As we worked on the final edits on our lead news story today, we had a slight time management problem on our hands. You see, reporter Meribah Knight was in New York, spending most of the day in a jail.  A few hours went by when we could not reach her by phone. And all the time I was thinking: This is just the sort of reporter we should be working with.
Meribah, one of a growing number of top-notch freelance writers who have brought great ideas and reporting to the Chicago News Cooperative, was behind bars for the best of reasons: She was working on a story.  I don’t know all the details, but I’m certain Meribah will bring a great story to the readers of the publication who sent her there.
Journalism used to be a lot more cut and dried. For generations, serious news organizations such as CNC worked almost exclusively with full time staff writers, and set aside little of their news plans for outside writers. Full timers at CNC are among our most valued colleagues, too. But we also rely on freelancers such as Meribah. With a keen eye for the disenfranchised and ability to evoke a sense of place in her descriptive writing, Meribah has written memorable stories, including an evocative portrait of a former female gang member who was trying to break out of the vicious cycle of gang life in Chicago.
Meribah’s story about what most be one of the world’s most ethnically diverse sewing circles is another case in point.  Economic decline and political turmoil has increased the flood of refugees into the U.S., and Illinois receives an outsized share of people who have fled their native countries. But despite the increased need, funding is being cut, and Meribah’s story puts a human face on the need that  still exists, even if the resources to meet it no longer do.
While every word in the story is well chosen, the photographs tell a story in their own right. Sally Ryan, also a freelance journalist, has produced some memorable, carefully composed images that catch the unique atmosphere of this unusual sewing group. A virtue of on-line journalism is our ability to offer photo galleries that display an array of work, as we have done with some of Sally’s best work today.
James Warren’s column follows a local congressman who is turning the “reality TV” concept upside down. U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley has taken the notion of the “undercover boss” to his district and spent time in a variety of places-from the Super Dawg restaurant to a kindergarten cafeteria to the River Grove police station.
Sports columnist Dan McGrath digs deep inside a different part of our city: The Chicago Bulls locker room. He explores why, in this time of baseball fever and when even the recently-lowly Chicago Blackhawks are filling the United Center, the Bulls are mired in a state of frustration and ineffectuality.
As any good columnist will, Dan McGrath leaves us with a very distinct, concrete and unforgettable vision.  After examining how coach Vinny Del Negro and team vice president John Paxson got into a shoving match in a dispute over a coaching decision, McGrath notes that the Michael Jordan Bulls never came to blows even though personal animosities ran deep and wide in those locker rooms, too. Whatever his faults as the Bulls’ General Manager, Jerry Krause never got into a fight with the people he disliked.
City Hall bureau chief Dan Mihalopoulos brings us a short report that is a big story. He points out how City Treasurer Stephanie Neely has threatened a lawsuit over information published in a Fraternal Order of Police newsletter. It’s “The Chicago Way,” Mihalopoulos observes, for a thin-skinned public official to consider suing a cop who would have the temerity to state that a public official should not vote on matters in which her campaign contributors have a major stake.
Good reading to you.