Baltimore News: Jenenne Whitfield Named Director of AVAM, BMA Workers React to Exhibition, New Raoul Middleman Museum

The Perfectly-Funded ‘Baltimore Banner’ Will Rival ‘The Sunlight.’ Can it Verify Sustainable?
by Ron Cassie
Released March 21 in Baltimore Journal

Excerpt: Stewart Bainum, the Takoma Park philanthropist powering the quickly-to-be introduced The Baltimore Banner, the new city electronic newspaper, has shared this story just before, but it bears repeating.

When he served in the Standard Assembly from 1979 to 1986, reporters from significant-city papers like The Baltimore Solar, The Evening Sun, The Baltimore News-American, The Washington Put up, and The Washington Star—as properly as The Capital and more compact Maryland newspapers–swarmed the Typical Assembly like bees to a honeypot.

And for superior rationale. The state had been infamous for its corruption and drama long just before the convictions of former governors Spiro Agnew and Marvin Mandel just prior to Bainum’s arrival. Numerous of the reporters masking Annapolis though he held elected place of work went on to large professions, which include potential PBS NewsHour host Gwen Ifill–who protected Bainum’s bill to get rid of a beneficial tax crack for a politically connected all-male club in suburban Washington–and potential Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Maureen Dowd. As for Bainum, he still left politics and took around as CEO of his father’s nursing-house business, which he aided change into just one of the premier in the region. He hardly ever forgot, on the other hand, the important do the job of those journalists masking the halls of the Maryland State Home, even as The Evening Sunshine and The Washington Star, where by Ifill and Dowd were utilized, respectively, fell by the wayside–and newspapers throughout the board began slashing staffs in the wake of slipping print revenues.

Quick-forward to Might 2020. Sitting out the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic at his family’s next house on the Japanese Shore, Bainum, who turned 76 past month, commenced brainstorming his future philanthropic endeavor. He’d produced various effective early philanthropic investments in sub-Saharan Africa in current a long time, like in a Liberian situation-administration technique that improved infant mortality prices. Plainspoken, earnest, and nevertheless curious-minded–with admittedly ample of an ego that he cares about his legacy–Bainum sought a different high-chance, high-general public reward enterprise where by many others had been not but keen to open their wallets. Preferably, a undertaking with the probable to set up a design that could be replicated and have a broad influence. Ideally, nearer to household.