CHICAGO / MIDWEST
Honorees
2010
Jim Corno
With over a quarter-century of hard work and dedication in the regional sports television business in Chicago, Jim Corno continues to be an industry and civic leader, overseeing the growth of this city’s acclaimed 24-hour sports television network, Comcast SportsNet and its 24/7 online counterpart, CSNChicago.com.
Under Corno’s leadership, Comcast SportsNet was successfully launched in October of 2004, delivering the most comprehensive local sports coverage this city has ever seen. Comcast SportsNet has provided in-depth coverage of the Chicago Blackhawks, Bulls, Cubs and White Sox, plus Bears post-game coverage. The network introduced the sports news show, SportsNite, and the talk show, Chicago Tribune Live. In addition, Corno oversaw the launch of CSNChicago.com, the network’s online counterpart providing local sports news 24/7.
Corno never lost sight of his charitable causes. Corno’s civic involvement includes his commitment to CharitaBulls, Chicago White Sox Charities, Blackhawks Charities, Cubs Care, Bears Care, Chicago Fire Foundation, Chicago Baseball Cancer Charities and Special Olympics Illinois. Through his support, the Comcast SportsNet Sports Awards has become the biggest sports charity function in the city, raising record amounts for the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation.
Corno previously headed Fox Sports Net Chicago (formerly SportsChannel Chicago and SportsVision) since its purchase by Rainbow Media Holdings, LLC in 1983. He organized the launch of 24-hour programming, seven days a week, the first regional sports network in the country to make this claim.
Corno began his career in 1963 at KPLR-TV in his hometown, St. Louis, MO. He left St. Louis in 1974 to work as Operations Manager of WTOP-TV in Washington, DC and was quickly promoted to Post-Newsweek’s Director of Corporate Operations. In 1978, Corno worked at WDIV-TV in Detroit, MI, where he became Program Manager before moving to SportsVision in 1984 as Vice President/General Manager. He joined Comcast SportsNet Chicago in March of 2004.
Bio from Induction Year Program Book
V. J. McAleer
V.J. McAleer is Senior Vice President of Production at WTTW11/Chicago, the nation’s most watched public television station. He oversees the station’s considerable local production commitment including performing arts programs, documentaries, WTTW’s nightly news magazine, Chicago Tonight and Check, Please! He also leads WTTW’s efforts to develop and enhance partnerships with other Chicago institutions, organizations and communities.
A veteran of thirty years in local television, McAleer joined WTTW in 1987 as a Chicago Tonight political producer and soon became the show’s executive producer. He was named WTTW’s Vice President of Production in 1996, bringing a wide range of local programming to Chicago viewers, most proudly the award-winning local historical documentary series, Chicago Stories, and its weekly series on local art and culture, Artbeat Chicago.
In 2001, McAleer brought to WTTW11 viewers the wildly popular restaurant review program Check, Please! featuring everyday Chicagoans dishing out their opinions on the eclectic local restaurant scene. Other notable productions he has produced, developed, or managed include the local science program Chicago Tomorrow, Irish Chicago, Remembering Chicago, The Boomer Years, A Renaissance Christmas and The Cheap Show. He was honored by the Chicago International Film Festival for his documentary All Power to the Parents on Chicago’s early school reform efforts. The breadth, intelligence, and high quality of WTTW’s local productions have made it a leader among public television stations nationwide, and built its reputation for a consistent commitment to Chicago’s diverse communities.
A native Chicagoan and veteran broadcast journalist, McAleer served as associate producer of the 10pm news at WLS-TV (ABC) before joining WTTW. In the early to mid-‘80s, he wrote and produced news for WMAQ-TV (NBC), where he produced several award-winning investigative series, including Political Parasites, which examined waste in Illinois State government and was honored with a prestigious Peabody Award.
McAleer graduated cum laude from St. Mary’s College in Winona, Minnesota in 1976 with degrees in Political Science and Communication Arts.
Bio from Induction Year Program Book
Don Moseley
In 1976, it was George Wallace. In 2008, Barack Obama. Two very different men with one ambition: to win the presidency. These are the bookmarks of Don Moseley’s career in news so far. It is a career that has taken him from his home state of Alabama along the winding roads of the Khyber Pass and into Afghanistan. To Belfast and Berwyn. To Gaza City and Cicero. And points in between.
Don’s reporting career began at the NBC television station in Columbus, Georgia in 1973, after graduating from Auburn University. A year later, he was an anchor and reporter in Birmingham where, among other things, he covered the Wallace campaign, the Ku Klux Klan and his first political convention, the 1976 GOP gathering in Kansas City. Nashville was next, where in 1978, he began to cover the Tennessee Legislature, the presidential campaign of Senator Howard Baker and produced documentaries on rural health care and environmental pollution.
In 1980, Don arrived in Chicago, to join Carol Marin as a reporter/producer team. Their first story together came on Labor Day that year, when Ronald Reagan brought his presidential campaign to the south suburbs. After 17 years as a team at NBC, Marin and Moseley left to join CBS where they worked for 60 Minutes, 60 Minutes II, the CBS Evening News, Public Eye with Bryant Gumbel, CBS Sunday Morning and WBBM-TV.
In 2003, together they started the DePaul Documentary Project at DePaul University, where they mentor journalism and communications majors. Through Marin Corp Productions and DDP, they have produced documentaries for CNN and Discovery/New York Times. In 2004, Marin and Moseley rejoined NBC5, where they currently do political and investigative stories.
Among the honors Don has received are a George Foster Peabody award, two duPont-Columbia University awards, two national Emmy® Awards, Emmy® Awards from the Chicago Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences and awards from the Chicago Headline Club.
Bio from Induction Year Program Book
Art Norman
Art Norman retired from NBC5 last year after 27 years of news anchoring and reporting stories that often touched the hearts of his viewers. He is well-known for highlighting the unsung heroes of the Chicago area in a feature segment called “Art Norman’s Chicago.” He also hosted the station’s hi-tech program on Saturday and Sunday mornings called “Weekend Web.”
Norman came to NBC5 News as a general assignment reporter in July 1982 from WMAR-TV in Baltimore, Maryland, where he had worked as a reporter and weekend anchor. Prior to his tenure at WMAR-TV, Norman worked as a reporter at WPCQ-TV and WSOC-TV, both in Charlotte, North Carolina. He began his broadcasting career in 1969 as a television engineer at WCCB-TV, also in Charlotte.
Norman has received many honors for journalistic excellence. Most recently, he received an Emmy® Award for his contribution to NBC’s news special on the Chicago Auto Show. He has also won Emmy® Awards for his spot news reporting of the Fox River Grove bus crash, the 1988 Laurie Dann rampage, and the Beirut hostage crisis, providing comprehensive reports on the fate of Geneva and St. Charles, IL, residents held captive by terrorists.
Norman’s series, “Cops and Robbers,” which uncovered secret files on police officers with criminal records, was honored with a prestigious national Investigative Reporters and Editors Award and a 1992-93 Associated Press Award for “Best Investigative Reporting.” His also received a 1987 Wilbur Award from the Religious Public Relations Council for “Giving God the Glory,” a documentary tracing Chicago’s gospel history, and a 1984 International Radio and Television News Directors Association Award for his live coverage of a Daley Center courtroom shooting.
Norman’s community involvement is extensive. He hosts numerous community events each year. Norman is a spokesman for the United Negro College Fund and serves as an on-air host of their telethon. Norman holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Math and Physics from Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, North Carolina. He is a member of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity and holds a first class C.C.C. engineer’s license. Norman is married and lives in Evanston.
Bio from Induction Year Program Book
Steve Sanders
Steve Sanders is co-anchor of WGN Midday News from 11:30am-1pm. Steve is a veteran broadcast journalist who began at WGN-TV in 1982 as a general assignment reporter. From 1984 to 1993, Steve anchored WGN News at Noon. He then served as co-anchor of WGN News at Nine for fifteen years.
A graduate of the University of Alabama, Birmingham, Steve holds a degree in political science with a minor in communications. He began his career in television behind the camera as a studio floor director at WBRC-TV in his hometown of Birmingham in 1970. He had given little thought to a career as a news anchor until he found himself inspired while watching others appear on camera. Steve said to himself, “I think I can do that,” and he has been a successful anchor ever since.
His first on-air job was not in television, but radio. He was a news anchor for WERC radio, where he received numerous journalism awards for writing and reporting. Steve made news IN THE AIR as well as on the air. A two-year stint as a helicopter traffic reporter nearly cost him his life in 1976 when a chopper he was in crashed near the Birmingham airport. Fortunately, Steve sustained only minor injuries and returned to more stable ground—television. In 1979, he joined Birmingham’s WVTM-TV as a reporter and weekend anchor.
During his tenure at WGN-TV, Steve has won numerous journalism awards including five Emmy® Awards. Steve’s investigative reporting has garnered awards from the American Bar Association, the Chicago Bar Association and the Associated Press. Steve was honored for his skill as a writer in 1998 with an A.P. award for his obituary on Chicago Tribune columnist Mike Royko.
For the past decade, Steve has served as honorary chair of Marklund's annual Tophat Ball. Marklund serves the needs of disabled children and adults. An avid guitarist, Steve was one of the Chicago news anchors showing off his rock and roll skills at Newsapalooza, the annual Cystic Fibrosis fundraiser.
Bio from Induction Year Program Book
Leda Santodomingo
Leda’s broadcasting career in the United States began in 1987 at KVEA in Los Angeles (owned by Univision then, now a Telemundo affiliate). Leda worked on her Masters degree in TV production at California State University. Her on-air and TV production work was so impressive that a scholarship was developed in her name to help up-and-coming students in the production department at Northridge University in California.
In 1988, then news director David Cordova hired Leda as a news reporter/anchor at Telemundo Chicago (WSNS-TV). She worked in Chicago for one year until her late husband, a Venezuelan diplomat, was called back to service in Venezuela. Leda returned to her home country and worked on two very popular shows: Alerta on Radio Caracas TV and En Exclusiva on Venevision. She hosted the shows and also served as executive producer. She enjoyed tremendous ratings and critical success as the shows were watched by over 70% of the Venezuelan TV audience.
In 1997, Leda returned to the U.S. and went to work for Telemundo Network in Miami as a senior executive producer and chief correspondent of Edición Especial. One year later, David Cordova, now the station GM, convinced Leda to return to Telemundo Chicago where she remains today, enjoying an illustrious broadcast career as news reporter and substitute anchor. Her work in Chicago has earned many Emmy® nominations and several honors including the 2009 Mayoral Leadership Award.
Among her many on-air projects at Telemundo Chicago, Leda is proud to have served as the host of Telemundo Chicago’s very popular weekend entertainment series, De Frente. This program became “must-see” TV—viewers clamored to accompany her on a visually stimulating, virtual ride through Chicago and its many communities where Leda stopped to spotlight cultural institutions, special events and the city’s many hidden gems.
Today, Leda is a well-known and respected journalist for Telemundo Chicago’s 5 p.m. and 10 p.m. newscasts. She has earned the respect of her colleagues and contemporaries both at NBC/Telemundo as well as other local TV stations.
Bio from Induction Year Program Book
Pam Zekman
Pulitzer-prize winning reporter Pam Zekman serves on CBS 2 Chicago’s investigative team, a position she has held since 1981. Her thorough investigations have earned every major award in television reporting and resulted in new legislation, governmental reforms and court action to stop fraud and other abuses.
Zekman’s investigation of the “Accident Chasers” prompted the Illinois State legislature to pass new laws to license and regulate towing companies. An ongoing federal corruption investigation has resulted in the conviction of several police officers who solicited bribes from these towing companies in exchange for steering business to them.
She’s reported extensively on medical malpractice and health care fraud. Her reports on “Dangerous Doctors” who performed unnecessary surgeries or injured patients have resulted in disciplinary action taken by state regulators.
Zekman has frequently exposed government waste. After her hidden-camera investigations caught dozens of city, county, and state employees at home, working other jobs, in bars and playing golf, they were suspended, fired, and even convicted of taxpayer theft. An in-depth investigation, that documented millions of dollars of waste at the Chicago Board of Education, resulted in sweeping changes in the way contracts are awarded. Consumer scams have also been exposed. She recently reported on so called “medical spas” with inadequately trained staff who have burned patients during laser treatments or ripped them off with unproven fat removal treatments. Her historic exposes of the Police Department’s fraudulent crime statistics and the Fire Department’s inadequate ambulance service have led to significant changes in city services.
Zekman joined CBS 2 after ten years at the Chicago Tribune (1971-76) and the Chicago Sun-Times (1976-81), where she shared two Pulitzer Prizes for local reporting. While at the Sun-Times, her renowned “Mirage” investigation, which documented corruption by city and state inspectors who overlooked building, fire, and ventilation violations in exchange for bribes, gained her national attention.
Zekman has won two DuPont-Columbia Awards, two Peabody Awards, 21 local Emmy® Awards and several Associated Press and United Press International Awards for her investigative reporting. She received the 2003 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Chicago chapter of American Women in Radio and Television and the City Club of Chicago’s 2004 John A. McDermott Award for Distinguished Social Leadership.
Prior to her work at CBS 2 and Chicago’s two metropolitan newspapers, Zekman served as a reporter at the City News Bureau. A native of Chicago, she is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley.
Bio from Induction Year Program Book