The future of Connecticut political news coverage is setting up shop in a small office on Hartford’s Main Street.

The challenge for Michael Regan, Mark Pazniokas and Bob Frahm will be deciding what to focus on during an election cycle that promises, in Regan’s words, “almost an embarrassment of riches.”

Regan says the non-profit Connecticut Mirror web site will launch in mid-January, trying to provide the kind of authoritative and definitive reporting Connecticut has been hungry for since the Great Newspaper Meltdown began two years ago. As soon as they get a logo designed, he said, their website will have something to show. Pazniokas and Frahm, two former Courant heavyweights, will be joined by a third reporter from Maryland, Regan said.

Regan, who engineered the stories that led to former Gov. John Rowland’s resignation and imprisonment, recognizes the problem facing a handful of reporters trying to make theirs the go-to site for Connecticut politics. He is hoping that some early  success will allow the site to add another reporter in the first quarter of 2010. They are currently working out of an office supplied by The Hispanic Health Council at 175 Main Street. (One of that agency’s directors is also on the Mirror’s nonprofit board, Regan said.) A former New York Times veteran James Cutie has come aboard as the group’s chief executive.

For sure, this team steps into the scene with a boatload of experience and name recognition. U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd’s trevails, Gov. M. Jodi Rell’s decision to bow out and a hot 5th District primary will be fertile ground for these guys to plow; and anybody who knows state politics will pay heed.  Further, they’ve set up partnerships with other news outlets such as WNPR and The New Haven Independent, and expect there will be a viral effort of their coverage after not too long.

There will be, however, some new media forms for these guys to master. For instance, Regan said his folks will be doing their own photography; and will be using Facebook, Twitter and similar technologies to deliver their information.   They hope to shoot some video, too. (Harder than it sounds.)  

Regan said he has been talking to the founders of the Texas Tribune, a site with a similar goal as CTMirror.org. So I thought this Texas Tribune video might be instructive, since they talk about the nonprofit model and give a good sense of how much passion dedicated journalists can bring to such a project: