regard to schools and the prevalence of these

cases that we continue to read about, you know, they're, they're startling. And the accountability internally inside of that, you know, which would also be, you know, in our, you know, in our scope. I mean, it's something that we, we care deeply about. Again, it's, you know, every one of these opportunities just needs manpower, you know, put against it. I mean, it's not as if there aren't things to look at. We just, have we grown, we've been able to look at more things and to deliver more news. Where do you see your industry going, AI, social media, the struggles of legacy news are just changing journalism almost daily.

It's just not 10 years ago or anywhere close to it. It's amazing. How do you navigate an environment like that with this rapid, rapid change. And where do you see the biggest pressures from your perspective, from Center Square's perspective? No, and that's a great question as well. I mean, and probably the billion dollar question for journalism is where this is going to go. I mean, many, many years ago, I mean, before even really, you know, the Internet took off,

I had a terrific conversation with Tom Shaw, who was the CEO of the, you know, of the Shaw newspaper company at the time. And I'd ask them that question, I'm like, where do you see the industry in five years? And I probably asked that question somewhere around, well, I don't know, maybe it was 2004 or 2005. And he said, I don't know. And it was very sincere about it. I mean, things were changing and changing rapidly then and they're changing faster now. Posturally, I mean, and from the standpoint of market position, one of the reasons why the Center Square is designed as it's designed as a newswire service is that regardless of where news ultimately goes, that we're going to be able to

deliver, you know, high quality, useful, straight news, daily print work that can be used in digital format. You know, really, you know, since our acquisition of advanced digital media, which is a streaming service that produces blue room stream, the C-SPAN here in Illinois, you know, the state house, you know, news service, I mean, we've gotten much more sophisticated in video and video production and being able to storify, you know, the video work that we do with the straight news reporting without bending into what looks like television or cable television specifically where it's just opining over what the news is but actually talking about how the stories were put

together. For the local market publishers and broadcasters, they just have to continue to hunker down. It's not quite like that scene and this is somewhat obscure movie, but Joe versus the volcano where Tom Hanks' characters working underneath the swinging naked light bulb, it's not quite to that. But, you know, when you walk into a lot of newsrooms now, it's the newsroom plus something else. And something else has moved into it. A lot of the printing presses are gone. They've been replaced by distribution centers or warehouse space or whatever. There are a handful of states where there are maybe one or two operating presses, period, for the entire state.

I mean, I think the focus for anybody that's trying to make, you know, the news industry work, whether they're on the nonprofit side or the for-profit side, is really to focus on the content. and be very specific about what it is that you bring, that trying to be a generalist now in this market, where there are things that are out there, entities that are out there who can be better at you at virtually any of those things, if you could be great at local,

you have a legitimate shot at it. And I think that the outlets that are making it work are focused on local. You'd reference AI, and I think that, you know, AI is really interesting. And, you know, we've already seen a handful of major global, publishers that have leaned heavily into AI, to the point where, you know, it's somewhat difficult to tell, but you know, I mean, like, you don't have to have a journalist's eye to kind of spot

AI. I think that that AI is a tool and AI is a potentially useful tool. You know, I like AI for what it can do with copy it. I like what AI can do with regard to if I'm writing a memo, I mean, it's not for print, but I mean, you know, where I'm writing a memo, where I can kind of check the tonality of the memo to make sure that it doesn't sound like I'm a complete lunatic or madman. Or if it's not lunatic or madman enough that I could dial it up a little bit because it'll give me some feedback. But at this point in time with what AI is capable of doing, I think that there's real value in a three-step process. and that's human input, AI feedback, and human, you know, gatekeeping, you know, at the end, you know, there are organizations that are utilizing AI to produce journalism. There are organizations that are out there using AI to refine journalism.

I think those that are utilizing AI, you know, for the purposes of research. I mean, think about the value, you know, you're a young person, young journalist on a beat. and you just want to get a basic history of why gasoline taxes or whatever they are in Illinois. I think it's like $1.25 a gallon or something like that. It might even be higher. Well, how did it get to be this way? Where were the bills that were passed? And what was going on at the time?

Rick, I'm guessing that when you and I were in school that like when the school was closed, you couldn't get back into school. So if you left the one book that had a piece of information in it in your locker, that you're going to have to lump it the next day. And at an Erie Cathedral Prep where they suffered no fools, I got to lump it plenty of the time when I made that mistake. But now, you know, you have this trove. I mean, of course, you have to check everything. You have to verify everything.

But there are things that AI can do that are really incredible and far better than search, you know, than SEO and a typical like Google search or Bing search or whatever, whatever instrument you might use for that. And I think there's value. But again, human input, AI response, and then human gatekeeping really is the only way to do that. Last question, Chris, and we try to end our podcast on an upbeat note. We've talked about a lot of headwinds, but you and your team have clearly are onto something. You've built something that's filling a real need. What gives you optimism about the future of local journalism? And you're really leading that charge.

What's that mean to you? Well, I appreciate you saying that. First of all, we're less than seven years in. We started at zero partners. That number is now pushed well over 1,000. Every day, through the distribution that we've created, reach 141 million Americans, adults. 53% of the country.

We compete against the Associated Press, which has been around since 18. You know, I mean, every day, we're creating an alternative to what has long stood and a lot of publishers and broadcasters are saying that they no longer want to pay for and no longer meets the needs. their market. I mean, that inspires me. I mean, the, the, the uptake and, and frankly, the work.

You know, being able to build something at a time where others are trying to just keep the, like, literally keep the walls from falling in. That's exciting. And I think what we do, to me, it feels right. You know, I mean, it's based in principles. Our principles are open. You know, as I'm gathering my thoughts, I mean, you know, one of my considerations is to write about it in, you know, in long form and to share it. Because I don't think the things, that we're doing are proprietary, and I don't think that they're all that terrible in terms of the curve to being able to do them. It just requires discipline and focus. And if other news organizations adopt the same focus and principle that we've adopted, I mean, they would ultimately be better

for it. But, you know, this is a craft that works when you practice it with discipline. You serve the reader. You know, you refuse to compromise, and that's what we do every day. And for us, what inspires us is, you know, seeing our work and our words being utilized all the way across the country. Chris Group, thanks so much for spending some time with us today. And thanks to you and your team at Center Square to really enable our fellow citizens to become and stay informed about what's going on with their local governments. It's sorely needed and we appreciate it very much. I'm grateful to be here and thanks to you and everybody.

I mean, all the people that support us and the people that saw us for, what we could become at the very beginning. I'm eternally grateful for that. And it was terrific to be with you. Great to be with you. And as always, thanks to all of you for joining us on this episode of Voices of Freedom. Join us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts for our next conversation on issues impacting our freedom and America's foundational principles. And make sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode. I'm Rick Graber, and this is a Foundation podcast.