Tom's next guest is Stewart Bainum. He is a successful businessman (as board chair of the worldwide Choice Hotels chain), philanthropist, and former Maryland delegate and senator. Last year, he tried to buy the Baltimore Sun with the intention of turning it into a non-profit news organization focusing on local news. That effort was rebuffed by the Sun’s owners, a hedge fund called Alden Global Capital. Working with former Baltimore County Executive Ted Venetoulis, Bainum began planning a new local news operation, an on-line, multi-pronged platform that will be overseen by the Venetoulis Institute for Local Journalism, a not-for-profit foundation named in honor of Mr. Venetoulis, who passed away last month from pancreatic cancer.
The new digital news journal will be called The Baltimore Banner, and plans now call for it to launch by the summer of 2022, with a staff of roughly 50 journalists.
(Journalists and others interested in working for The Banner can apply on the Venetoulis Institute Website.)
Stewart Bainum joins us on Zoom from his office in Rockville, Maryland, to tell us more about the Banner enterprise, and what it could mean for local journalism.
