Jon Van and I first met at the Des Moines Register when we were both on the south side of 30. He sometimes came to work on his bicycle wearing a top hat and cape in a newsroom populated by journalists who were as fond of Jim Beam as Jimmy Breslin. A political science major who always loved journalism, Jon covered the Des Moines City Council in those days and wrote about local government and gravel contracts with equal skill and verve.
He usually came into the office on Saturday morning to write signature Register pieces — “crazy neighbor” stories that the paper’s editors loved to put at the bottom of page one. He once wrote a story about an Iowa farmer who advertised in a local paper asking Iowans to send him old bowling balls for his barn yard. When Jon asked him why, the farmer said he figured it would give his hogs something to do; they could push bowling balls around with their snouts instead of just wallowing around all day. “I think they’re bored,” he told Van.
Nowadays Jon occasionally writes science and technology stories for the Chicago News Cooperative, as he did in the Chicago pages of The New York Times on Sunday. Jon brings more than 30 years experience as a journalist, including decades of writing about science and technology at the Chicago Tribune. He’s won awards, praise and kudos from a range of critics as wide as Lake Michigan. But he’s never lost those qualities of a hard-nosed journalist that he first displayed in Des Moines. A prime example is the piece in Sunday’s paper that details how Chicago area universities and laboratories, long a source of innovation in the life sciences, often can’t get the funding to bring their ideas to market. His reporting suggests why Silicon Valley flowered in California and not Chicago.
One skill I’ve always admired in a reporter is the ability to pick a subject that puts them in the right place for a good story and a good time. That’s one of many reasons I admire CNC Sports Columnist Dan McGrath. We pride ourselves here at the CNC in writing about Chicago and McGrath figured out of way to do a local story in the much warmer climes of Scottsdale, Arizona. He visits Spring training with a local angle – the Cubs and the White Sox. He thinks the Sox have the look of a contender. The Cubs under new ownership? Some things never change.
CNC Columnist Jim Warren traveled to Elmhurst College to talk to the school’s new president, S. Alan Ray, a former Catholic seminarian and lawyer with a doctorate in religion. If you want to learn about how he’s putting the college and its 3,3360 students on the map, take a look at Jim’s column. In Pulse, President Obama comes under fire in his own backyard — the Chicago City Council. Also read about a young man who lost his legs but still managed to fulfill his dream of playing Olympic hockey (and watch a video of him on the ice), plus a possible new cable TV channel here for Veterans.
The Chicago News Cooperative produces two pages of Chicago news every Friday and Sunday for the New York Times. We welcome input from readers (newstips@chicagonewscoop.org) and appreciate your support.
