{"id":5388,"date":"2014-10-22T20:00:09","date_gmt":"2014-10-23T01:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.robertfeder.com\/?p=5388"},"modified":"2014-10-22T20:03:31","modified_gmt":"2014-10-23T01:03:31","slug":"new-program-chief-brings-passion-and-vision-to-wbez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/2014\/10\/22\/new-program-chief-brings-passion-and-vision-to-wbez\/","title":{"rendered":"New program chief brings \u2018passion and vision\u2019 to WBEZ"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_5389\" style=\"width: 745px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/2014\/10\/22\/new-program-chief-brings-passion-and-vision-to-wbez\/\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5389\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-5389\" alt=\"Ben Calhoun\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/Calhoun-Ben.png\" width=\"735\" height=\"468\" srcset=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/Calhoun-Ben.png 735w, \/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/Calhoun-Ben-300x191.png 300w, \/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/Calhoun-Ben-150x95.png 150w, \/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/Calhoun-Ben-400x254.png 400w, \/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/Calhoun-Ben-200x127.png 200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 735px) 100vw, 735px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-5389\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><\/a> Ben Calhoun<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Ben Calhoun, former political reporter and deputy news director at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.chicagopublicradio.org\" target=\"_blank\">WBEZ FM 91.5,<\/a> is returning to the Chicago Public Media station as director of content and programming.<\/p>\n<p>Since 2010 Calhoun has been a producer for \u201cThis American Life,\u201d the public radio documentary series launched at WBEZ and now based in New York.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Goli Sheikholeslami, president and CEO of Chicago Public Media, announced Calhoun\u2019s appointment, effective December 1, in a memo to staff Wednesday. His hiring followed a four-month national search \u201cinside and outside the public radio system,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAll told, he returns to us with what may be one of the more versatile diverse backgrounds in the industry,\u201d Sheikholeslami said of Calhoun. \u201cHe also comes to us with a fierce belief in our work and the mission that underpins it, a keen appreciation for the importance of continuing to innovate to serve the next generation of public media listeners.\u00a0 Ben brings not only passion and vision, but also the belief that attention to craft and quality journalism can be differentiators in a competitive field.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A Milwaukee native and graduate of Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio, Calhoun, 35, began as an intern at WBEZ in 2000 and held a variety of jobs, including production assistant, newsroom coordinator, assignment editor, documentary producer, deputy news director and political reporter. He also was a contributor to National Public Radio\u2019s \u201cRadiolab,\u201d \u201cMorning Edition\u201d and \u201cAll Things Considered,\u201d among other programs.<\/p>\n<p>The station\u2019s top programming job has been vacant since 2012 when Steve Edwards relinquished the role to become host of \u201cThe Afternoon Shift.\u201d Later that year, Edwards left to join the University of Chicago's Institute of Politics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ben Calhoun, former political reporter and deputy news director at WBEZ FM 91.5, is returning to the Chicago Public Media station as director of content and programming. Since 2010 Calhoun has been a producer for \u201cThis American Life,\u201d the public radio documentary series launched at WBEZ and now based in New York.<\/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\/5388"}],"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=5388"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5391,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5388\/revisions\/5391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}