Crain’s Chicago hires new reporter

Lisa Bertagnoli

Lisa Bertagnoli has been hired by Crain’s Chicago Business to cover nonprofits, cultural institutions and their patrons and power brokers, a new beat.

A story on its website states, “Bertagnoli writes the weekly Society feature for Crain’s during the spring and fall gala seasons. Altogether, she estimates, she has written 1,000 news stories, profiles and features online and in print for Crain’s over the past 20 years. Among her most recent pieces was an assessment of the Art Institute of Chicago’s new director, James Rondeau.

“In her new role, she will be reporting on many of Chicago’s biggest and best-known entities—from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Lyric Opera to the Field Museum and Shedd Aquarium to the MacArthur Foundation and Chicago Community Trust—as businesses, which, despite their nonprofit status, they are.

“‘I reviewed more than 100 applicants for this position,’ Crain’s Editor Michael Arndt says, ‘and Lisa easily bested them all. She’s already immersed in this world.'”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.