Beginning Sunday, May 3, 2009, visitors can log onto a first-of-its-kind help desk at chicagotribune.com to get advice on how to navigate government bureaucracies to get public information about schools, municipal governments and police departments. Led by a group of Chicago Tribune experts who have demonstrated their commitment to watchdog journalism, the new website includes an online forum which it hopes will grow into a gathering place for citizens wanting to get or give advice on how to learn more about the workings of their government.

“We are committed at Chicago Tribune to being your watchdog in the corridors of power to ensure that your government lives up to your standards of honesty and openness,” Said Gerould Kern, Senior Vice President and Editor. “At every level of government in Illinois, citizens routinely encounter a culture of secrecy that denies you information about the way your government makes decisions. Police reports, school board deliberations, and investigations into public corruption itself, these records belong to you but too often you're told you cannot see them. So we're turning our spotlight on your government in secret.”