Audio & Video Pros

jeremy@jrosscommunications.com

VIDEO EXPERT

Jeremy Ross has more than 20 years of experience in content creation and broadcast journalism/storytelling. That career includes 5 Emmys, a Murrow, and dozens of writing and production awards from the Associated Press and state/regional journalism/content organizations. Ross has worked in Lansing in Michigan, Milwaukee in Wisconsin, and Chicago, and his work aired on CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX, Yahoo, MSN, and the CBS/AP Radio Network.

Ross graduated from the University of Michigan and received his master’s in journalism from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.

He's since taught Multi-Media Storytelling at Northwestern as an Adjunct Professor and runs JRoss Communications—a content creation business focused on video storytelling.

Move to Content Creation:

During the 2020 pandemic, Ross saw a looter unload a handgun into a Michigan Avenue storefront, eventually breaking into the business to rob it. Ross watched and reported on others setting fire to another store. He went on to do live-hits that would earn him an Emmy for best reporter that night, but came to the conclusion...there’s probably an easier and safer way to make a living.

In the months before that moment, he was laid off by management who preferred reporters with backgrounds in investigative reporting. During that time, he taught himself how to edit high-level videos and three-dimensional editing programs, and began a side gig working for businesses looking to produce video for their websites and social media. He began to master how to incorporate remote video into the process and eventually gained a small client base.

Months later, he was called back into working his regular broadcast shifts but knew what he learned could be expanded into a business one day. In 2022 he began doing that full time.

margaret@metrolingua.com

INTERVIEWER

Winner of the Silver Dome Award – Best Use of Non-Broadcast Media, Illinois Broadcasters Association – 2024

Margaret Larkin has been podcasting since 2009, when she created the Radiogirl Podcast and Metrolingua LLC. She currently interviews journalists for the Illinois News Broadcasters Association podcast and interviews media pros via livestream. She works for the Green Sense Show podcast and produces the Green Sense Minute, which airs every week on WBBM Newsradio.

john@wordballoon.com

PODCASTING since 2005

John is the host and producer of WordBalloon, one of the most popular pop culture podcasts with tens of thousands of listeners (now livestreaming as well). He created his podcast in 2005 and was inducted into the 2022 Illinois State University Broadcast Hall of Fame for being a podcasting pioneer. John often speaks and hosts panels throughout the country, including New York Comic Con, San Diego Comic Con, Chicago's C2E2, and top pop culture cons in Salt Lake City, Cincinnati, Seattle, and Connecticut. When the podcasting medium was being established in digital media, John was featured in The Comic Book Podcast Companion. 

John has also been interviewed for USA Today, SFX Magazine in the UK, and was listed in Player/FM’s Best Comic Book Podcasts of 2022. In addition to being a successful podcaster, John worked in radio for more than 20 years.

Now there are millions of podcasts that can be created and distributed more easily than when John started, but he was there at the beginning, long before podcasting became mainstream.

(Photo by comic book artist Dave Wachter)