Hillsdale alumnus John Gage ’18 launched The Plains Sentinel, an online website that focuses on Nebraska state and local news, on Substack last month. 

“I’m an ambitious guy,” 29-year-old Gage said. “I would like the Plains Sentinel to be the go-to site for news, politics, and culture in the state of Nebraska, and I think we can do that.”

A native Nebraskan, Gage said there is a large audience for local news coverage and investigative journalism, but people don’t know how to make a living doing it.

“The demand for stories hasn’t gone away,” Gage said. “In fact, it’s probably higher than it’s ever been in our fast-paced media environment.”

Gage’s father came up with the name — it reflects Gage’s desire to alert readers to the local news from a non-partisan perspective.

“We’re going to be giving scrutiny to organizations, public officials, and people who previously hadn’t seen much scrutiny from journalists,” Gage said.

The online publication has already broken major stories before bigger state papers. Plains Sentinel was the first to report that former U.S. senator Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.) is named in the Epstein Files — a story which ultimately led to Kerrey’s resignation from the board of a Nebraska clean energy start-up.

“We’ve only been around for less than a month,” Gage said.“And we’ve already had a couple of examples of changing the type of stories the media landscape is covering.”

The Plains Sentinel is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, non-partisan organization funded by philanthropists and its readers and led by a three-person board of directors: Gage, who doubles as the executive editor; Ryan Wolfe, director for the Center of Excellence in Journalism for The Fund for American Studies; and John J. Miller, director of Hillsdale’s Dow Journalism Program. 

Miller, who taught Gage during his Hillsdale years, said part of the reason he agreed to be a board member was because of Gage’s character.

“Knowing him as a student, I could tell he was going to be successful,” Miller said. “He was smart, he was serious, and principled. You could just tell he was a good and responsible young man.”

The fourth of five Gage boys who attended Hillsdale, Gage said he never considered any other college. 

“I knew where I wanted to go,” Gage said. “The greatest school in America.”

At Hillsdale, Gage majored in American Studies and took many electives in religion.

Though he was never formally part of the journalism program, Miller said Gage was close with many who were, like Michael Lucchese ’18. 

Gage and Lucchese met at a Hillsdale program the summer before their senior years of high school. They kept in contact and decided to be freshman roommates in Simpson Residence — where they stayed all four years. 

Gage embraced dorm culture, calling Simpson the “most Hillsdale of Hillsdale” for its camaraderie. 

According to Lucchese, he and Gage enjoyed Simpsonite activities such as raiding Galloway and Niedfeldt residences, participating in homecoming, and other mischief. 

Lucchese described Gage as someone with a strict sense of right and wrong. 

“I’d say he’s a thoughtfully stubborn guy,” Lucchese said. “Someone who thinks very carefully about what he believes, then sticks to it.” 

Gage said the most influential class he took was with President Larry Arnn who taught the “Nicomachean Ethics.”

“It taught me to take things seriously,” Gage said. “We live in a very cynical culture: it’s very natural in our day and age where people are very skeptical about things, but to read a very deep book like that and to see how much it has shaped Dr. Arnn’s life and how much it can shape your life if you’re just willing to take it seriously is very impactful.” 

Gage said that during college, he envisioned himself returning to Nebraska and getting involved in local politics. At first, he did just that.

After graduating, Gage moved back to his home city of Lincoln to campaign for Republican incumbent Pete Ricketts’ gubernatorial reelection. 

After Ricketts won, Gage decided to move to Washington, D.C., where he began his career in journalism.

“When I moved to D.C., I didn’t have a job,” Gage said. “I just started emailing anybody and everybody. I did not know I was going to be doing journalism.”

After exchanging messages with Miller, Gage became a fellow for the Intercollegiate Studies Institute’s Collegiate Network Journalism Internship and Fellowship Program. He worked as a breaking news reporter at the Washington Examiner, writing eight stories a day. 

In Washington, D.C., he and Lucchese were again roommates, this time both working as journalists.

“John really understands the importance of journalism and a well informed public to the kind of Republican self-government we live in,” Lucchese said.

In 2021, Gage married Andie Chandler ’19 and moved back to Nebraska to work for Jim Pillen’s gubernatorial campaign as the deputy campaign manager before working as the state director for Americans for Prosperity, a conservative-aligned political advocacy organization.

Last December, Gage said he was approached by private investors who wanted to fund a news site. With less than a month of preparation time, the Plains Sentinel launched Feb. 11. 

“You have to wear a lot of hats,” Gage said. “You need insurance, you need to find writers for an organization that doesn’t exist, you need to do accounting to pay your freelancers — there’s a little bit of everything.”