Here are my picks for the 10 most notable Chicago media stories of the month.

Click on the arrows to advance the photos. To read the original posts, click on the headlines under each photo: Continue reading →

Greg Easterly

Tribune Broadcasting is reaching out to its station in Cleveland to fill the longstanding vacancy for president and general manager of Chicago flagship WGN-Channel 9.

Moving up from the 19th largest market to the third is Greg Easterly, a 17-year veteran of WJW-TV, Cleveland’s Fox affiliate. Tribune Co. picked up WJW last December as part of its $2.7 billion acquisition of 16 stations owned by Local TV Holdings. Easterly spent his first 10 years at the station as news director before he was named general manager in 2007. Continue reading →

Madeleine Doubek

Madeleine Doubek, the veteran Chicago journalist who was a mainstay of the Daily Herald for 27 years, soon will be turning up in the Sun-Times.

Starting April 15, Doubek will appear as a columnist twice a month on the Sun-Times editorial page and on Early & Often, the newspaper’s new digital platform covering government and politics. Continue reading →

Melody Mendez

Forget about a libel attorney. What WFLD-Channel 32 staffers may need is a good personal injury lawyer.

Melody Mendez, news anchor at the Fox-owned station, bailed out of the final hour of “Good Day Chicago” Friday after she tripped and fell over loose cables on the newsroom floor. Co-workers said she seriously injured her wrist. Continue reading →

Don Dupree

A locally produced sports memorabilia show that began as a series of specials on Tribune Broadcasting WGN-Channel 9 has just landed a national distribution deal.

Chicago TV veteran Don Dupree, creator and executive producer of “A Piece of the Game,” announced this week that he’s signed a deal for his show to be available in 65 million households. Starting later this spring, it will air on Comcast SportsNet outlets in Chicago, Philadelphia, New England and the San Francisco Bay area and on Fox Sports regional networks throughout the rest of the country. Continue reading →

Drive-time gets all the attention, but the most loyal radio listening happens during the middle of the day when people are at work or otherwise occupied.

Here’s a look at Chicago’s top 10 midday shows (as measured in February by Nielsen Audio among all listeners age 6 and older from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday), followed by average share of audience. Continue reading →

Jill Manuel

Jill Manuel, former news director of Tribune Broadcasting’s CLTV, is returning to Chicago to become assistant news director at Fox-owned WFLD-Channel 32.

Announcement of her hiring Thursday came just 10 days after Manuel was released from WEWS-TV, the ABC affiliate in Cleveland, where she had been news director since 2008.

Effective April 15, she succeeds Chris Myers, who resigned last January after two years as assistant news director at Fox 32 to join Al Jazeera America in Los Angeles. She reports to Tom Doerr, vice president and news director. Continue reading →

Amara Walker

Imagine going from the worst local news operation in Chicago to the international anchor desk of CNN in one move.

That’s the story of Amara Walker, who bailed out last December from Fox-owned WFLD-Channel 32, where she had been a weekend news anchor on the rise. She quit to move with her husband, plastic surgeon Thomas Walker, who'd landed a new position in Atlanta. Continue reading →

Sue Ontiveros

Sue Ontiveros, a versatile editor, talented writer and respected mentor to fellow journalists, is resigning after 30 years at the Sun-Times.

Ontiveros told colleagues Monday that she will step down April 1 as deputy features editor, the post she has held since 2006. She will continue her association with the newspaper by writing a weekly editorial page column about social issues and blogging about nutrition, fitness, wellness and food for suntimes.com on a free-lance basis. Continue reading →

While much of what passes for news on local television has hit the skids, fortunately there’s still something to be said for solid, old-fashioned investigative reporting in Chicago.

Exhibit A is the I-Team at WLS-Channel 7, where chief investigative reporter Chuck Goudie, a 34-year veteran of the ABC-owned station, heads a franchise that has expanded its brand, doubled its personnel and elevated local TV to a new competitive level in recent months. Continue reading →