Public Media Company rotates its semi-annual board meetings around the country and tends to meet where our most recent activity has occurred. We recently hosted our board meeting in Chicago, the site of one of the most celebrated local media developments in recent memory, in which Public Media Company played a crucial advisory role.
While always a city for innovation in media, the work going on in Chicago got even more interesting in Fall 2021. Chicago Public Media announced that major market public radio station, WBEZ, and venerable local newspaper, the Chicago Sun-Times, planned a merger to create the city’s largest local reporting and information network. Chicago Public Media CEO Matt Moog and Sun-Times Media Group CEO Nykia Wright talked through their plans for the combined entity and how their unification will lead to greater sustainability and impact for WBEZ and the Chicago Sun-Times.
On May 16, Public Media Company hosted a reception for local nonprofit media leaders and the Public Media Company board. Attendees included Tracey Baim, the CEO/Publisher of the Chicago Reader, which recently announced its conversion to nonprofit status. Baim is also head of the Chicago Independent Media Alliance. Bettina Chang, Co-Founder and Co-Executive Producer for Chicago Programs at City Bureau, attended, along with City Bureau board member and Vice-Chair of Journalism Funding Partners Sheila Solomon. Dan Bindert, Station Manager of WDCB, represented Chicago’s premier public radio jazz station. Daniel Ash, associate VP of community impact for the Chicago Community Trust, was congratulated for his newly named role as CEO of the Field Foundation. Terry Jimenez, the former CEO of Tribune Publishing, was also on hand, as was Julian Posada, WBEZ board member and President and CEO of Lift Up Enterprise, a social enterprise based in Chicago.
Public Media Company board members + friends included PMC Co-Founder and Board Member Susan Harmon, PMC Board Chair Fred Marienthal, Teresa Bazemore, John Crigler, Jan Nicholson, Leo Martinez, Henry Chang, and Carol Dorf. Public Media staff included CEO Erin Moran, Carlos Barrionuevo, Kimberly Campbell, Stephen Holmes, and Alison Scholly.
