Mt. Prospect resident honored for TV work

Mount Prospect resident Jim Disch is about to enter a select club, one composed of Chicago-area residents who have made significant contributions to the television medium.

Disch is one of six people who will be inducted on Friday, April 20, into the Chicago chapter of the Silver Circle, a group established by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences to honor outstanding work in the television industry. Past Chicago-area winners include Roger Ebert, Rich Koz, Vernon Jarrett and Jack Brickhouse.

Disch is a longtime television news writer and producer who now oversees television and radio production at the Archdiocese of Chicago.

“This is a humbling experience,” Disch said. “I look at the list of people who have been inducted in the past, people I respect so much, and I think wow, it's amazing to be added to such a group.”

Disch, a Chicago native, began his television career while a graduate student at Northwestern University. He worked the overnight shift at WGN Radio as a news writer while finishing a master's degree in journalism.

That job led to writing and producing at WGN-TV, where he worked for 25 years. After a stint at a local cable news network, Disch took the job at the archdiocese, which is where he's been for nearly 10 years.

In addition to all that work, Disch has taught broadcast journalism classes at Columbia College Chicago since the 1970s. He's also a husband and the father of four children.

“We have 36-year-old triplets, two boys and a girl, along with another son who's 33,” Disch said. “Having four kids in three years made things pretty hectic there for a while, but it was lots of fun, too. My wife and I were a great team, and still are.”

As a news producer, Disch was instrumental in the creation of a number of documentary reports he continues to be proud of, including one titled “When Johnny Comes Marching Home,” which looked at the plight of veterans returning home from the Vietnam War.

“That one stuck up for the Vietnam vets at a time when not many people were doing so,” he said.

Today, Disch oversees the production of archdiocesan programming for cable and broadcast television — “Sanctuary,” a show that airs quarterly on ABC 7, is one example — along with material for the radio and the Internet.

He also continues to teach classes at Columbia and DePaul University.

“I still love teaching,” he said. “I teach one class a week at Columbia, and I go there after working a full day here. But those students always make me feel re-energized.”

The television news business, like most media businesses, has struggled in recent years. Disch said that despite that, he's still impressed by the quality of Chicago news programs, and he believes new opportunities will arise in the future for television journalists.

“It's a difficult time, but I think as the industry adapts, journalists will have more available to them,” he said. “It won't be the exact same type of journalism, perhaps, but it will be rewarding work.”

The induction ceremony will be held at the Millennium Knickerbocker Hotel in Chicago. Also being honored this year are Jorge Barbosa, an anchor on Univision; Marshall Brodien, known for playing Wizzo the Wizard on “Bozo's Circus”; Steve Lasker, a veteran news cameraman; Norman Shapiro, president of Weigel Broadcasting; and Ed Spray, a former program director in Chicago.

Burr Tillstrom, creator of the beloved children's show “Kukla, Fran and Ollie,” will received a posthumous Pioneer Award.