WGN-TV names Akemi Harrison as its new news director
Jumps from rival NBC 5 to take position
Nexstar-owned WGN-TV Chicago announced on Wednesday the hiring of Akemi Harrison as the station’s news director, succeeding the now-retired Dom Stasi in the role starting August 25. Harrison arrives from rival NBC-owned WMAQ (NBC 5), where she held the same position. Harrison’s official title is Director of News and Multiplatform Content, overseeing the local station, WGN+, WGNTV.com, and its mobile app.
“I’m thrilled to join such an incredible team of journalists who have led the market in both ratings and community engagement for decades. Growing up in [Jackson], Mississippi, I watched WGN [Superstation] and never imagined I’d one day be in a leadership role there,” said Harrison. “My leadership philosophy is simple: support our incredible talent and dare to innovate. It’s an honor to build on WGN’s powerful legacy, and I’m excited to weave in a future-forward approach to ensure we continue to dominate the market.”
Earning a B.A. degree in English with an emphasis on journalism from Tougaloo College in 2005, Harrison landed her first television job at ABC affiliate WAPT in her hometown after five years as a radio personality. She later transitioned into roles as an executive producer for WPXI Pittsburgh, assistant news director at WVIT Hartford-New Haven, Conn., and several news editorial roles at Bay Area local stations. She joined WMAQ as an assistant news director in 2021 and was named news director two years later.
Harrison won an Emmy Award for her collaborative work on WMAQ’s streaming series The Lost Story of Emmett Till and an Emmy nomination for Desde Cero: The Migrant Journey In Chicago. Both programs received critical praise.
“As media consumption continues to evolve into a multiplatform experience, we are thrilled to have Akemi Harrison join and lead our WGN content team,” said WGN-TV Vice President and General Manager Ric Harris, who was appointed to the position this year. “Akemi is a highly accomplished news and media executive who understands the importance of compelling storytelling and engaging audiences across all platforms.”
Harrison is taking over a news operation that has had success against perennial market leader WLS-TV (ABC 7), finishing first with its popular WGN Morning News and continuing to win decisively over Fox-owned WFLD-TV at 9 p.m., which has cut back its newscast to a half-hour on most nights. WGN produces news 72 hours a week, the most of any station in the Chicago market, although the reception the news operation gets isn’t always the greatest on both sides of the political aisle.
Even before the shocking of cutting back of its 9PM newscasts to a half-hour in this always breaking news, why would anybody watch Fox 32 news after this cutbacks??? Lately has anybody watch the WGN news especially the weekend nights newscast they have very limited reporters and new stories to report and they keep rerunning old segments for early in the week!!! If this was on the weekend mornings newscasts no biggie, but having old stories on their Primetime newscasts it just wrong.
You can blame it on two factors–the cord-cutting of cable and the fact that people are not watching the local news as often as they used to. We can instantly get our news on our phones and especially on YouTube. I figured that with all of these retirements of those who worked for 20, 25, 30 years or more–the emphasis has shifted largely to podcasts. That’s where the audience is and will continue to be with the heavy push towards thousands of people doing video pods instead of strictly audio.