Matt Bubala, weekend host and former producer at WGN AM 720, has been hired as broadcast editor of DNAinfo.com Chicago, the hyperlocal news operation covering Chicago’s neighborhoods.
Starting next week, Bubala will head the site’s broadcast division, with duties including embedding interviews, creating podcasts and delivering neighborhood news segments on WGN, the Tribune Media news/talk station.
He succeeds Jon Hansen, who left last November to become social media coordinator and on-air correspondent for “You & Me,” the weekday morning talk show on Weigel Broadcasting WCIU-Channel 26.
“We’re extremely excited to have Matt join our team,” Shamus Toomey, manager editor of DNAinfo Chicago, said Friday. “He’s a veteran and a pro. I think our fans will enjoy his engaging personality and fresh perspective.”
As a part-time and fill-in personality at WGN, Bubala most recently has been hosting his own show from 2 to 5 a.m. Saturdays. Earlier he spent 10 years at the station as a producer for John Williams, among others.
Todd Manley, vice president of programming and content at WGN, said Bubala would continue hosting his weekend show and filling in for others regularly on the station.
Bubala, who grew up in Munster, Indiana, and graduated from Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota, previously worked as a producer at KABC/KMPC in Los Angeles and WKQI in Detroit. In 2005 he founded Black Dog Radio Productions, Chicago-based producer and syndicator of weekend radio programming.