Pulitzer winner Don Terry, award-winning sportswriter Dan McGrath and founding Huffington Post Chicago editor Ben Goldberger join news startup
The Chicago News Cooperative, launched in October, has added three marquee names to its news team. Pulitzer-winner Don Terry, award-winning sports reporter Dan McGrath and The Huffington Post’s founding Chicago editor Ben Goldberger expand a newsroom led by former Chicago Tribune managing editor and LA Times editor James O’Shea.
“As the Chicago News Cooperative makes its mark, we continue to attract professionals who share our commitment to socially significant journalism,” said O’Shea, co-founder and editor of CNC’s print, broadcast and online news operation. “The team that’s taking shape represents some of the top talent in the news industry while reflecting the diversity and vitality of the city we cover.”
Terry, 52, joining CNC as a staff writer, previously held the same position at the Chicago Tribune. Reporting for the Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times and The New York Times, he has covered events including the election of Chicago’s first African-American mayor, the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles, the Oklahoma City Federal Building bombing and HIV/AIDS. Terry was part of a team of writers awarded the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for the Times series “How Race Is Lived in America.” He also has received the Peter Lisagor Award for feature writing and the Studs Terkel Award for longstanding excellence in reporting about Chicago’s diverse communities.
McGrath, 59, comes to CNC as a staff writer for sports. He spent the past 12 years of a three-decade career as sports editor, associate managing editor and, most recently, senior writer for the Chicago Tribune. Sports sections McGrath edited have won more than a dozen top-10 awards from the Associated Press Sports Editors Association. He was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for spot news coverage in 1992 and for commentary in 1993. A Chicago native, he is the co-author or editor of five books on the city’s sports teams, including the best-selling Out of the Blue on the 2003 Chicago Cubs.
Goldberger, 27, joins CNC as a staff writer and digital media editor. Previously, he was founding Chicago editor of The Huffington Post, where he launched the first local edition of the news and opinion Web site. Under his direction, Huffington Post Chicago delivered breaking news and analysis of the 2008 presidential election, the Blagojevich impeachment and the 2016 Olympics bid. Earlier, Goldberger was a reporter at the Chicago Sun-Times and an editor of the paper’s weekly opinion section. He also has written about politics for Chicago Magazine.
With its growing news team, the Chicago News Cooperative is building a new journalism model for a new generation of readers, listeners and viewers in print, broadcast and online media. Under an agreement with The New York Times, CNC produces two pages of Chicago news coverage in the paper’s local edition every Friday and Sunday. Launched as a project of WTTW-TV, CNC will extend its public-service reporting over the air and on the Web with WTTW-TV. The cooperative will also collaborate with WBEZ Chicago Public Radio and other outlets. Early next year CNC will introduce its own Web site, combining news programming that educates and activates with social networking that connects people who share common interests.
Co-founded by James E. O’Shea and Peter Osnos of PublicAffairs books, CNC has received support from WTTW, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, The Chicago Community Trust, Winston & Strawn LLP and civic leaders interested in funding substantive journalism for a democratic society. Within five years, the cooperative expects to create a self-sustaining business model based on diverse revenue streams including advertising, membership and service fees.