In Chicago, Ex-Editor Fights Back

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James E. O’Shea spent most of his career at The Chicago Tribune, but he was ousted from the Tribune Company in a highly publicized clash over staff cuts, and these days he’s finding plenty of fault with his old paper.

Now, he is competing head-to-head with the Tribune as editor of a new local news venture in Chicago, a small band of people that includes other Tribune alumni and Tribune critics.

It has all the elements of an ink-stained grudge match, a journalistic version of Brett Favre leading the Vikings against the Packers, right?

“No, I don’t have any interest in any of that,” said Mr. O’Shea, who was the managing editor of The Tribune and later the top editor of a sibling paper, The Los Angeles Times, where he was forced out in early 2008.

“I would be doing this even if I had never worked for them, and I saw a need. We’ve got to figure out how to do serious journalism and pay for it, and that’s what’s motivating me.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/23/business/media/23local.html?th&emc=th