Chicago Tribune expanding biz coverage

TALKING BIZ NEWS EXCLUSIVE

The Chicago Tribune is adding three new business beats to its coverage, according to associate managing editor for business Michael Lev.

The new business beats are manufacturing/green technology/energy, workplace features and commercial real estate.

The changes are part of a strategy at the Tribune to expand its coverage. The business desk has undergone a large overhaul in the past few years. It introduced a redesign in September 2010. Lev was named head of the section in March 2009. Five longtime business desk staffers left after the paper accepted buyout offers in 2008. In addition, other top names such as columnist David Greising left for other jobs in journalism.

The Tribune business desk competes with the Chicago Sun-Times and Crain’s Chicago Business, as well as bureaus for The Wall Street Journal/Dow Jones Newswires, Bloomberg, the Associated Press and Reuters that are based in Chicago.

One of the other changes with the business news staff is that media columnist Phil Rosenthal will begin writing a general interest business column.

“We think we’re going to make a splash in the business community, and among all readers, in a way that hasn’t happened in Chicago in a long time,” said Lev in an e-mail to Talking Biz News.

The business section is benefiting from an overall addition of news hole throughout the paper that will be introduced later this week.

“We’re going to add, not subtract, because we think that math will work for our readers and for us,” said Lev. “As part of a redesign that will see the addition of 40 to 44 more open pages of news per week in the paper, the business section will become more robust.”