The beat goes on for Chicago radio’s golden sage
Clark Weber
After almost seven years and 1,404 broadcasts, Chicago radio legend Clark Weber is pulling the plug on A Senior Moment. But that doesn’t mean he's stepping away from his audience.
The one-minute daily radio feature, which Weber started writing and producing for Sound Targeting in 2005, expanded to 34 stations and online streaming. Billed as “golden advice from the golden years,” the essays served up Weber’s wisdom, insight and humor on a wide range of life’s experiences. (This week’s topics run the gamut from “beautiful cars and beautiful women” to “government regulated industries.”)
“Although I really enjoyed doing the show, I decided to hang it up,” Weber told me. But he’s already in talks with Salem Communications about bringing it back in some form on news/talk WIND-AM (560), where he worked under previous ownership in the ’70s and ’80s.
Reporter McQueary segues to Tribune editorial board
Kristen McQueary
Robservations on the media beat:
- Veteran political reporter Kristen McQueary, who spent the last year covering state government jointly for the Chicago News Cooperative and Chicago Public Media WBEZ-FM (91.5), is joining the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune. While the deal had been in the works for weeks, she’s the first staffer to land employment since the CNC announced it was suspending operations. “I have loved every minute of working with you at WBEZ and with the Chicago News Cooperative,” she told Eight Forty-Eight’s Tony Sarabia. “It’s been an absolute delight.” As a member of the Tribune editorial board, she is expected to succeed Oscar Avila, who left last year to work for the U.S. Department of State. McQueary, a former president of the Chicago Headline Club, was a political columnist for the SouthtownStar for 12 years and previously worked for the Peoria Journal Star.
- Three top executives are out at the Chicago Sun-Times, as new owner Wrapports LLC continues to put its mark on the newspaper’s parent company. Rick Surkamer resigned as president and chief operating officer of Sun-Times Media Holdings, a post he held since February 2009. A former Tribune Co. executive, he joined Sun-Times Media as vice president of operations in 2007. “Much of the progress that has been made at [Sun-Times Media] over the past years has been a direct result of Rick’s tenacity and energy,” new CEO Tim Knight told staffers in a memo. The resignation is effective at the end of the month. Also out are Fred Lebolt, senior vice president and general manager of the company’s digital operations, and Matthew Saleski, vice president of marketing and business development.
Why Chicago News Cooperative is flying the coop
Jim O'Shea
No matter how noble the effort nor how worthy the product, journalism can’t succeed as a charity case.
At least that’s the lesson I take away from the collapse of the Chicago News Cooperative, the nonprofit news operation launched in October 2009 as a bulwark for serious public-affairs reporting. As of February 26, its eight paid employees and 12 other contributors will no longer be turning out their four weekly pages for local editions of The New York Times.
Despite the grandiose way the Reader and others portrayed it, the CNC always struck me as a more of a haven for Chicago Tribune expatriates than the “fresh, innovative approach” to journalism it claimed to be. Founded and headed by Jim O’Shea, the CNC drew its initial staff almost entirely from the ranks of former editors and reporters who’d worked with O’Shea at the Tribune and were allied with the regime of former top editor Ann Marie Lipinski (who also was a member of the CNC's advisory board).
CBS 2 hires Fox News reporter as morning news anchor
Kris Gutierrez
Eight months after WBBM-Channel 2 abruptly released Steve Bartelstein from his contract and sent him packing, the CBS-owned station finally hired a new face for its dismally low-rated weekday morning news show.
Kris Gutierrez, 34, a Dallas-based national correspondent for Fox News, will join CBS 2 as news anchor alongside Susan Carlson from 4:30 to 7am, starting March 12. Jim Williams, who has been filling in since Bartelstein’s ill-fated 10-month run ended last July, will return to full-time reporting and weekend anchoring duties.
Nothing personal: Hot on the trail of the elusive DreX
DreX
Eureka! At long last I finally caught up with the man they call DreX. I can report that he is alive and well and still living in Chicago. But not much more than that.
From January 2003 to December 2010, Kevin Buchar hosted mornings on Clear Channel’s Top 40 WKSC-FM (103.5). On the air, he was known as DreX (a name that evolved from his first radio job when a program director inexplicably dubbed him Mandrex the Magician.) Throughout his eight-year run on Kiss FM, he was among Chicago’s most popular personalities among listeners between 18 and 34 — especially women.
Although his contract had been renewed the previous year, DreX’s show abruptly ended one day at the end of 2010. Without a word of comment from him or any of his bosses, he disappeared, leaving fans to wonder what really happened and whether they’ll ever get to hear him again.
Senior editors move up on Chicago magazine’s masthead
Cassie Walker Burke
Robservations on the media beat:
- Two senior editors at Chicago magazine were promoted Tuesday to newly created positions in a reorganization under recently hired editor-in-chief Beth Fenner. In naming Cassie Walker Burke to the No. 2 job of executive editor, Fenner said in a memo: “When I arrived here in September, one staffer told me that this 10-year Chicago veteran was ‘the heart and soul of the magazine.’ I have also found her to be a gifted editor, a big-picture thinker, and an idea machine.” Another senior editor, Jennifer Tanaka, was named deputy editor. “As anyone who has worked with this multi-talented Newsweek alum can attest, her top-notch story-packaging skills and clever pen improve any piece she touches,” Fenner said. Both moves were prompted by the resignation last December of 18-year veteran Shane Tritsch, whose position as managing editor was eliminated.
- Thousands of Twitter followers thought they were reading the words of morning star Jonathon Brandmeier, whose daily tweets began appearing shortly after he joined news/talk WGN-AM (720) last December. But it turns out that @JBonWGN was the unauthorized creation of a rabid Johnny B. fan (and occasional contributor to the show) named Pete Hayman. After more than two months, officials of the Tribune Co.-owned station finally got around to having the ersatz account suspended. (A correction from Jackie Paulus, director of marketing and digital innovation at WGN: "As opposed to us finally getting around to it, there were two complaints filed immediately, one by Johnny's producer and one by the station. Unfortunately, due to the volume of these incidences, it took Twitter that long to validate and process the request.")
NBC 5’s Stefan Holt: Rising son in the morning
Stefan Holt
Stefan Holt, the 25-year-old son of NBC News anchor Lester Holt, is stepping up to weekday morning news anchor at NBC 5 Chicago after just eight months at the station.
Starting Monday, he’ll anchor NBC 5 News Today from 4:30 to 7am, succeeding Rob Elgas, who shifts to co-anchoring at 4:30pm weekdays with Marion Brooks. Elgas also will be reporting for the 10pm newscast.
The morning changes were triggered by the departure late last year of Zoraida Sambolin, who left to become co-anchor of CNN’s Early Start. Replacing her is Daniella Guzman, who joins NBC 5 in March from KPRC-TV in Houston. Kim Vatis will continue filling in until Guzman arrives.
Introducing The Chicagoan: A bold new vision in print
J.C. Gabel
Chicago’s newest journalistic and literary enterprise combines a Jazz Age title and a nonprofit business model with a bold and ambitious 21st century media plan.
Next week marks the public launch of The Chicagoan, a sumptuous 194-page magazine that carries a dazzling array of articles, artwork and photographs, zero advertising and a cover price of $19.95. A line beneath the nameplate describes its mission as nothing less than “documenting the arts, culture, innovators and history of Chicago and the Greater Midwest.”
Finding a copy of the limited-edition prototype won’t be easy. Initial distribution is planned for only about 50 retail locations in Chicago — mainly boutiques, salons and restaurants — with sales out of custom-designed 1920s-style pop-up newsstands. Don’t even bother looking for it in most bookstores or anywhere in the suburbs.
Jeffrey Zaslow 1958-2012
Jeffrey Zaslow was a brilliant writer, a generous spirit and a cherished friend. His tragic death Friday at 53 is an incalculable loss to his wife, Sherry, their three daughters, and all whose hearts he touched. He made our lives infinitely richer.
“Jeff was such a proud and loving father and husband, a good man, a good friend and a fine writer who distilled so much humanity and professionalism into his works,” Chicago Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg wrote. “No one worked harder, no one cared more about his profession, his family, the state of the world. A terrible tragedy.”
“He was as friendly and talented a guy as you'd ever want to meet — endlessly curious, open, honest, funny," wrote Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn. "It didn't surprise that his career as an author had taken off. He listened as well as he wrote and always seemed aware of how blessed he was with his great family and great success."
"Jeff’s writing, for the Journal and in his books, has been a source of inspiration for many people around the world and his journalistic life has been a source of inspiration for all journalists," Wall Street Journal managing editor Robert Thompson wrote in a memo to staff. "There is no doubt that Jeff’s words will echo poignantly for generations to come and his body of work will be a living testimony to his professionalism, creativity and dedication."
Chicago still holds charm for Deborah Norville
Deborah Norville
It’s been more than 25 years, but Deborah Norville still has the proclamation from Mayor Harold Washington framed on a wall at home. For seven days in November 1986, it was Deborah Norville Week in Chicago — the culmination of a semi-serious sendoff I orchestrated in my Sun-Times column to salute the ascending star as she left to anchor NBC News at Sunrise in New York.
“Deborah Norville has always been one of the top two or three reasons to turn on the TV set,” the late mayor told me at the time, with the hearty approval of his press secretary, Alton Miller. “Her new assignment is going to completely rearrange my mornings.”
Such was the affection Chicagoans shared for the 28-year-old blonde-haired, blue-eyed beauty from Dalton, Georgia, who spent only five years as a local news anchor and reporter at NBC 5 here, but made a lasting impression and some lifelong friends.
“I grew up in Georgia, but I became a grown-up in Chicago,” Norville reflected after a round of radio interviews and an appearance on ABC 7’s Windy City Live the other day. “I became a confident woman and a relentless journalist in this town. I became the person who had the capacity to do a lot of different things because of the grounding and growth that Chicago provided. I really blossomed in this environment, and I will always be grateful.”
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