• Jillian DuchnowskiNeighbor

  • Yorkville, IL

<strong>E-mail:</strong> jillian.duchnowski&#64;patch.com<br><strong>Phone:</strong> 630-390-0273<br><strong>Hometown: </strong>Saline, Mich.<br><strong>Birthday:</strong> Aug. 24<br><strong>Twitter:</strong> &#64;YorkvillePatch

If we still lived in a newsprint-dominated media environment, I&#39;d tell you that I bleed ink. Instead, I&#39;ll tell you that I love learning about people and telling stories, using whatever medium is best suited for the story and the situation.

Since I graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2003, my career has taken me to Hoopeston, Ill., where I wrote about a fire that ravaged an entire city block and the Wiccans who decided the small town was the perfect place to open an online Wiccan school. Then, I covered business news, municipal news and court news (in that order) for a variety of daily papers, most recently the Northwest Herald in McHenry County.

In my spare time, I love curling up with a good book, volunteering for the Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure, hiking and tossing the ball for my cockapoo, BlackJack. Someday, I hope to learn how to cook more than three recipes well, but for now, I enjoy making fire-hot chili, macaroni and cheese with smoked gouda and bruschetta.

<strong>My Beliefs</strong><br>At Patch, we promise always to report the facts as objectively as possible and otherwise adhere to the principles of good journalism. We also acknowledge that true impartiality is impossible because human beings have beliefs. In the spirit of simple honesty, we encourage editors to reveal their beliefs to the extent they feel comfortable. This disclosure is not a license to inject our beliefs into stories or dictate coverage according to them. Rather, we hope the knowledge our beliefs are on the record will cause us to be ever mindful to write, report and edit in a fair and balanced manner. If you ever see evidence we failed in this mission, please let us know.

<strong>Politics</strong><br>I&#39;m socially liberal and tend to vote for Democrats. While I was in college, I interned for the White House Press Office during the end of Bill Clinton&#39;s second term and the extended presidential campaign of 2000. For a time, I considered it the most exciting thing I&#39;d ever done.

<strong>Religion</strong><br>My spiritual path has been somewhat winding, but I wasn&#39;t raised within a religion and I presently do not attend a church.

<strong>Local Hot-Button Issues</strong><br>Yorkville is still grappling with the population boom that hit a few years ago, from paying for necessary infrastructure to expanding schools and redefining itself culturally. Of course, the million-dollar questions remain: When the housing market will pick up? And what could that resurgence — or lack thereof — mean for the local economy?

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