Chicago News Cooperative looking to add more business news

TALKING BIZ NEWS EXCLUSIVE

The Chicago News Cooperative, which launched in October 2009 and is funded by foundations and individuals, is looking to add more business and economics news coverage, said Jim O’Shea, its founder.

“We do cover some business now,” said O’Shea on Wednesday. “But we don’t have the resources yet” to do a thorough job.

O’Shea was speaking Wednesday at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at UNC-Chapel Hill to an “Economics Reporting” class. He is scheduled to speak to other students later in the day.

The cooperative could eventually have three or four reporters covering business and economics, said O’Shea, the former managing editor of the Chicago Tribune and editor of the Los Angeles Times. O’Shea is also a former business reporter at the Tribune, and the coop’s managing editor is Jim Kirk, former associate managing editor of business at the Tribune, while its general manager is David Greising, a former business columnist for the Tribune and reporter for BusinessWeek.

O’Shea noted that the cooperative has done some major business-related stories, such as a piece about a company that has the parking meter business in Chicago. He’s interested in having the cooperative cover the pending derivative legislation  in Congress, which could impact the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

“We would focus on the major stories that the papers aren’t doing,” said O’Shea. “I’d like to be able to do that on a more consistent basis. That’s why it’s important to get out there and raise money.”

In addition to the stories that are posted on the cooperative’s site, it also provides content to the New York Times on Friday and Sunday.

In terms of fundraising, O’Shea said that the cooperative could sell sponsorships to companies that would help pay for local consumers to access the news, but companies could not sponsor specific coverage. He noted that the Winston & Strawn law firm is providing pro bono work for the organization and also represented the parking meter company, but “they did not try to pressure me to keep the story out of the paper.”