WASHINGTON (AFP) - A newly formed non-profit news organization announced on Thursday that it will provide local stories to a Chicago edition of The New York Times to be launched next month.
The Chicago News Cooperative (CNC) said it will be headed by James O?Shea, the former editor of the Los Angeles Times and a former managing editor of the Chicago Tribune.
The CNC, which has the support of a Chicago public television station and funding from the grant-making MacArthur Foundation, said the New York Times, which plans to launch its Chicago edition on November 20, would be its first customer.
CNC journalists will provide two pages of CNC-branded news and commentary to the Chicago edition of the Times on Friday and Sunday.
The CNC said its eventual goal was "to provide high quality, professionally edited news and commentary to the Chicago region on the Web, in print and over the airwaves."
James Warren, a former Chicago Tribune managing editor, will write a regular column for CNC that will appear in the Chicago pages of the Times.
The New York Times launched a San Francisco edition of the newspaper last week featuring expanded coverage of the Bay Area two days a week.
The Bay Area report will initially be written and edited by the 10-member San Francisco bureau of the Times but longer-term the newspaper said it plans to enter into a collaboration with local journalists and news organizations.
The moves come as the Times battles The Wall Street Journal and USA Today in a fight for readers nationwide and as US newspapers in general search for ways to address shrinking print advertising revenue and a glut of free news online.
In Chicago, the Times will be going up against the struggling Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times, both of which have declared bankruptcy.
