Results tagged “journalism”

We pondered the new Chicago section of the NY Times and even reminded you yesterday and...now it's here. I actually picked up a copy this morning but haven't had time to read it yet. However, lucky for me (and all of you, right?) you can also access the content online here. Besides the CNC's NY Times content, the site also features Chicago-centric headlines from other sources as well as links to other helpful Chicago sites (including us!). Of course, if you're reading this then you probably already know that stuff.

Ex-Tribune folks are everywhere these days. The latest example is over at The Reader, where a former Tribune managing editor, Jim Warren, has been appointed publisher. Warren said in a statement, "I believe the Reader can be an even greater success if it is provocative, makes those in power squirm and yet is willing to entertain and have fun. I hope I can be of help in renewing and reinventing the print version and finding new audiences on the Web.” The Reader's Michael Miner has more on the hire.

While we knew the New York Times was planning a local edition of its paper for the Chicago area, details emerged yesterday about the paper's specific plans. The news for the Chicago-centric paper will be handled by a group called Chicago News Cooperative. The CNC will include former Tribune editor James O'Shea and James Warren; the advisory board will be chaired by journalist Peter Osnos and another Tribune editor, Ann Marie Lipinski, is a board member. The group will receive a bulk of its funding from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation while also receiving assistance from WTTW. In fact, the CNC will start life as a non-profit affiliate of Window to the World Communications which happens to be WTTW's parent company. The Cooperative is also in talks with WBEZ for potential future collaboration. Two pages of Chicago-related news will appear twice a week (Friday and Sunday) in copies of the New York Times distributed in the Chicago area starting November 20.

On Tuesday, I did something unusual for a 23-year-old journalist two weeks out of grad school: I book-ended my career. I started at Chitown Daily News, the nonprofit public affairs reporting site funded by the Knight Foundation for a few years’ experimentation, in June 2007, just as editor and CEO Geoff Dougherty opened his first office in Andersonville.

We couldn't believe our ears this morning when we heard that editor-in-chief and CEO of Chitown Daily News, Geoff Dougherty, laid off his staff of five yesterday afternoon, effective immediately. We (and the rest of the Twitterverse) thought that meant the end of the website, which has been responsible for several important local stories lately. In actuality, the site, which was started with a Knight Foundation grant, is merely headed to the for-profit realm. In a statement posted today, Dougherty said:

Eater.com is counting down the days until New York Times restaurant critic and "baby bulimic" Frank Bruni files his last review for the Paper of Record, going so far as to speculate who would succeed Bruni and prognosticating the odds of some favorites.

Sad news to report from overnight: John Callaway, broadcast journalism legend and founding host of WTTW's "Chicago Tonight" has passed away at the age of 72. According to his wife, Callaway died from a heart attack yesterday evening in Racine. Callaway began his career in Chicago with the City News Bureau of Chicago and in the mid-60's went to WBBM where he helped oversee the station's switch to an all-news format in 1968. Later that same year, he was named Vice President of CBS Radio in New York where he helped stations all over the country make similar switches. In 1974, he returned to Chicago at WTTW where he took over as news director and in 1975 began hosting "Public Newscenter." Callaway than started and hosted "Chicago Tonight" in 1984 and remained host until 1999. Most recently, Callaway was the host of WTTW's "Chicago Stories" and in February appeared at the Chicago Journalism Town Hall. Among his numerous awards were seven Emmies and one Peabody award.

We looked out the window Saturday morning and thought to ourselves, "Where, where ever shall we spend this glorious spring day?" The answer, naturally, was in a windowless, florescent-lit conference room in Trib Tower. Why? Because the Society for News Design was having a regional meetup to examine the state of our industry - and explore cool stuff going on in and around the Windy City's journalism scene. The best part: intros to a variety of new and growing news projects around the city. Oh, and that keg on the 22nd floor balcony...

Members of the Northwestern community are organizing a hunger strike in solidarity with imprisoned American journalist, Roxana Saberi. The hunger strike - organized by the FreeRoxana campaign - will last from May 3 to May 15. Volunteers are asked to fast in 24-hour shifts. As of this morning, more than 100 people have signed up. Alexis Grant, FreeRoxana campaign manager, told the Daily Northwestern she will fast this Sunday "so that Roxana doesn't have to."

Well, it would be an uneventful and presumably happy 32nd birthday for former Miss North Dakota and freelance journalist Roxana Saberi, but the Iranian-American woman was sentenced to eight years in Iranian prison this month following her conviction for espionage. According to her parents, the journalist has been on hunger strike for five days, protesting her imprisonment.

The Chicago Tribune has had enough of the corruption that has been the big story in our state as of late (and over the years). Yesterday, in an editorial titled "State of Corruption," the Trib rededicated itself to editorial efforts to take on the scandalous lawmakers of our state and to repair The Land of Lincoln's reputation.

After printing a salacious issue about underage encounters that identified involved students by name, a Lincolnshire high school newspaper will face more restrictions that some say are tantamount to censorship. The 3,400 copies of the Jan. 30 issue of the Stevenson High School newspaper "The Statesman" disappeared from the newsstands almost immediately, though the school says they did not remove them.

Man, what a rough year for the Sun-Times. First, Robert Novak went down with a brain tumor, then Jay Mariotti left in cloud of dust and hissy-fits, and now columnist Robert Feder is likewise bidding adieu to take a break and pursue other opportunities. In his farewell letter, Feder says:

As someone who has lived here all his life, I can't recall a time when the Sun-Times wasn't part of my daily routine. It's the paper my family read on the South Side, where I was born, and the one my parents still subscribe to in Skokie, where I grew up. I am grateful for every day I've been part of this wonderful enterprise and humbled by the loyalty and support I've felt from so many readers.

And, lo, there was much rejoicing in the Windy City.

Jim DeRogatis didn't show up for court today as Judge Gaughan had ordered, and according to a Trib source, it's because he never officially received a subpoena. Gaughan is threatening to issue a warrant for DeRo's arrest, even though Sun-Times lawyer Damon Dunn says not only did Dero never get a subpoena, but he's appealing the one he's supposed to get anyway.

I really bugged people yesterday when I said I didn't care that much about the dean of Medill possibly making up anonymous sources for a letter in an alumni newsletter, and the conversation that followed has been interesting and persuasive. The story so far:

Old-school local newscasters Bill Kurtis and Walter Jacobson will be teaching a class in broadcast journalism at Columbia College. The duo co-anchored the WBBM 10pm news in the 70s and 80s, but now Jacobson is retired and Kurtis is busy hosting crime shows on A&E. They'll recreate the magic just for the month of January, (when Columbia has its intensive -study J-session) but we're convinced the legendary team will realize--after all these years!--that they...

Ah, it's like shootin' fish in a barrel over at Chicagoist EOYW headquarters. We know how passionate you guys can get about these things, so we'll cut right to the chase:

That last hour on Fridays always seems to take forever. At least there's plenty of cool stuff cooking this weekend:

Oh, how we love lists. Is there any other piece of journalism that has the ability to spur so much pointless and arbitrary discussion? Via the Drive-Thru, we found this list of Chicago's "hottest dogs" from Travel + Leisure.

Just one day after the first shoe dropped, the other has fallen with a resounding thud. NBC 5’s Amy Jacobson was canned from her reporting job last night after video surfaced of her visiting Craig Stebic, husband of missing Plainfield woman Lisa Stebic, and wearing a bikini with her two young children in tow. Jacobson, a self-described aggressive reporter who worked for NBC for 11 years, told the Sun-Times that she’s “devastated” and that she’d...

NBC 5 reporter Amy Jacobson (pictured, right, with NBC 5 weekend anchor Anna Davlantes), who's been covering the story of missing Plainfield woman Lisa Stebic, was caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place over the weekend. Video footage surfaced of Jacobson in a bikini at the home of Craig Stebic, Lisa's estranged husband, on her day off. Before we go any further, kudos to the headline writer at the Tribune for not stooping...

Now we know why Sun-Times columnist Robert Novak kept quiet for so long about who told him CIA Agent Valerie Plame's name; he needed to save that information (at least until 2006) so he could one day publish a tell-all book. Well done, Novak, well done. Novak's book, The Prince of Darkness, (which should not be confused with the Ozzy Osbourne box set of the same name) chronicles Novak's 50 years of work as a...

It probably comes as no surprise when we say that we Chicagoistas have a touch of the news junkie to us. And even though we haven't been posting up on the "Family Secrets" trial too much this week, we certainly haven't been ignoring the largest Mob trial the city has seen in decades. All the talk about This Thing Of Ours (...omerta...) reminded us of one of the most infamous events in journalism history,...

Sort of like the point in an old person's life when they decide they're not going to look behind them when they back out of their driveway anymore, Daley has clearly well past the point in his career where he gives two shits what the media says or thinks about him. Manifesting itself in "playful banter" a'la Dubyauh, his new tactic of dodging questions from reporters by making fun of them is actually pretty hilarious...

This whole CWM history deal is something of a learning process. Well, hopefully it is for you, Constant Reader, as well as for us. For example, we were well aware of the incredible and ever-swelling numbers of Chicago history books, with their tremendous photographic accompaniment. Hell, we practically have the Dewey Decimal reference number for the "HIST-CHICAGO" section at Sulzer memorized. (It's F548 something something.) So when we were doing a little research at the...

The James L. Beard Awards — the Oscars of the culinary world — were handed out last night. Though Chicago didn't win a large number of awards, we did win one of the most important ones, so we can take solace in that.

Guess what’s back (and WAY better than ever)…? Yep, it’s You Tell Me, Chicagoist’s weekly, slightly-masochistic-yet-wildly-awesome column where we ask you the reader to give us the skinny on the under-the-radar shows that keep the people hopping around the city. We tried this a couple of weeks back and had a great suggestion, but realized YTM needed a bit of tune up to get into summer racing shape. Thanks to some seriously fine suggestions from readers, we’ve done some retooling and this baby is ready to purr. So, friends, start your band finding engines and give us the very best of what’s not getting the treatment in our fine town’s music journalism outlets, and we’ll check it out and report back weekly.

Chicagoist can be lazy sometimes. We feel like we just keep writing, and writing, and writing about injury woes and the Cubs. So we recently decided that it'd be well worth our while to write a fill-in-the-blank post we can simply re-use each time somebody else goes down. How fitting that Mark Prior gives us the first opportunity to utilize our new time saving bit of prefab journalism: Cubs former pitching phenom Mark Prior, who...

The Trib has launched a new local portal for suburban news that will rely on "citizen journalism." Huh? Oh, you mean blogging? Abbot Labs is being sued over its arthritis drug, Humira. NYU and Johnson & Johnson have a competing drug and is accusing them of patent infringement. The 2007 World Boxing Championships will probably happen in Chicago. A woman walking her dog found the body of a dead 15-year-old boy in Chicago Heights....