Feder departing Vocalo; another columnist calls its future “uncertain”

Robert Feder, longtime Chicago media columnist, is departing Chicago Public Media and its Vocalo blog. He said in a post today (Nov. 23) that he’ll reveal his new online home soon. “With the recent redesign of the Vocalo blogs and their move to a new site at WBEZ.org, I have decided it’s time for me to leave,” he said. Before signing on with Vocalo — a mashup of traditional and new media designed to engage a diverse audience — in November 2009, Feder spent 20 years covering media at the Sun-Times. Phil Rosenthal, Chicago Tribune media columnist, said Vocalo’s move to the WBEZ site, “puzzling for its urgency and lack of necessity, has been snarled in technical difficulties.” Vocalo launched in June 2007 on a standalone website. “Where Feder’s departure leaves Vocalo is uncertain,” Rosenthal noted. A CPR strategic plan approved late last year revealed several problems behind the project (Current, Jan. 11), including that “… [M]any listeners, staffers and even several [Chicago Public Radio] Board Members find the content and listening experience of Vocalo to be substandard and unappealing thus far.”