NYT Chicago edition to rely on Chicago News Cooperative

Posted by Nestor Bailly on October 23, 2009 at 4:16 PM

The New York Times plans to use a nonprofit public news service, the Chicago News Cooperative, to provide commentary and news stories for the NYT's two pages of Chicago local news to launch as a 'Chicago Edition' on November 20th.

The CNC is funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and will have its own newsroom, but is part of the nonprofit that operates the public TV broadcaster WTTC 11.

The Cooperative will be paid to produce content for the NYT, while launching its own subscription news site in 2010, the Chicago Scoop.

This is great news for everyone interested or involved in the nonprofit model, like the Bay Area News Project.

CNC editor James O'Shea, former editor of the Los Angeles Times and former managing editor of the Chicago Tribune, said CNC's official start coincided with the acquisition of its first customer, The New York Times.

"At a time of declining resources in newsrooms across the nation, journalists must adapt to new technologies and devise some creative, innovative ways to fulfill our obligations, " O'Shea said, "so we can hold our government accountable to citizens and restore to our journalism the standards desperately needed in these troubled times."

However the new startup is not without skeptics, who point out that the startup is run by those who ran down the Chicago Tribune. Perhaps, if the critics are right, this new opportunity will allow editors to learn from any past mistakes.

Source: paidContent

SFN