Posted by job watch on June 28, 2010 at 08:43:16:
Flannery gets back on air at Ch. 32
Phil Rosenthal
Tribune Media
June 27, 2010
Ask Mike Flannery, the political correspondent who left WBBM-Ch. 2 just a couple of months shy of his 30th anniversary in March and begins this week with WFLD-Ch. 32, and he'll tell you: The grass is definitely greener for him.
His garden isn't looking too shabby either.
Off from work for the longest stretch since he was a teen, Flannery, 59, has had time on his hands to tend to the plants and yard around his South Side home. It's been a relaxing diversion, even if it hasn't exactly distracted him from former Gov. Rod Blagojevich's federal corruption trial, which he wishes he had been covering.
But the time off ought to have him raring to go, brimming with energy as he heads into what in his view is shaping up to be one of the most significant and interesting state elections in memory ? and into his first new newsroom since he left the Chicago Sun-Times for Channel 2 in 1980.
"This is going to be fun," he said Friday.
Making things interesting for Flannery: The mistakes, missteps, gaffes and sins of the Democratic and Republican parties and their candidates have leveled the campaign playing field somewhat, while Flannery's playing field has widened in leaving CBS-owned WBBM for Fox-owned WFLD.
Between the five hours of news Channel 32 has each weekday morning and one hour in prime time, not to mention the noon show, there's a lot of room for him to run.
Flannery won't discuss changes expected to come to the station's marquee 9 p.m. newscast ? that's for WFLD chief Mike Renda and news boss Carol Fowler to talk about, he insisted ? but he's excited at the prospect of being able to do live, extended interviews, which fits with rumored shifts in approach said to be under consideration at the station.
It's that kind of opportunity that helped persuade him to leave Channel 2, which showcased him front and center with anchor Rob Johnson in its primary election coverage last February but differentiated itself from the pack by not extending its late newscast for additional coverage. Going straight to CBS' "Late Show with David Letterman" at 10:35 p.m. left some at WBBM grumbling, although Flannery said he was pleased with his role.
The whole idea of what people want from their news and how they want it presented is up for debate, frankly. Flannery's kids, the youngest of whom is a college freshman, have little use for newspapers, preferring to get their news online. The former newspaperman himself is addicted to print in "the Gutenberg tradition" but knows he must be prepared for whatever platform is coming down the road.
Squeezed along the way at traditional media outlets are budgets and resources, with news operations of all stripes forced to think long and hard about how they spend time and staffing as well as money. Even the cost of a broadcaster keeping an over-the-air transmitter powered up as broadband, satellite and cable distribution become more pervasive will be open for debate someday, no doubt.
Channel 2, for example, signed Flannery to a three-year contract last summer but with a reduction in pay. For the station it was a no-cut deal yet gave him potential outs, which he exercised in leaving for WFLD. There, he got his raise and was reunited with Fowler, his one-time news director at WBBM and someone who first impressed him when she was working the state capital for central Illinois' WCIA-TV in the 1980s.
At Channel 32, Flannery ostensibly is replacing Jack Conaty, chief political correspondent for the first 22 years WFLD had a news department. Conaty left in December when his contract wasn't renewed. In addition to everything else, Flannery will take his spot alongside Dane Placko on "Fox Chicago Sunday."
Regardless of the platform, regardless of the budget, the length and depth of the report, what isn't changing is that Flannery's job still comes down to smart, solid reporting and storytelling.
That's foremost in his mind as he returns to TV this week, leaving his lawn and garden to work once more for viewers, dealing again with fertilizer of the political variety.
Another one gone: The changes keep coming at Chicago Tribune parent Tribune Co.'s WGN-AM 720. Steve Cochran, who had been hanging by a thread as a midday host, was finally cut loose by station management shortly after he got off the air Friday.
Cochran, 49, who has been on Chicago radio since 1993, except for a one-year stint in Detroit in the late 1990s and brief periods between jobs, anticipated the ouster after a decade at WGN. He posted a note June 12 on Facebook saying he didn't expect to remain with the station after June 30, when his contract expires.
WGN had trimmed Cochran's show by one-third to two hours when it moved the program to 1 p.m. this spring. And earlier this month it hired Mike McConnell, 54, a host from Cincinnati's WLW-AM who will come aboard in August in a slot to be announced later, although McConnell has said his show "will air sometime between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m."