John Pletz
John Pletz knits together coverage of technology, aviation, cannabis and public policy, showing how strategic decisions and disruptions in these sectors reshape business and civic life. He moves between deep dives on emerging technologies, reporting on airlines and airports, and sustained coverage of the regulated cannabis market, treating them as parts of one connected economy. As a senior reporter at Crain's Chicago Business, he has built a long-running beat that follows how innovation, regulation and infrastructure interact across major industries.
Technology, startups and quantum computing
Pletz’s technology coverage ranges from enterprise IT incidents to frontier science, with a consistent focus on operational impact and competitive advantage. In his reporting on a cyberattack at Brunswick, he connects an IT breach directly to disrupted orders and production, tying technical failure to supply chain and revenue consequences. He also follows the startup scene closely, such as his piece on a Chicago quantum-computing company pursuing a higher-quality qubit, where he treats quantum hardware as a business story about talent, capital and institutional support rather than a purely theoretical quest.
Across these stories, he writes in plain terms about complex systems - whether quantum bits or corporate networks - while staying anchored in how those systems affect manufacturers, founders and investors. His technology beat is not limited to individual firms; it extends to questions about the next big civic idea in the wake of Millennium Park, tying innovation narratives to physical projects and long-term economic positioning.
Airlines, airports and leadership shifts
He covers airlines and airports as strategic assets shaped by political leadership, regulatory decisions and infrastructure investments. In reporting on changes at the Department of Aviation and related agencies, he treats personnel moves as inflection points for how airports, emergency management and oversight bodies will function, situating individual appointments within broader governance questions. His aviation stories often sit at the intersection of politics and operations, tracing how decisions made in city hall can alter airline service, airport modernization and the experience of travelers and carriers. By following this beat over time, he builds a composite picture of aviation as both a business and a public utility, with attention to long-term planning rather than only day-of travel disruptions.
Cannabis market, licensing and local pushback
The cannabis industry is another core strand of his work, where he tracks the evolution of legalization from policy experiment to mature, contested market. He reports on the performance of the recreational marijuana market several years after legalization, drawing out what has been learned about demand, pricing and market structure as the industry stabilizes. Licensing is a recurring theme: his coverage of debates over using lotteries to award pot-shop licenses examines fairness, transparency and the mechanics of state policy, reflecting his interest in how rules shape market entry. He also documents local resistance, including stories on suburbs that decline to allow recreational marijuana businesses, showing how municipal decisions and community sentiment can blunt statewide initiatives.
Across these pieces he treats cannabis as a regulated business subject to political risk, operational challenges and uneven geography, rather than as a lifestyle topic.
Budgets, taxes and corporate investment
Beyond sector-specific beats, Pletz writes regularly on public finance and corporate investment, mapping how government revenue decisions and business expansions interact. In coverage of warning signs in state revenues ahead of budget talks, he connects economic indicators and tariff pressures to the practical constraints facing lawmakers, framing fiscal issues in terms that matter to employers and investors.
His reporting on proposals to extend sales taxes to services highlights the tension between the need for new revenue and the potential impact on businesses that would newly fall under the tax base.
He also follows the work of economic-development organizations, including pieces on Intersect Illinois and its claims about rising corporate projects, using those stories to probe how the state competes for new investment. This strand of his work complements his technology, aviation and cannabis coverage by situating individual sectors within broader debates over taxation, budgeting and growth.
Taken together, John Pletz’s reporting builds a connected view of how technology firms, airlines, cannabis companies and policymakers share the same economic landscape, with stories that balance granular detail and big-picture context. His work is a fit when a story involves the intersection of innovation, regulation and infrastructure, especially where decisions in one arena ripple across multiple industries.
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Abdul Latif Jameel
Abdul Latif Jameel publishes long-form, research-led pieces on how emerging technologies and scientific advances reshape education, industry, and society. He writes for the Abdul Latif Jameel masthead at the intersection of learning, innovation, and applied science, with a focus on technology, skills, and the future of learning. He explains complex fields such as quantum sensing in clear, accessible terms, breaking down frontier science and tying it to real-world applications. His coverage links breakthroughs in sensing, data, and automation to training, curriculum, and lifelong learning. He treats education as an applied system connected to industry, policy, infrastructure, and human development. He reports in an analytical, explanatory style, using research, pilots, and large-scale initiatives to examine how technologies are implemented, evaluated, and scaled in learning and training environments.
Abril Preciado
Abril Preciado is an Emmy award-winning bilingual television journalist at FOX6 News Milwaukee who focuses on education, school crises and policy decisions affecting students, families and staff. She follows school communities over months, from emergency response through investigations, relocation plans and the first day back in class. Her reporting on the Lincoln Avenue School fire covers displacement, safety changes, rebuilding and the move to temporary space. She also uses public records to examine local officials, test official claims and connect government conduct to public trust. Before joining FOX6, she reported for Univision in Sacramento, covering the Farm Workers March, wildfires, politics and the Latino community, and contributed border reporting for a national radio network. She centers families, explains complex decisions clearly and focuses on the human effects of policy.
Adria Iraheta
Adria Iraheta is a community-focused reporter at Denver7, distinct for centering students, families and residents in every story about schools, neighborhoods and public services. She covers how decisions by school districts, local agencies and public institutions land in daily life, with a particular focus on Aurora and Arapahoe County. Her beat sits at the intersection of education, community issues, public services, safety, infrastructure, health and climate, from job cuts in a school district to a new transit safety app, DMV outages, street changes and record heat waves. With a decade of local television reporting experience, she reports on the ground in specific local scenes, using plain language, direct questions to officials and clear explanations to show how policies, programs and changes affect the people who live, study and work in Colorado communities.
Alan J. Borsuk
Alan J. Borsuk stands out for connecting what happens in schools to the policy and political decisions behind them. He writes in-depth K-12 education analysis for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and serves as a senior fellow in law and public policy at Marquette University Law School. His work focuses on Milwaukee Public Schools, school choice, literacy, teacher pipelines, and school accountability. He uses long-range perspective, detailed reporting, and structured analysis to explain how reforms unfold, why they stall, and what they mean for students and leaders. He has also written on vouchers, Teach for America, discipline, and teacher evaluation, drawing on decades as a reporter and editor on education and public policy.