FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 18, 2009
 
Contact: Geoff Dougherty
773-362-5002 ext. 10
Geoff@chitowndailynews.org

Chicago, IL - The Chi-Town Daily News has been awarded a one-year, $25,000 grant of general operating funds by the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation.  
 
The Daily News will use this funding to expand its neighborhood journalism program, which has trained more than 80 Chicagoans to cover news in their neighborhoods. With the support of the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation, the Daily News will offer more intensive training to its volunteer reporters and will recruit dozens of new reporters from communities across Chicago.  The Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation grant will also support the Daily News public affairs reporting program, which employs professional journalists to cover local government beats.
 
"We are very excited to partner with the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation," said Geoff Dougherty, editor and founder of the Chi-Town Daily News.  "While newspapers around the country are cutting back on staff and ignoring vitally important local stories, foundations like EEJF and organizations like the Chi-Town Daily News are stepping up to fill the gap."
 
Separately, the Daily News announced it has hired four full-time journalists into its public affairs reporting program. Their coverage will keep Chicago residents abreast of developments at the Chicago Housing Authority, the City Colleges of Chicago, the Cook County hospital system, and Chicago's unions and labor organizations. 
 
The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Abra Prentice Foundation provided funding for the four positions. 
 
The newly hired journalists are: 
 
Megan Cottrell, housing reporter
 
Cottrell has worked as a radio reporter at WCMU public radio in Mount Pleasant, Michigan and her work was featured on National Public Radio's Weekend All Things Considered. She holds a degree from Central Michigan University in political science. 
 
Fernando Diaz, labor and unions reporter
 
Diaz previously covered immigration, government and politics for The Chicago Reporter. He has also worked as a reporter for the Daily Herald in suburban Chicago and the Democrat and Chronicle in Rochester, N.Y.
 
Diaz's work has been featured on WBEZ's 848 and Telemundo's EnContexto. Fernando is on the board of directors of The National Association of Hispanic Journalists and is a member of Investigative Reporters and Editors. In 2008, he was a Justice and Journalism Fellow with the Institute for Justice and Journalism at the University of Southern California Annenberg School
of Communication working on a story about immigrants in the military. In 2007, he was awarded a Philip L. Graham Diversity Fellowship from IRE.
 
A native of Bethesda, Md., Diaz received his journalism degree from Columbia College Chicago in 2004. 
 
Alex Parker, public health reporter
 
Parker previously covered education for the Lawrence (KS) Journal-World, and covered youth and politics in Kansas for MTV News during the 2008 presidential campaign. Before turning to journalism, he worked in public relations for several years. He holds a bachelors degree in journalism from Miami University and did masters work at the University of Kansas journalism
school.
 
Peter Sachs, higher education reporter
 
Before joining the Daily News, Sachs worked at The Bulletin, the daily newspaper in Bend, Oregon. His coverage of the city hall beat there, including reporting on Bend's purchase of broken-down used buses, led to changes in how the city purchased equipment and contributed to the ouster of two high-level city officials.
 
The Chi-Town Daily News is a three-year-old, online, nonprofit news organization that serves 50,000 unique visitors a month.