Board Minutes – 03/1999

B O A R D M I N U T E S

Chicago Headline Club
Board of Directors Meeting

March 24, 1999

The meeting was called to order at 8:00 A.M.

Corrections to Minutes: Representative Cowlishaw, instead of Kalishar

Board members attending were: Paula Brien, Ilyce Glink, Stephen Rynkiewicz, Marsha Barancik, Anna Marie Kuker, Christine Tatum, Rob Hess,, Tom LaPorte, Mary Myers, Erin Reilly, Sue Stevens, Jim Reilly and Ed Cooper

Guests were: Mary McDonough, Diane Monk (Editor of Chicago Journalist) and Sarah Jersild

President’s Report: Ilyce reported that Rob Hess has agreed to be slated for President for the 1999-2000 year. Ilyce will be ex-officio. Marsha has agreed to be slated for President- Elect.

We’re going to start up the internship program and making some changes in the newsletter.

Hope Daniels from Columbia College called Bob Roberts to request a speaker for Career Day April 27 to discuss what it is like to be a journalist. Ilyce commented it would be great to discuss the advantages of belonging to the Chicago Headline Club and how important networking is to journalists.

FOI Report: There was no report. Bob Roberts, who was not at the meeting because of breaking news, reported to Ilyce he has not heard anything from Springfield in a while and he doesn’t think much is happening in terms of FOI.

Nominating Committee: Ilyce passed out copies of the slate as it currently stands:

EXECUTIVE BOARD:
President: Rob Hess, CNN Chicago Bureau
VP, President-Elect: Marsha Barancik (Illinois Real Estate Journal)
VP FOI :Bob Roberts, reporter WMAQ Radio
VP Membership: Pat Kosar, Illinois Attorney General’s Office
Secretary: Ed Cooper, Freelance Writer
Treasurer: Howard Dubin, Manufacturer’s News

There are presently five openings to fill on the board. Rob Hess, who is becoming president as mentioned above, needs to be replaced, as do Marsha Barancik and Erin Reilly. Marsha Barancik will become President-elect, to take office in January 2000. Ilyce paid tribute to Rob Hess for the responsibility he has accepted ; he will be able to reach out to the broadcasting community and strengthen membership there and just about everywhere else.

Erin Reilly is getting married in June, and moving to Rochester Minn. while her husband does his residency for a year, and then moving to Denver. Pat Kosar , who has been doing a tremendous job signing up new members will remain membership chairman and Ed Cooper will remain secretary. Howard Dubin will remain Treasurer “because I’m not letting him out,” said Ilyce. Ilyce will be ex-officio and one of the things she will do is work on getting her personal finance night up and running along with Bob Roberts and Diane Monk and perhaps some other people on the internship program,. . It was suggested we should work to increase diversity in the membership. The committee will present the final slate at the April meeting.

Lisagor: Sue Stevens reported that she, Rob Hess and Christine Tatum discussed speakers. Suggestions included Roger Ebert, movie critic of the Sun-Times, who Rob Hess said is widely recognized as a movie critic, but underappreciated as a journalist.He is a Lisagor winner and a Pulitzer prize winner among other awards. Rob said he would encourage Ebert to speak his mind and to pay tribute to his late colleague, Gene Siskel. John Drury, who is a Headline Club member;, and also Stuart Loory, a former colleague of Rob’s at CNN past president of the Headline Club, past Managing Editor of the Sun-Times and now a distinguished professor at the University of Missouri. Other names mentioned were Phil Ponce, who is apparently slated to succeed John Callaway on his program some time in the future, and Ken Bode Ilyce was concerned that Phil Ponce might not be sufficiently entertaining to serve as the main speaker for the Lisagor Dinner. Christine reported that the committee is going to look into getting presenters for the various awards. Rob Hess suggested asking Barbara Schleck to MC the dinner again, since she has done such a good job in the past.

Christine also mentioned the possibility of inviting Mayor Daley to make a 10- to- 15- minute appearance. He could do something very briefly “a top 10 list maybe of why I love the Chicago press”. Christine said if Daley is not available somebody suggested Paul Vallas; he might be the other person who would be interesting. Rob Hess facetiously suggested Nigel Wade. A discussion of ticket prices for the dinner followed. Someone mentioned that it was $ 30 last year. Steve Rynkiewics said that’s pretty rock bottom for a dinner in Chicago and he doesn’t think the Athletic Club has raised their rates.

Ethics: Casey Bukro joined the discussion by phone to discuss the Ethics in Journalism Award.

Treasurer’s report. There was no report.

Media Committee: Ilyce, Rob and Christine said the Board needs to create a greater rapport with the newsrooms around the city. Shirley Friedlander sent Christine 187 e-mail addresses, but we need more. The Club would also like to update news on members via e-mail or a list serve.

Web Report: Steve Rynkiewicz said the City News report is becoming a report on the memories of City News, which is now up on the web site. He has received great interest from City News veterans.

Sue Stevens said two of 18 people from City News quit when the service moved to the Tribune.

The Board also decided to consider breaking off from Medill and establishing our own domain name. More audio and video streaming was added to the site on the 24th or 25th.

Ilyce suggested converting the scholarship program to an internship program to include mentoring. She said there are not many scholarship applications being received this year.

Brown Bag: The April 29 speakers will be Dennis Byrne and Eric Zorn.

PR Newswire: Mary Myers informed us that PR Newswire would be more than happy to post our news and broadcast faxes. In return, they would like to become the official newswire of the Headline Club. We would need to sign a contract. Ilyce said she would show the contract to John Duncan, the CHC attorney. Rob Hess and Christine Tatum said they would like to see contract, they both expressed reservations.

The next meeting will be April 22 at 5: 30 in the McCormick Room on the 24th Floor.

Ed Cooper, secretary