CHICAGO / MIDWEST

Honorees

2013

Greg
Caputo

Jamie
Ceaser

Janet
Davies

Mike
Flannery

Mike
Parker

Jim
Rose

Norm
Barry

Greg Caputo

Greg Caputo joined WGN-TV as News Director in December 2002. Caputo leads the news operation of consistently top-ranked local newscasts: WGN Morning News, WGN Midday News, WGN Evening News and WGN News at Nine, while also overseeing CLTV and WGNtv.com news content. Under Caputo’s watch, WGN news broadcasts have greatly expanded, producing 49 hours a week of local news. Caputo also oversaw the integration of the 24-hour cable news station, CLTV, with WGN-TV in August, 2009, creating the area’s largest and most powerful television newsroom. Caputo joined WGN-TV from Tribune station WLVI-TV in Boston, where he served as news director for seven years. During his tenure, WLVI News remained a consistent market leader at 10 pm, earning multiple regional Emmy® Awards, as well as Associated Press and RTNDA Awards. Prior to WLVI, he spent three years as Corporate Director of News for Malrite Communications Group in Ohio. He launched a news operation at their Fox affiliate WXIX, Cincinnati and assumed news leadership at the new two station cluster of CBS affiliate WOIO and independent station WUAB in Cleveland. As Vice President and News Director at WFLD in Chicago in 1985 and from 1987-1993, Caputo developed and launched station newscasts. He held the same position at WNYW, New York and WTTG, Washington, D.C. (1986-1987). From 1972 to 1985, Caputo held a variety of positions at WBBM-TV leading to his appointment as News Director in 1983. He also worked for Group W Television KDKA-TV as its assignment manager in the mid-1970s. Caputo began his news career as a reporter, writer, producer, photographer and editor at WNDU-TV and Radio in South Bend, Indiana in 1968. Greg Caputo graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a BA in Communication Arts and received his MS-J from Northwestern University’s prestigious Medill School of Journalism. He has served as President of the Board of Governors of the Boston-New England Chapter of NATAS, a Governor of the Chicago Chapter of NATAS and a member of the RTNDA. He has been a guest lecturer at many academic institutions including Northwestern University, Columbia University in New York, Boston University and Emerson College in Boston.

Bio from Induction Year Program Book

Jamie Ceaser

Jamie Ceaser’s career began at legendary WTTW, one of the nation’s leading public television stations, where she created award-winning documentaries, innovative arts programming, timely public affairs talk shows, and rousing concerts. Early on, she produced Image Union, among the earliest programs to feature the works of independent producers and pre-dated YouTube and vimeo by 25 years. The program featured one of her favorite hosts of all time, Bob, a cardboard cutout character. Unlike some talent, Bob never talked back. Her work as an independent producer includes segment producing for CBS Evening News and The Newshour on PBS. Jamie’s work has been seen on PBS, AMC, TLC, A&E, The Travel Channel, and VH-1 on programs including: Sneak Previews, CenterStage, The Frugal Gourmet, Movie Club with John Ridley, Home Made Simple, and Remembering Chicago: The Boomer Years. Her favorite interviews include the many teachers she met while producing the Golden Apple Awards, and some of the well-known actors she met during the taping of the PBS show When We Were Young, such as Haley Mills, Margaret O’Brien and Mickey Rooney. But her favorite interview subject will always be the late Bill Veeck, the former owner of the Chicago White Sox and a true Renaissance man. Jamie remains dear friends with his wife, Mary Frances. Since 2001, she has headed Ceaser Salad Productions, producing everything from documentaries, interactive marketing videos for Fortune 500 companies, small business videos, and a pilot or two. She also produces family legacy videos. And she’s been pushing Dogumentaries and Catalogues (pet stories), but they haven’t yet “cat”apulted her to financial success and the most YouTube hits of all time. During a three-decade career that has seen the face of TV literally change, Jamie’s talent has been recognized with nine Emmy® Awards, two Public Broadcasting Awards, the NATPE Award, a Lisagor Award, the Gracie Award, and the Women in Film: Focus on Achievement Award. But she says her most meaningful recognition by far is the Silver Circle Award. Jamie is currently having a great time producing Local, USA, a 13-part series for PBS that will air nationally this fall.

Bio from Induction Year Program Book

Janet Davies

Janet Davies joined WLS-TV as a reporter in 1984. In addition to her news reporting, Davies was the host and executive producer of 190 North, a multiple Emmy®-award-winning Chicago-based entertainment and lifestyle program. 190 North was the top rated program in its time period and the longest running magazine program in Chicago broadcasting history. As an ABC7 reporter, Davies has covered general assignment, feature and entertainment stories nationally and internationally. Other local program duties have included serving as co-host/executive producer of both the #1 rated live broadcasts of Countdown Chicago on New Year's Eve and ABC7's coverage of the Magnificent Mile Lights Festival, in addition to hosting numerous community parade telecasts. Her documentary, Re-discovering a Black Pioneer’s Dream, was placed in the permanent collection of the Lincoln Library. Davies has also hosted and co-produced the series Janet Davies Interviews and previous magazine shows Eye on Chicago, WLS Presents and Chicago Stories. She was also a substitute host for AM Chicago. Coming to ABC 7 from WPVI-TV, Davies co-hosted and co-produced the #1 rated local talk show A.M. Philadelphia. Previously, she worked in Columbus, Ohio at WBNS-TV, and Warner Cable’s Qube-TV, hosting Columbus Alive, the industry’s first interactive cable talk show. Her broadcasting career began at Cincinnati’s WKRC-TV as a reporter and noon news weather anchor. She eventually became weekend anchor and City Hall reporter, and was later tapped to serve as co-host and executive producer for Cincinnati’s Emmy® Award winning PM Magazine. Her charitable work includes the creation of the Corporate Board of Directors for Lurie Children's Hospital. She has co-hosted the hospital's annual Champions Broadcast for 27 years. Davies also works with the Leukemia Research Foundation, American Cancer Society and as Chicago Ambassador for the global poverty organization C.A.R.E. working in India on documenting their programs. She has lobbied Capitol Hill for increased funding for USAID and finds time to serve on her youngest child’s school advisory board. Among her many accolades, Davies has been nominated for 61 regional Emmy® Awards, winning 13. She has also won 3 Silver Dome awards from the Illinois Broadcasters Association and an Iris Award from NATPE, the National Association of Television Program Executives.

Bio from Induction Year Program Book

Mike Flannery

Mike Flannery joined FOX32 News, WFLD-TV as Political Editor in 2010 and also co-hosts FOX 32 Sunday. Flannery counts himself very fortunate to be a Chicago journalist. That was not his plan. When he joined the Chicago Sun-Times as a general assignment reporter in 1973, he had a vague timetable: work there for perhaps three years; pay down his student loans from Georgetown University; save some money; then apply to law schools. The plan went wrong almost immediately. Sun-Times’ editors granted Flannery's request to cover City Hall, including Mayor Richard J. Daley's final reelection campaign in 1975 and the succession struggle when Daley died in 1976. It was often physically demanding and emotionally exhausting, as when one of Flannery's first investigative stories prompted the then-Cook County Clerk to declare publicly that he would castrate the young reporter. (He also challenged Flannery to a "duel," offering a choice of "guns, knives or fists.") To Flannery's surprise, despite journalism's demands, it rarely felt like work. It proved to be more fun than any other job he could imagine, including law. Flannery joined CBS station WBBM-TV in 1980, as Political Editor. He shared a national Emmy® Award for the station's breaking news coverage of the death of Pope John Paul II. He won several regional Emmy® Awards for news coverage including an investigation of the Dixmoor Park District that contributed to it becoming the first such unit of government ever abolished in Illinois. Newsmakers, the Sunday morning public affairs show Flannery hosted for many years, also won Emmy® and Lisagor awards. The Alliance for the Mentally Ill of Greater Chicago renamed its annual media honor the Mike Flannery Community Service Award, in recognition of decades of serious, substantive coverage. His persistent reporting on the scandalous and shortsighted neglect of mental hygiene services here also earned him several Gold Bell Awards from the Mental Health Association of Illinois. Flannery has met and questioned every U.S. President back to, and including, Richard M. Nixon, and he has covered 18 presidential nominating conventions. He has also interviewed seven Illinois governors and eight mayors of Chicago.

Bio from Induction Year Program Book

Mike Parker

In an era that finds many TV news reporters bouncing from station to station, Mike Parker has been a hard-working, award-winning, general assignment reporter for CBS 2 Chicago for more than three decades. Parker has been a weekend anchor and weekday general assignment reporter for CBS 2 Chicago since 1980, with the exception of a brief stint as a general assignment correspondent at WABC-TV in New York, NY (1985-86). Parker was born in New York City, but raised in Illinois and Iowa (Quad Cities and Des Moines). He caught the news bug early in life, landing his first newsroom job while in high school, at KSTT Radio in 1959, in Davenport, Iowa. Parker spent the ‘’70s on the west coast. He attended Los Angeles City College but dropped out after a year and a half, something he describes as “a big mistake.” And he worked as an actor and screenwriter, an experience he describes as “a brief, ill-fated career.” So Parker stayed in the market returning to radio as anchor, reporter and eventually news director at KFI radio. Parker made the jump to television, serving from 1977-1980 as an anchor, investigative reporter and general assignment reporter at KNXT-TV (now KCBS-TV). Parker was very active in journalism organizations serving as President of the California Associated Press TV and Radio Association and a national board member of the Radio and Television News Directors Association. While at CBS 2 Chicago, Parker has received several regional Emmy® Awards and the Illinois UPI Award for best television feature story of 1985. His breaking news reports about the CTA Blue Line derailment in the summer of 2006 helped CBS 2 Chicago win a national Emmy® Award for spot news. He is also the recipient of AP Broadcast awards, an American Bar Association Silver Gavel award for best documentary and a number of Golden Mike awards. He is married to Marian Ambrose Parker and is the father of Claire Parker, Beth DeBlois and Joseph Fishel.

Bio from Induction Year Program Book
Mike passed away on November 4, 2018.

Jim Rose

Since joining ABC7 in 1982, Jim Rose has become a major force in Chicago sports broadcasting. He currently serves as sports anchor/reporter for the station’s top-rated 4:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. newscasts.

Bio from Induction Year Program Book Rose is a contributor to ABC7’s Emmy® Award-winning HEART & SOUL, a series of specials that celebrates the rich culture of the African-American community in Chicago. Each August, Rose also hosts ABC7’s annual broadcast of the Bud Billiken Parade, one of the largest parades in the country.. Rose began his career in sports broadcasting while serving in the U.S. Army, acting as sports director for AFN-TV in Berlin, West Germany (1973-75). He earned a Bachelor of Arts in mass communications from Rhode Island College in 1977and, during his college years, worked as a sports anchor at WPRO-TV in Providence, R.I. Rose was weekend sports anchor and play-by-play reporter at WIXT-TV in Syracuse, N.Y. from 1977 to 1982. Rose has won several awards for his work, including the 1981 Best Sports Story Award from the Syracuse Press Club for his Sportsweek Nine (weekly sports magazine) segment on the Sugar Ray Leonard/Larry Bonds title fight. The Syracuse Press Club also honored him in 1980 for Best Reporting Under Deadline Pressure, and in 1979 for Best Sports Story. Rose is the vice president of the Swan Group, a non-profit organization created to give away the “Swan House” to a Chicago area single mother who achieved academic excellence in college. After 4½ years of sweat equity, along with an outpouring of community donations, Rose’s hard work came to fruition. In October 2006, he handed the keys of a 2,000 sq. ft. house over to a single mother with two children and a 3.8/4.0 grade average. Despite the many honors he has received during his career, Rose considers this “one of his life’s crowning achievements.” He continues to volunteer his time to help many charitable groups and worthy causes throughout the Chicago area.

Bio from Induction Year Program Book

Norm Barry

While working in Chicago radio for WIBO and WBBM in 1930, Norm Barry became a broadcast pioneer in experimental television on station W9XAO. In 1934, Barry became a staff announcer/reporter for the NBC Radio Network where he covered special events ranging from political conventions to record-breaking high altitude balloon flights. Barry served in the military during World War II, commanding a P.T. boat in the Pacific. After the war, he created news documentaries and anchored several programs including The 10 O’clock News with Norm Barry and The Norman Barry Show. In 1949, when Channel 5 went on the air, Barry was one of its first employees, part of the station’s announcing staff which included Hugh Downs and Dave Garroway in its all-star line-up. Led by general manager Jules Herbuveaux, the station’s “Chicago School of television” created many local programs that soon began airing on the NBC Network including: Zoo Parade, Ding Dong School, Garroway at Large, Ask Mr. Wizard, and Kukla, Fran & Ollie. Barry was a mainstay of another of these “Chicago School” programs – Walt’s Workshop – TV’s very first do-it-yourself program which demonstrated carpentry fundamentals. Barry opened the program, presented countless live Hines Lumber commercials and occasionally substituted as host. He also created a reality program ahead of its time called Portrait of America, and served as host of R.F.D. America and Championship Golf. Barry co-hosted But Not Forgotten with Herbie Mintz that was part of WNBQ’s Five Star Final, the top rated newscast of the era. His later show, Let’s Look at Sports with Norm Barry was also part of the Five Star Final. Barry did extensive documentary work for local museums and corporations. He served as President of the Chicago Chapter of the Screen Actors Guild and a National Board Member. He was a founding Board of Governors Member of the Chicago Chapter of the Television Academy and a founding member of the Midwest Broadcast Pioneers. His civic involvement included serving as a member of the Board of Directors of Chicago’s Department of Urban Renewal and as a Board Member of the Lincoln Park Conservation Association.

Bio from Induction Year Program Book