Molly Adams

Molly Adams, co-host of “The Morning AMp” call-in talk show on Vocalo, is leaving the Chicago Public Media community-based audio service this week to join TouchVision, the multiplatform news and information network.

Adams will be bringing what she calls her “critical, humorous, and amiable personality” to mornings on the video news operation founded by former Tribune Co. chief innovation officer Lee Abrams and based at Weigel Broadcasting studios, 26 North Halsted Street.

Also new to the TouchVision staff are video journalist Kerri Pang, former video production assistant for Chicago Tribune Media Group, and producer/writer Erik Edmunds, former director of new media for Tribune Media news/talk WGN AM 720.

Vocalo's Jill Hopkins will be succeeding Adams alongside co-host Brian Babylon on “The Morning AMp,” which airs from 8 to 10 a.m. Monday through Friday on WBEW FM 89.5, WRTE FM 90.7, W217BM FM 91.1 and WLUW FM 88.7, and streams on Vocalo.org.

Here is the text of the email Adams sent to her colleagues Friday:

Thank you to Silvia [Rivera, managing director of Vocalo] and others who have sent me kind words this morning.

I have been working in public radio since I was 14 years old and the time has come for me to make a move I never thought I would make: I'm gonna be on TV! WHAT!  I'm taking my talents to the West Loop, working for Touchvision, which has a morning show syndicated in 30% of the country and growing. So I'll still be in Chicago, still be on-air, and still making media infused with my critical, humorous, and amiable personality.

I am so blessed to have hosted and produced my own favorite radio show over the last almost five years. And I did it at my favorite radio station no less: Vocalo challenges basic assumptions in news media about what voices and issues matter. Doing the work of change always feels like a slog, but when I pick my head up, I see that the national landscape is catching up. I'm proud that this "controversial" project and the many minds that have contributed positively to it was there before anyone else. It's exciting and a relief that this is not such a revolutionary idea anymore.  A large, commercial institution in Chicago is investing in this kind of disruptive, real editorial and I get to be a part of it. You gotta let your babies go and I'm excited to see how Vocalo grows without me.

I need to acknowledge two people, Brian Babylon and Silvia Rivera. Without Brian, I would never have been here in the first place. I could write a Pulitzer-winning play about our time here. Brian is my best friend and nemesis, and the most insanely smart and talented person I have ever worked with.

Without Silvia, I would never have been here for so long. She is my model of executive realness. Her patience, problem-solving, and perpetual championing of our cause is everything. An actual rock star. Thank you so so much for encouraging me to take this step.

My last broadcast on the AMp will be Friday, March 27th. Stop by! Call in! Let's have fun.

P.S. Is someone going to forward this to Feder? Just let me know, I have a nice headshot I want him to use.