{"id":17732,"date":"2018-04-18T06:00:16","date_gmt":"2018-04-18T11:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.robertfeder.com\/?p=17732"},"modified":"2018-04-18T07:02:30","modified_gmt":"2018-04-18T12:02:30","slug":"robservations-three-bidders-reportedly-eyeing-tronc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/2018\/04\/18\/robservations-three-bidders-reportedly-eyeing-tronc\/","title":{"rendered":"Robservations: Three bidders reportedly eyeing tronc"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

<\/a> Tronc<\/p><\/div>\n

Robservations on the media beat:<\/p>\n

Tronc,<\/a> we hardly knew ye: Three suitors are vying to acquire the parent company of the Chicago Tribune, according to several\u00a0published reports.<\/a> SoftBank Group, a Japanese investment conglomerate, Gannett Co. and Apollo Global Management have been identified as potential buyers of Chicago-based tronc. SoftBank last year bought the Gatehouse newspaper chain. Gannett made an unsuccessful bid to buy tronc in 2016. \u201cWe don't comment on any speculation in the market,\u201d said Marisa Kollias,<\/strong> vice president of communications and public relations for tronc. It\u2019s not clear how a takeover would alter the strategy of McCormick Media, which last week agreed to buy<\/a> former head honcho Michael Ferro\u2019s<\/strong> 26 percent stake in the company \u2014 more than nine million shares \u2014 for $208.6 million.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Tim Franklin<\/p><\/div>\n

Northwestern University\u2019s Medill School of Journalism<\/a> announced an ambitious two-year research and development project Tuesday to find new business models for local digital news. The Northwestern Local News Initiative<\/a> will work with the Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle and Indianapolis Star as \u201clearning labs\u201d for the project. \u201cWithout robust local news, citizens will not have the information they need for their everyday lives about their community\u2019s government institutions, schools, businesses and neighbors,\u201d Tim Franklin,<\/strong> senior associate dean at Medill and leader of the Local News Initiative, said in a statement. \u201cNorthwestern and Medill are uniquely positioned for this project because of our nationally recognized, leading-edge data mining, research and development expertise.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

John Carpenter<\/p><\/div>\n

Local news is also on the mind of John Carpenter,<\/strong> the veteran Chicago journalist and adjunct professor at Loyola University. On Tuesday Carpenter announced he\u2019s leading a community journalism effort on Chicago\u2019s North Side. The RogersEdge Reporter<\/a> is a student-driven neighborhood news site backed by a grant from the Robert R. McCormick Foundation. \u201cI\u2019m looking forward to working with both Loyola communications students and high school kids from Chicago\u2019s Senn and Sullivan high schools,\u201d Carpenter said. \u201cI\u2019ll be helping them learn how to gather and present local news in the Rogers Park and Edgewater communities. Very excited.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

ProPublica Illinois<\/p><\/div>\n

In a footnote to this week\u2019s announcement of 2018 Pulitzer Prize<\/a> winners, ProPublica Illinois<\/a> was finalist in the local reporting category just six months after its launch here. The nonprofit regional investigative news organization and the Chicago Tribune were cited for \u201cThe Tax Divide,\u201d<\/a> their joint investigation into Cook County\u2019s property tax assessment system. Reporters were Jason Grotto, Sandhya Kambhampati<\/strong> and Ray Long.<\/strong> \u201c\u2018The Tax Divide\u2019 gets right to the heart of ProPublica Illinois\u2019 journalism: shining a light on abuses of power and betrayals of public trust, and holding that power to account,\u2019 ProPublica Illinois editor-in-chief Louise Kiernan<\/strong> said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

The Score<\/p><\/div>\n

WSCR 670 AM,<\/a> the Entercom sports\/talk station known as The Score, will be inducted this year in the Chicagoland Sports Hall of Fame.<\/a>\u00a0It will be honored along with other inductees at a dinner October 3 at Wintrust Arena. \u201cThis is a true tribute to our brand, which celebrated its 26th birthday on January 2nd,\u201d Mitch Rosen,<\/strong> operations director of The Score, told staffers in a memo Tuesday. \u201cOctober 3rd will be a great night for all former and current Score teammates.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Matt Piacente<\/p><\/div>\n

Matt Piacente,<\/strong> news director of WFLD-Channel 32, <\/a>stepped out from behind the curtain Tuesday to host a new daily live video on Facebook <\/a>for the Fox-owned station. Clearly channeling Harvey Levin<\/strong> of \u201cTMZ Live,\u201d Piacente holds court on \u201cGood Day After the Show,\u201d<\/a> a free-wheeling bull session with staffers following Fox 32\u2019s \u201cGood Day Chicago\u201d morning program. It streams at 10:30 a.m. weekdays on Fox 32\u2019s Facebook page.<\/a> \u201cWe\u2019re going to talk about highlights, we\u2019re going to talk about today, we\u2019re going to talk about tomorrow,\u201d Piacente told viewers. \u201cIt could be funny, it could be bad, it could be completely stupid. But here we are.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Peter Nolan<\/p><\/div>\n

Three decades after he retired from Chicago television news, the great Peter Nolan<\/strong> is looking back. He\u2019s just published News Stories: A Memoir, <\/em><\/a>a collection of essays about the memorable stories he covered and characters he encountered during his years as a reporter and political commentator. Nolan, 78, still writes with the wit, common sense and humility he was known for at\u00a0NBC-owned WMAQ-Channel 5 and CBS-owned WBBM-Channel 2. News Stories<\/em> is published by Gatekeeper Press and available on Amazon. (Here is the link.<\/a>) Nolan\u2019s first book was the well-received\u00a0Campaign!: The 1983 Election that Rocked Chicago,<\/em> <\/a>published in 2012.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Lindsay Gloor<\/p><\/div>\n

Lindsay Gloor,<\/strong> a reporter for Shaw Media\u2019s suburban publications, has been promoted to associate editor of the Joliet Herald-News.<\/a> Gloor, who grew up in Naperville and graduated from Benet Academy and the University of Missouri, previously was a reporter for the DeKalb Daily Chronicle and a digital content provider for Newsy, the video news branch of the E.W. Scripps Company. She also worked as a reporting intern for the Daily Herald.<\/p>\n

Tuesday\u2019s comment of the day:<\/a> Bill Hazen:<\/strong> The fall of WGN has major implications for the market. Chicago, traditionally a strong AM market nationally, now has just one AM radio station [WBBM] in the Top 20. And that is a simulcast. Without WGN as a strong market presence, the entire AM radio dial will be caught in GN's undertow. The influence of AM radio (Chicago is blessed with some of the most dominant signals in the country) is now a serious issue.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Robservations on the media beat: Tronc, we hardly knew ye: Three suitors are vying to acquire the parent company of the Chicago Tribune, according to several\u00a0published reports. SoftBank Group, a Japanese investment conglomerate, Gannett Co. and Apollo Global Management have been identified as potential buyers of Chicago-based tronc. SoftBank last year bought the Gatehouse newspaper... Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17732"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17732"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17732\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17750,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17732\/revisions\/17750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}