Rev. Al and I are back, and we start the 2023 year with a guy who made more news happen in 2022 than anyone we know.... Stewart Bainum, the uber successful CEO of Choice Hotels International. He made lots of news by getting himself in the news business as the lead investor in The Baltimore Banner.  What inspired him? Local news across the country was disintegrating... our own Baltimore Sun was under siege by it's latest owner... investment in local news was down...

In Baltimore, a movement led by my friend, Ted Venetoulis, was under foot to do something different, and Stewart the ultimate entrepreneur saw the opportunity to fund a non-profit entity and bring forward Baltimore's newest source of local news: The Baltimore Banner.

Stewart walks us through his amazing career... as a businessman, a politician, and as a family man. How lucky are we as Baltimoreans that Stewart believed in Ted's vision and he put his money on the table and said let's do it?

The Baltimore Banner is off to an incredible start. There have been great hires at the Banner: CEO, Editor in Chief, and many of the story tellers already familiar to us.

This one was recorded last Summer. We've been saving it to kick off the year and our next run of Podcasts.  

Thanks for your time Stewart, things are on the rise at the Baltimore Banner – thanks for single handedly saving local news.

Oh say does that star spangled Banner yet wave

O're the land of the free and the home of the brave!

‍