Of course, a story about COVID-19 tops our list of 2020 most-read stories, according to Google Analytics. The coronavirus pandemic overwhelmed our consciousness in 2020 and it seemed there was little else to talk or think about. Our interests followed suit with stories about the fallout of the pandemic, such as store and restaurant closings and hot real estate properties for sale, also topping the list.
Baltimore Fishbowl’s top stories of 2020
National Public Radio elects WYPR GM LaFontaine Oliver to head its board
LaFontaine E. Oliver, the general manager and president of local NPR station WYPR, has been elected chairman of the board of National Public Radio.
WYPR staff faces Friday deadline for three buyouts
The staff at WYPR, Baltimore’s NPR affiliate, faces a Friday deadline for three employees to accept buyout offers as the station deals with the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.
Maryland Public Television, WYPR to air town hall forum on race, policing tonight
Baltimore City Police Commissioner Michael Harrison, Baltimore County Police Chief Melissa Hyatt, activist DeRay Mckesson and other experts and advocates will take part in an hour-long town hall forum on race and policing tonight.
Maryland Public Television will broadcast “A Conversation: Face and Policing” at 7 p.m. as part of the statewide network’s initiative “Standing Against Racism: Fostering Unity Through Dialogue.” The forum will also be livestreamed on MPT’s website and will air on WYPR-FM (88.1).
Changes at Baltimore Fishbowl due to COVID-19
Dear Readers,
We are navigating unprecedented times, as the impact of the global pandemic hits our lives, and Baltimore and the nation grapple anew with the painful legacy of racism and hate.
Baltimore Fishbowl was launched in 2011 to provide a fresh voice on a variety of issues – fun and challenging alike – affecting our city and region. The mission hasn’t changed, and we’ve been lucky enough to accomplish what we set out to do. In the past year, we won our first awards in the MDDC Press Association Contest, published our signature editorial series Baltimost, held our first event, and attracted more readers than ever.
Famous Baltimore Sun alumni push for local nonprofit ownership of newspaper
Some notable Baltimore Sun alumni are calling on the newspaper’s parent company, Tribune Publishing, to turn the newspaper over to local nonprofit ownership as part of the newsroom union’s “Save Our Sun” campaign.
The Baltimore Sun Guild, the newspaper’s unit within the Washington-Baltimore News Guild, has so far tweeted videos from two well-known former Sun reporters: Sarah Koenig, host of the podcast “Serial,” which attracted national attention after examining the murder case against Adnan Syed in its first season; and Ken Rosenthal, a sports reporter for Fox Major League Baseball, MLB Network and The Athletic.
Baltimore photographer Devin Allen captures second Time magazine cover
Five years after his photo from the Baltimore Uprising appeared on the front of Time, Baltimore photographer Devin Allen’s work is back on the magazine’s cover, now depicting one of the city’s recent protests against police brutality and racial injustice.
Allen’s new cover photo shows a protester raising a megaphone as other demonstrators lie on a downtown Baltimore street during the Black Trans Lives Matter protest on June 5.
Luke Broadwater is heading to The New York Times to cover Congress
Luke Broadwater, a journalist who has reported on local and state politics at The Sun for most of the last decade, is leaving the city’s daily newspaper to cover Congress for The New York Times.
Broadwater, who wrote the first in a series of stories on former Mayor Catherine Pugh’s “Healthy Holly” scandal that earned the paper a Pulitzer Prize earlier this year, says he starts at the Times’ D.C. bureau on June 8, joining a team of four other reporters covering Capitol Hill.
Rhea Feikin reflects on her career in ‘Rhea: A Life in Television’
Rhea Feikin for Mayor? At least she’d have the fundraising part down.
During a half-hour program about broadcasting pioneer Rhea Feikin and her recent retirement as “First Lady of Maryland Public Television,” filmmaker John Waters suggested that she run for public office now that she has some time on her hands.
“What’s next? Everybody’s going to say that. Why don’t you run for mayor?” he told her on the show, in which he interviewed her. “You have the name recognition.”
