A.D. Q&A with A.D. Quig By cover art

A.D. Q&A with A.D. Quig

By: Crain's Chicago Business
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  • Summary

  • Crain's Chicago Business political reporter A.D. Quig conducts smart, engaging conversations with key newsmakers on the critical issues facing Chicago and Illinois.
    2021 Crain Communications
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Episodes
  • A.D. Q&A on the future of work in Illinois

    A.D. Q&A on the future of work in Illinois
    May 30 2022
    If you read Crain’s, you’ve probably spent a good amount of time thinking about the future of work – e-commerce, automation and telecommuting. Even if you don’t spend much time thinking about it, it’s abundantly clear that covid has rapidly accelerated those trends. Remote schooling and telehealth became necessities. Online shopping that might’ve been limited to clothes or homewares pre-covid exploded, with more people getting things like groceries delivered much more often. And there’s a heightened awareness of the importance of lower-wage work classified as “essential” during the pandemic. That’s why last year, the Illinois General Assembly created the “future of work” task force – a mix of current and former state officials, union folks and business representatives – to look into “how the state can best produce a broad-based post-pandemic recovery, confront the worsening crisis of poverty and create high-quality jobs for all.” A.D. Quig's two guests this week participated in the task force’s work: Professor Bob Bruno, director of the Labor Education Program at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and Harish Patel, from the advocacy group Economic Security for Illinois. They discuss the findings of the report, including the highs and lows of the state’s current labor market, whether we might see more union agitating to boost conditions for frontline workers, and whether the business groups that participated in this task force think the recommendations are a good idea.
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    50 mins
  • A.D. Q&A with Chicago Reader Publisher Tracy Baim

    A.D. Q&A with Chicago Reader Publisher Tracy Baim
    May 23 2022
    The Chicago Reader is one of the city’s best-known free papers and one of a few remaining alt-weeklies to survive the media crunch that killed dozens across the country. Until recently, the Reader seemed like it was about to go under, too. Our guest this week is the Reader’s publisher, Tracy Baim. She’s been in the Chicago media world since she was a kid. Her mother, father and stepfather were all in the biz. Fresh out of college, she founded the LGBTQ publication the Windy City Times. In 2018, she stepped in to lead the Reader. And what a ride it’s been. When print advertising from bars, restaurants and venues dried up in the early COVID days, the paper survived thanks to a federal PPP loan, another loan from the city, a series of innovative fundraising measures and leftover investment from the paper’s co-owners, lawyer Len Goodman and real estate developer Elzie Higginbottom. But in recent months, a spat with Goodman almost brought the Reader down. He wrote a column detailing his concerns about getting his daughter vaccinated for covid. It led to an uproar and an outside fact-check that found several errors. Editors wanted a correction, an editors note, or for the story to get taken down. Goodman cried censorship, and the fight hit pause on the paper’s transition to nonprofit status, a transition that would have allowed for money from foundations and philanthropists to flow in. In this episode, Baim brings us behind the scenes of that tussle, explains where the Reader goes from here, and forecasts what a broader shift to nonprofit status for legacy media means--for example, is the Sun-Times/WBEZ merger good for all the other, smaller independent publications dotting Chicago? And is there a way for Chicago foundations to pool their money for media in a way that spreads the wealth to smaller outlets?
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    47 mins
  • A.D. Q&A with new Chicago Inspector General Deborah Witzburg

    A.D. Q&A with new Chicago Inspector General Deborah Witzburg
    May 16 2022
    Chicago's Office of the Inspector General has published many blockbuster reports over the years. Its job is to investigate corruption, misconduct, waste, fraud and abuse big and small. In recent years, it's found a culture of sexual harassment in the Chicago Fire Department, blasted the Chicago Police Department’s response to summer looting in 2020, and helped U.S. Attorney John Lausch secure indictments of City Council members. But despite its importance to chipping away at city waste, the office’s top post was left vacant for roughly eight months. Deborah Witzburg, this week's guest, was confirmed to take over in late April. She headed up the IG’s public safety section starting in the Spring of 2020, but left when the last IG, Joe Ferguson, announced he was stepping down. She wanted the job. And she got it. But what’s she in for? It’s no secret that Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Ferguson had a rocky relationship in the last few months of his tenure. She suggested Ferguson wasn’t staying in his lane and hadn’t delivered on all of the investigations he said he would. We’ll talk to Witzburg about whether she thinks the IG’s office swerved out of its lane while she was there, how she plans to counter the “trust deficit” that’s built up among citizens after years of Chicago corruption, and what it’s like being the first woman to lead the office.
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    42 mins
Business & Careers Political Science
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