Category: Featured Class Notes

Local news publisher Justin Kerr announced that grants from the Robert R. McCormick Foundation and the Chicago Headline Club will power local journalism for the McKinley Park neighborhood of Chicago in the era of the COVID-19 pandemic. The McKinley Park News, Kerr’s micro-local news outlet that covers a single Chicago neighborhood, will use these funds to power a new journalism initiative to support the community.

“We are honored and humbled by this critical support for our publication,” Kerr said. “The pandemic has upended the already-battered news industry. This funding for Chicago journalism ensures our communities stay informed with reliable, high-quality news and information.”

The McKinley Park News is one of 48 recipients of the McCormick Foundation grant, which were awarded to both commercial and non-profit community news publications. The Chicago Headline Club disbursed grants of up to $500 each to help local journalists with their news reporting expenses.

Bill Healy (MSJ09) and Alison Flowers (MSJ09) met while studying at Medill. They recently co-produced a 7-part investigative podcast called “Somebody” for the Invisible Institute, The Intercept, Topic Studios and iHeartMedia. The podcast follows the story of Courtney Copeland, who was shot and killed in Chicago in 2016. “Somebody” is narrated by Copeland’s mother, who believes police are hiding something about his death. The series explores questions of police accountability and public trust.

Natalie and Michael Tomko (MSJ 12) welcomed a daughter, Amelia Grace, on April 29. Go ‘Cats!

Emily Glazer, a Wall Street Journal reporter, was recently featured in the Netflix documentary series “Dirty Money” for her reporting on Wells Fargo.

Glazer covered Wells Fargo for five years, breaking news and writing enterprise articles on countless regulatory investigations and problems across one of the largest U.S. banks. Through source development, Glazer convinced contacts to share internal documents, record phone calls and take notes during internal meetings to get a sense of what was happening inside the bank, an eye no other publication had. Her reporting has been cited in congressional hearings and has forced Wells Fargo to disclose more information.

Glazer is featured in the Dirty Money episode “The Wagon Wheel” that focuses on Wells Fargo’s misdeeds and wrongdoings.

Brian M. Rosenthal, an investigative reporter on the Metro Desk of The New York Times, won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting on May 4 for a series of stories about predatory lending in the New York City taxicab industry. The five-part series showed how taxi industry leaders made hundreds of millions of dollars by inflating the price of taxi medallions — the permits that allow drivers to own their cabs — and trapping thousands of immigrant buyers in loans they could not afford. The stories prompted criminal investigations and arrests, government reforms and an ongoing $810 million effort by the New York State Attorney General to bail out cabdrivers. The series also won a George A. Polk Award on February 19.

Elizabeth Schulze joined ABC News as a Multi-Platform Reporter based in Washington, D.C. She was previously a reporter at CNBC.

Geordan Tilley is joining WGN-TV in August as a supervising producer on their weekend news team. She will also be writing for their award-winning morning show during the week. Geordan is thrilled to be moving back to her adopted home in Chicago!

Jonathan Addleton (BSJ ’79), former US Ambassador to Mongolia and a 2017 inductee into Medill’s Hall of Achievement, has been selected as the next Rector/President of Forman Christian College in Lahore, Pakistan. Founded by the Presbyterian Church in 1864, Forman offers an American-style curriculum and has an enrollment of more than 8,000. Its alumni list includes former presidents, prime ministers, governors and academics in both India and Pakistan.

In June 2018 Christina finally took the plunge and launched a website: www.Wombat-womenincombat.com to shine the spotlight on women who hold traditionally male jobs in the armed forces and in defense industries. After working as a defense and military specialist for 20 years from her home base in Paris (France), irritated that it was always the same men who were called upon by media when comment or explanations were needed, she decided it was time these remarkable women from all over the world were publicized. Their stories are inspiring and their career paths fascinating. But as Wombat earns her no money, Christina also works freelance as the military tech writer for Popular Science and as the France correspondent for Defense News.

Marissa Mitchell moves to the nation’s capital as an anchor/host for “FOX 5 Morning” and “Good Day DC” at WTTG-TV. Most recently, Mitchell worked as an anchor/reporter at WAGA-TV in Atlanta where she received a 2020 Emmy nomination for specialty reporting.