I have had the great privilege to cover Oak Park for Wednesday Journal full time since February of last year. I’m sad to announce, this will be my last issue as the paper’s staff reporter.
I have had such fun in this job, and it has been an honor to serve this audience. I’ve found people of Oak Park to be uncommonly passionate, engaged and insightful around the local issues I’ve been able to cover and I’ve been blown away by how many of you diligently support and encourage your local reporters.
In a state where so many community publications have shuttered, WJ’s continued success is fundamentally a testament to its readership.
I will be moving on to a can’t-miss opportunity on a technology beat covering the semiconductor chip industry for a publication called Semiconductor Engineering. A big change for me, but if someone starts expressing interest in building a chip fabrication plant on the old Mohr Concrete site, I will still make sure that WJ readers are in the know.
I’m proud to have covered so many key issues in my time here, including the entirety of the “Broadview 6” case from the original indictment to its collapse, the community’s response to “Operation Midway Blitz,” the chaos and confusion surrounding the recent closure of West Suburban Medical Center, last year’s municipal elections and so many other fascinating Oak Park stories. I have zero doubt that Wednesday Journal will continue to deliver excellent hyper-local news coverage worthy of your support.
I have seen a lot of changes within the organization since I came on full-time. I started in the wake of a set of leadership changes, a few months later we left our physical offices of over 40 years and a few months after that we joined NEWSWELL, putting the paper under out-of-state ownership for the first time.
I can say confidently that all of those changes have positioned the organization to better invest in its journalism and in the reporters who deliver it. I’m so excited to see what WJ does next, and you should be too.