Daily Herald taps Baumann as managing editor

Jim Baumann, a longtime editor and manager for the Daily Herald, was promoted to managing editor, the newspaper announced Tuesday.

Other editors also were promoted as part of an overall restructuring of the newsroom staff, Daily Herald Editor John Lampinen said. He also announced the appointments of Diane Dungey as deputy managing editor of news gathering, and Teresa Schmedding as deputy managing editor of digital operations.

As managing editor, Baumann will be responsible for the day-to-day direction of the newsroom. He fills a vacancy created by the departure of Executive Editor Madeleine Doubek who joined a digital media organization several weeks ago.

“An outstanding editor and teacher, Jim has broad management experience at the Daily Herald with a style that is disciplined, innovative and participatory and a perspective that is audience driven,” Lampinen said in a memo to the staff. “He champions strong local journalism while recognizing and embracing today's culture of change.”

The 27-year Daily Herald veteran said he's eager to help lead the newsroom of the future.

“I'm really looking forward to working more closely with our team of journalists and managers — people who have a lot of heart and are dedicated to their craft — to continue our tradition of providing the kind of journalism that really matters to our readers and to build on our readership base, whether online or in print,” Baumann said.

Baumann joined the paper in 1985 and later played key editing roles in several major expansion efforts taking on entrenched competition the Naperville area, Elgin and the Tri-Cities area of St. Charles, Geneva and Batavia. In 2003, he returned to the Elgin office to become Fox Valley editor and manager.

Baumann grew up in Arlington Heights and graduated from Prospect High School, which named him a Distinguished Alumnus in 2007. He earned his journalism degree from the University of Illinois.

“We believe this structure, in collaboration with our senior editors and a talented staff, will maximize the Daily Herald's ability to find and tell compelling suburban stories while also maximizing our opportunities to reach out to new audiences on ever-expanding platforms,” Lampinen said.

As deputy managing editor/digital, Schmedding will expand her responsibilities for the development and execution of the newspaper's digital content approaches. An experienced teacher who leads training sessions for a variety of newspaper industry organizations as well as for the Daily Herald newsroom, Schmedding joined the paper in 1990 as a copy editor and later became news editor and then senior news editor.

She was named assistant managing editor/content systems last year and re-engineered the paper's web production processes. Lampinen described her as “highly skilled in digital and technological advances.”

She received her bachelor's degree in journalism and a master's degree in Media Management from the University of Missouri.

As deputy managing editor/news gathering, Dungey continues her responsibility for leading the Daily Herald's suburban-focused big picture report and will become increasingly responsible for helping to innovate content improvements.

She joined the paper in 1981 as a reporter and then took on ever-increasing responsibilities as metro reporter, projects editor, features editor and assistant managing editor. She earned her journalism degree from Northern Illinois University. She and her husband, Tim, live in Barrington.