Robservations: DePaul opens Center for Journalism Integrity and Excellence

Carol Marin (Photo: DePaul University/Jeff Carrion)

Carol Marin (Photo: DePaul University/Jeff Carrion)

Robservations on the media beat:

Media colleagues from all over Chicago came together Thursday night to honor Carol Marin and Don Moseley on the opening of the Center for Journalism Integrity and Excellence at DePaul University. The nationally acclaimed reporter-and-producer team, who’ve been teaching at DePaul since 2003, will serve as co-directors of the new center in the College of Communication. “We plan to be a bridge for our students from the classroom to the working newsrooms of the world,” Marin told the gathering. “We’ll also work to be a bridge from DePaul to the larger university and to the community, bringing journalists’ voices to campus to focus on the burning issues and the headlines and the things that are behind the headlines.” Marin and Moseley will begin teaching Advanced Reporting in the fall quarter.

Dana Kozlov

Dana Kozlov

WBBM-Channel 2 scored a social media coup Wednesday night with live coverage of a high-speed police chase. As west suburban Lombard police pursued a person wanted in connection with a drug-induced homicide through the streets and expressways of Chicago, the CBS-owned station followed it from above by helicopter on its 10 p.m. newscast. Then, for more than 30 minutes after the news went off the air, reporter Dana Kozlov continued to narrate Chopper 2’s aerial images on Facebook. With a focus on the safety of bystanders and other motorists in the path of the pursuit, Kozlov’s sharp, compelling account of the action attracted record-breaking views, according to Jeff Kiernan, vice president and news director of CBS 2.

Sheri Salata

Sheri Salata

One of Oprah Winfrey’s closest aides for more than 20 years is leaving. Sheri Salata resigned this week as co-president of Winfrey’s OWN cable network to launch a brand innovation agency. “It’s time to take what has been the ride of my life to the next level in creating my own agency and doing what I love best — telling stories,” she said in a statement. Salata, who joined Harpo Studios as a promotions producer in 1995, was named co-president of OWN in 2011. Erik Logan, the network’s other co-president, continues in the role solo.

Jonathan Eig

Jonathan Eig

Chicago author Jonathan Eig’s The Birth of the Pill: How Four Crusaders Reinvented Sex and Launched a Revolution is on its way to becoming a television series. Sonar Entertainment has optioned the rights to the 2014 nonfiction book for development as an event series. “This vivid history of the little pill that changed the world is as engaging and gripping as the most suspenseful and dramatic work of fiction,” Tom Patricia, executive vice president of Sonar Entertainment, said in a statement. “An epic story of sexual politics, rebellion and scientific discovery, it is as relevant and timely today as it was when the actual events were unfolding.”

David Plier and Don Rickles

David Plier and Don Rickles

Legendary comedian Don Rickles, who turns 90 on Sunday, reflects on his amazing career in an exclusive interview with David Plier, weekend host on Tribune Media news/talk WGN AM 720. Plier taped the conversation a few weeks ago backstage at Rickles’s sold-out show in Las Vegas. It will air at 2:35 a.m. Sunday and will be uploaded as a podcast on wgnradio.com first thing Sunday morning. As a companion to the interview, Plier will talk about “The Greatest Stand-Up Comedians of All Time” with four of his WGN colleagues who also perform stand-up — Steve Cochran, Bill Leff, Patti Vasquez and Brian Noonan.

Herb Morrison

Herb Morrison

On May 6, 1937, a 31-year-old reporter for WLS AM 890 named Herb Morrison was in Lakehurst, New Jersey, to record the arrival of the Hindenburg zeppelin. Just as the giant airship was landing, it suddenly exploded and burst into flames, killing 36 people. As I wrote on the 75th anniversary of the event: “It marked a turning point for radio news. Every disaster broadcast since — up to and including September 11, 2001 — is measured against Morrison’s chilling, horrific account, punctuated by his plaintive words: ‘Oh, the humanity!’ ” Morrison died at 83 in 1989.