By Target Market News
Kathy Chaney, a well-known, award-winning Chicago-based journalist, has been named Managing Editor of Johnson Publishing Company’s flagship, Ebony magazine. Her appointment became effective March 14.
The managing editor post has been vacant for a year following the departure of Wendy Wilson last April. It is the second editorial post to undergo a change of executives in a year’s time. Last February Kierna Mayo assumed the position of Editor in Chief succeeding Mitzi Miller. Chaney will report to Mayo who is based in JPC’s New York office.
Chaney most recently was a reporter and producer for Chicago Public Media station, WBEZ-FM, where she was reportedly one of only four fulltime African-American staffers in the newsroom.
Experienced in covering African-American issues, Chaney served as senior executive producer for Chicago’s only black-owned radio station, WVON-AM which has a news/talk format. She also was managing editor of the Chicago Defender, one of the nation’s oldest Black newspapers.
Chaney is currently the President of the National Association of Black Journalists – Chicago Chapter, where she has a longtime record of activism and involvement. The Society of Professional Journalists and Investigative Reporters and Editors.
Among the other media outlet Chaney has worked for are the Chicago Tribune, Thomson Reuters, Associated Press and Crain’s Chicago Business. She attended both Loyola University and Western Illinois University.
Among the recognition she has earned for her journalism, Chaney received a George Polk Award for local reporting, a Cook County Crime Stoppers Media Award, A. Philip Randolph Messenger Award and the Portrait of Achievers Award from the Probation Challenge organization. She also teaches journalism to middle school students in the city for the True Star Foundation.
