Alejandra Cancino

Alejandra Cancino is a senior reporter at Injustice Watch, a Chicago-based nonprofit newsroom investigating the Cook County court system. Her award-winning work focuses on the intersection of government and business and combines data with personal stories to expose systemic failures.
Most recently, she co-authored a five-part narrative series detailing how lower-income Chicago tenants are trapped in unsafe buildings, forced to pay rising rents even as many of their landlords are allowed to shirk their responsibilities. Through an unprecedented data analysis, she and a co-reporter identified hundreds of buildings in Chicago where tenants faced eviction as the city was suing their landlords over unsafe conditions and exposed how laws and systems created to help tenants were failing.
Earlier in her career, Cancino covered manufacturing, economic development and labor as a business reporter at the Chicago Tribune. There, her investigative stories revealed how some corporations took advantage of an Illinois’ tax incentive program aimed at creating jobs even while laying off workers. Her reporting led to public hearings, an increase in the program’s transparency, and a de-facto moratorium of special tax breaks for large corporations.
Cancino also spent a year as an editor training emerging journalists at City Bureau. She is a former president and board member of the Chicago Headline Club, the local chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. In that role, she co-created a mentorship program aimed at training young journalists of color in FOIA and other investigative skills.
Cancino is a proud University of Florida alum. Go Gators! Social Media: @writeralejandra.bsky.social