Impact Stories
CT Mirror strengthens its corporate governance with help from ProJourn
marzo 31, 2026
ProJourn secures operational support for start-up Main Street Media Cooperative
In 2025, veteran journalists Susan Chira and Amanda Bennett identified an opportunity to pair experienced journalists with local newsrooms. They joined forces to create Main Street Media Cooperative and needed legal support to get their operations up and running.
One priority was to finalize template agreements between local news organizations and participating journalists. Susan and Amanda sought to ensure that the agreement accounted for libel insurance, protecting participating journalists from legal risk.
Susan and Amanda reached out to ProJourn, and Covington & Burling attorneys Billy Wu and Tom DeFilipps agreed to provide pro bono representation. Susan reflects:
«Billy and Tom were very helpful in reviewing our template agreements with local outlets and our insurance expert’s suggested language making sure our contributors’ libel protections were spelled out and protected. . . Billy and Tom were enthusiastic and encouraged us to stay in touch as we expand, since we may want to consider a different structure — right now we are not a 501c3, rather, we have a fiscal sponsor. They were thoughtful, and we were very grateful to have their insights and suggestions.»
Congratulations to Main Street Media Cooperative, and thank you to Covington & Burling for its support of this great initiative.
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ABOUT PROJOURN CLIENT MAIN STREET MEDIA COOPERATIVE:
Main Street Media Cooperative seeks to expand local newsrooms’ capacity to cover the impact of the blizzard of changes emanating from Washington by matching experienced journalists to newsrooms to help produce more articles. We pay all expenses and a modest honorarium to the journalists and limit the number of articles per outlet so we don’t replace hiring.
ABOUT PROJOURN PARTNER LAW FIRM COVINGTON & BURLING LLP:
In an increasingly regulated world, we have an exceptional ability to help clients navigate their most complex business problems, deals, and disputes. Our distinctively collaborative culture allows us to be truly one team globally, drawing on the diverse experience of lawyers and advisors across the firm by seamlessly sharing insight and expertise. What sets us apart is our ability to combine the tremendous strength in our litigation, investigations, and corporate practices with deep knowledge of policy and policymakers, and one of the world’s leading regulatory practices. This enables us to create novel solutions to our clients’ toughest problems, successfully try their toughest cases and deliver commercially practical advice of the highest quality.