- If it has anything to do with the written word in Central Illinois, my guest put pen to paper.

I'm Christine Zak-Edmonds.

Stay with me to meet the new "Peoria Magazine" editor.

(uplifting music) Well, his fingers have sailed across typewriters and keyboards, and he managed to keep us informed for well over 30 years.

Mike Bailey has witnessed local history in the making.

And now he's got some fresh ideas for the new incarnation of "Peoria Magazine."

Welcome, Mike.

- Thank you for having me.

- So give us a little background first of where you came from and how you got to Peoria.

- You want me to go back all the way to the beginning?

Okay, I will.

I'm a Springfield native.

Born Halloween, 1960, so I'm aging myself today (Mike and Christine laughing) and went to Illinois State University.

Moved to Peoria in 1985 to work at the "Journal Star" after a stint in Bloomington in the Chicago suburbs.

And worked at the "Journal Star" for 33 years, the last 13 of those as opinion page editor.

- [Christine] Right.

- Paper and I parted ways in 2018.

And about six months later I decided to hang my own shingle with a communications consulting business, which brought us to today.

I have a number of clients in the area, some of whom you may have heard of.

But Village of Peoria Heights was a great client, Kim Blickenstaff and his KDB Group, Morton Public Schools, and now I'm adding "Peoria Magazine."

So, I'm a busy guy.

- You are a busy guy, and considering you're so young.

(Mike and Christine laughing) - There you go, yeah.

Depends on your perspective, right?

- Well, so at the "Journal Star," yes, you were opinion page editor and everything, but you also were in beat reporting, too.

- I was.

I came here as a general assignment reporter in '85, as I said.

Very shortly thereafter, I became a night cops reporter, police beat, down at the old police station down there on Adams.

And then I became the education reporter and did that for a number of years.

Covered schools all over the region.

I got my big break, I guess, what year would that be?

Probably 1989, '90.

Scott Heimdal was kidnapped in Ecuador, if you remember that story.

- I do.

I was on it, too, yeah.

- You were in the UK then.

So, traveled to Quito, Ecuador and covered the story and got an interview with the president of Ecuador, and came back and, quite literally, walked back in the newsroom.

And the very day I walked back, I think seven editors retired on the same day.

- [Christine] I didn't know that.

- And there were all these spots that had opened up.

And so, three editor positions came open.

I was offered and I decided to go to the opinion page, in part because I wanted to continue to write.

But really wanted to work with Barbara Mantz Drake and Shelley Epstein who were, we were a triple team.

(laughs) - Yeah, that's for sure.

A lot of power there.

A lot of ideas, that's for sure.

So did you always have an interest in writing?

I mean, all through school?

- I always did.

So I never worked for a student newspaper, believe it or not.

I was an athlete in college, and really took me away and kept me quite busy outside of a lot of the other extracurricular activities.

And so, when I graduated, I thought: How do I make right and make money?

And so, I got an internship at "The Bloomington Pantagraph," and went from there to the Chicago area, and then came back downstate.

- Okay.

And then you met your wife here?

- Met my wife here, yeah.

Married to Joanne.

We have two adult daughters, Erica and Nicole.

And I'm the very proud grandfather, Papa, to Mason and Carter, so.

- Good.

Good, good, good.

Okay, so "Peoria Magazine" has been around since 1989.

And it was announced just a couple of months ago that it was going to cease to exist.

- [Mike] Mm-hmm.

- But then Lesley Matuszak and some of her friends got in there and said, "We can't let this go."

- Mm-hmm.

- And then how did it come about that you were involved?

- Quite literally, I just got a call from Lesley and from H Wayne Wilson here.

Your viewers at home... - My compadre.

- I was very familiar with H and just asked if I might be interested, you know.

And I thought: Well, I'm interested in talking about it.

And so, I met with Lesley obviously.

And as you know, Lesley she's a force of nature in her own right.

- She is, yeah.

- And she twisted my arm and brought me on board.

And so it's all happening.

- [Christine] Any black and blue marks?

- None so far.

I conceal them very well.

And so, brought me on board.

And this has all happened very quickly.

I mean, three or four weeks ago, we had just started talking.

- Okay, so what do you foresee then?

You're gonna bring some fresh ideas.

And there were four pillars that "Peoria Magazine" hopes to carry on.

And so what's your vision?

- First of all, let me thank the Wrights who really built something from scratch here that I think they could be proud of.

And so they've left us a very strong foundation and a very solid brand.

And so we're gonna, you know, use some of that.

That will remain a foundational thing.

But we are gonna change some things up.

This is a new chapter in the history of "Peoria Magazine," and it's gonna have a brand new look.

Actually, even though it's a new chapter, we're gonna be going back a little bit to its roots as a business publication, more of a business journal type of feel.

- So not so much the arts and society.

- Some of that, right.

I mean, you know, one of the things we've said is it'll be informational, it will be promotional, but one of the things is it's gonna be the kind of magazine that an employer here in town could hand a prospective employee, someone they're recruiting and say, - [Christine] "Here's what we are."

- "Here's what we are.

"This is a great place to live and work "and we'd love to have you.

"And this is an example of..." You know, we're gonna put a mirror on the Peoria area, yeah, Central Illinois.

And not just the city of Peoria, obviously, but the region.

It goes to 22 counties and yeah, so.

- Yeah, so what's your first issue?

What are your thoughts spinning in your mind right now for the very first issue to bring it back and hit it hard?

- Actually, I'm gonna have a meeting later today after this interview where we're gonna do some brainstorming.

But we do know that the cover's gonna be OSF's moving into its new headquarters there on Adams Street and what kind of impact that's going to have, not only on that immediate neighborhood, but on the downtown, on the city of Peoria, on the region.

And so that will be the first cover story.

We know that much so far.

You know, some of the things I have in mind.

I would really like to have a monthly focus, a mom and pop of the month.

You know, when I went into business for myself, I mean, you learn a lot of things you don't know.

And so I have great admiration.

- Or you just don't realize.

- You don't, right.

So I have a lot of admiration for risk takers who put it all on the line and that becomes their family's livelihood.

And so, that's a tough thing to do.

- [Christine] Especially in today's climate.

- That's right, that's right.

So we're gonna do something like that.

You know, we're gonna do a trend lines feature.

Just what are the trend lines in business?

What's happening?

How are those being applied here in Central Illinois?

You know, are we ahead of the curve?

Are we behind the curve?

That sort of thing.

I think we're gonna have a regular agriculture feature.

Agriculture has been a very underreported industry, frankly, - And here we are in the breadbasket.

- particularly in a general interest publication.

It is by far the biggest, the thing that drives our economy.

And so we need a lot more focus on that.

And I think, you know, Rob Sharkey here, he does a show.

I think he's gonna help us in that regard.

We're gonna be talking with him in hopes that we can work something out.

So we're gonna be doing a lot of that thing, you know, up and coming, you know, new businesses.

We'll have a foodie section, I think.

You know, I'm lining up various people in town: some chefs, those sorts of folks.

We'll be bringing some people on board who have written professionally in the past.

- Yeah, I was wondering, some of your "Journal Star" former friends.

- We'll be trying to pluck them out of retirement.

We'll see how that goes.

(laughs) - Even if it's in a freelance kind of thing, right.

- Exactly, exactly.

And so we will be doing this largely with part-timers.

And so, that's what I'm busy doing now, right, is putting together a staff, which is, frankly, anybody who owns a business knows it's the most important thing you ever do.

- [Christine] It is.

- And so I wanna surround myself with competent people to make my life as easy as possible.

And so we'll do that.

- Good luck with that.

- (laughs) That's right, that's right.

- Really, if you have the key to that, then that needs to be a special issue.

- That's right, we'll do our best.

You know, it's a challenge today, as we all know.

It's been difficult to hire people, and so.

But I think we'll be okay.

- Good, good.

So you accepted this challenge.

And what do you think will be the most difficult part of this issue that you're taking on, this whole?

- Well, we have a very tight timeframe, right.

You know, the goal is March 1st to come out with the first publication, which means the deadlines are in early February, right.

So we've got four weeks basically.

And so, when you're still in the process of putting together a staff and all of that, and then you've got to get that copy out.

We'll be creating a brand new template for both the print and online editions of "Peoria Magazine."

And so we don't have that yet.

So, you know, certainly in the beginning and I want to emphasize this, in the beginning, the emphasis is gonna be, we need to get out this magazine.

But this magazine is going to evolve over time, right.

And I suspect that a year from now, it will look differently than it will look in March of 2022.

And so we're gonna be learning some things.

It's gonna be a real scramble at first.

But, you know, we'll get into a routine and start to plug things in.

And I think we'll be fine.

- Well, it's a little different than what you're used to doing on a daily basis.

So at least you have a month at a time to prepare.

- That's right, that's right.

I come from a world where we had daily deadlines, right.

And I wrote the space every day, a fresh copy today for the newspaper tomorrow.

And so yeah, we do have the luxury of a little bit more time and a little bit more planning and all that sort of thing.

And so, you know, but I've done some of that.

I've continued to write.

I'll be doing some writing myself.

I also really wanna focus on this magazine will be as interesting as our readers help it to be.

And so I really encourage people to communicate with me.

- Give you some ideas.

- That's right, give us ideas.

Keep us abreast of what's happening in their world, what's happening in their workplace, promotions, achievements, whatever the case may be, story ideas, we'll welcome all of that input.

- I'm with you.

Will you share with me?

- [Mike] Yeah, that's right, that's right.

- I think we can.

You know, it's like we can blend together.

- That's right, that's right.

- Make it all work.

So you'll get some part-timers to help you out in the beginning.

And then where do you... Let's say, where do you see it a year from now?

You just said, it's gonna be evolving and evolving and evolving.

But do you think you'll have any just regular features?

- Yeah, so I think the mom and pop of the month.

We'll have kind of a book review feature that will focus on local authors.

As I said, we'll have a foodie beat, you know, up and coming restaurants, that sort of thing.

There's a lot of interest in that particularly from younger readers.

And so we'll have a lot of those regular features, absolutely.

- Okay, speaking of younger readers, do you expect them to have the actual hard copy in front of them?

Or will they mostly be online?

- Either or.

I think people make too much of that distinction quite frankly.

Remember I used to say it when I was at the paper that it didn't really make any difference to me whether I was writing for the online edition or the print edition, right.

My job didn't really change.

You just want people to read it.

Whatever medium they use to access it, that's really their business.

And we'll try to cater to them both.

We're just trying to communicate with people and meet them where they are.

And so that's what we'll try to do.

You know, a year from now, this magazine needs to be to stand on its own two legs.

I mean, I think it needs to be self-sustaining and I'm hoping it does that.

And I'm hoping it's clicking along.

And I'm hoping that the stories are provocative.

And it's always in this business about storytelling, right.

- It is, and everybody's got a story.

and that's just the whole thing.

You know, when I was in the newsroom and I'd come in with a story idea.

"Where did you get that idea?"

I said, "I was at the grocery store today "and that's what people were talking about."

- [Mike] Yeah, exactly.

- So yeah, it is evolutionary; that's for sure.

So what do you think of where newspapers are today compared to when you very first started out?

- Well, they're struggling.

I mean, there's no question.

I saw that happen, you know, over the course of my career.

And you know, this magazine is really not competing with the newspaper, right.

It's its own thing and it's a different thing.

- [Christine] And it always has been.

- Yeah, different goals and ambitions, that's correct.

And so, you know, the newspaper has its job to do, and we have our job to do.

And to the degree that those kinds of things complement one another, that'd be great.

And so, you know, I'm a firm believer in journalism.

I think for democracy itself to be healthy and to thrive that people need good and accurate information upon which they can use as a basis to make good decisions in their own lives.

And so it troubles me that there's some struggling.

I hope the industry figures it out.

Peoria needs a good source of information.

- We need it right now, yeah.

Well, everybody does, the whole world.

Okay, so from here, you'll go to a meeting and figure out what your first issue will be.

All right, and how many pages do you think it'll be?

- Yeah, we're looking at routinely, I think, 100 pages.

And I would like to discipline ourselves to that.

You know, in the past it's ranged from like probably 90 pages to 140 in any given month.

- And that includes ads.

- Includes ads, all of that.

There are 15 to 20 stories in each edition.

And we'll have some regular features and some regular contributors.

And I'll have to go out and solicit some of that I'm sure, you know, make calls to people.

But again, I would encourage people to sort of volunteer and say, "I have an idea.

"Can I write something for you?"

And, you know, if I get 300 of those ideas every month, clearly we're not gonna be able to do all of them.

But we'll do our best, yeah.

I think the more voices you have, the better, the more diversity you have.

- [Christine] Absolutely.

- Different perspectives are important.

You know, this is not just Mike Bailey's magazine.

This is gonna be our magazine.

And there's gonna be a lot of input and contributions that go into that.

- Yeah.

And a lot of people have a lot of ideas.

And maybe they will come forward because they've got this opportunity to have their voice heard.

- And I think there's a lot going on, particularly in the business community.

And I personally think that Peoria is at a real hinge in its history.

You know, the distillery.

And brewing business really, you know, 100 years ago, that was the economy, right.

And then Prohibition happened; and overnight, that got shut down.

And then, you know, we got Caterpillar and the earth-moving industry and manufacturing.

And that's still a big part of the Central Illinois economy.

But I think we're gonna move in a different direction.

I think biotech.

We talked about agriculture.

- Absolutely.

- I think, you know, we're gonna play off our strengths.

You know, autonomous vehicles.

We've got Rivian just down the road.

I think a lot of really great things are happening.

And I'm hoping that Peoria... We've got the new distillery lab here that Peoria is putting into place, you know, everything that it needs to compete in the, you know, the 21st century.

- Right, and you think the biomedical.

You know, we have... - Healthcare, obviously healthcare.

I mean, we talked about OSF being the cover story for March, which is a natural.

They're moving in.

They've done an extraordinary job in saving that building.

I mean, really extraordinary.

- And it's taken a while but they did it right.

- Yeah, and in the process of building their new headquarters, I mean, they also saved a really critical part of Peoria's history.

And I think that's really important.

And I think, you know, that there'll be a history component to this magazine as well.

Because I don't think that you can know where you're going unless you appreciate where you've been.

- [Christine] Exactly.

- And so, we'll do all that.

There'll be a lot of features to it, a lot of moving parts.

- Yeah.

And so as editor, you'll kind of oversee those moving parts and make sure that they kind of all blend together.

- That's right.

I'll be heavily involved in the planning and the editing.

And I'll do some writing as well.

I mean, I'll do some writing for every issue.

I won't do the cover story for every issue.

But I said, I'll surround myself, we'll surround ourselves with good, competent, solid people who can produce copy and good copy.

- So to get the call from Lesley and H just out of the clear blue sky, what did you think?

It's like, what is going on here?

- Well, you know, I think I had read, like everybody else, that "Peoria Magazine" had been sold.

But they weren't really buying the magazine.

They were buying the events: 40 Under 40, Women of Influence, those sorts of things.

And I thought it was probably gonna cease to exist.

So it was a bit of a surprise to me that Lesley really wanted to continue it in some fashion.

And so, you know, my ears perked up a little bit.

And I'd gotten some other calls from prominent people in town asking if I might be interested in that.

And I was busy.

I liked the pace of my life.

And, you know, I'm keeping those clients.

And so my biggest concern was: Do I have the time?

And so I think we've worked out, you know, a comfortable arrangement.

- So you know how to juggle?

- I think so.

(Christine laughs) One of the things you learn as opinion page editor is how to multitask.

I mean, near the end, when we were an editorial board of three or four people, you know, we were all able to share the load.

But the last few years of the paper, I mean, I was it where I did all the editing.

I did all the writing.

I did all that sort of thing.

And I can remember the governor's office calling once wanting to schedule an interview with the editorial board.

And I said, "You're talking to it."

(both laugh) So I'm used to that multitasking and that juggling.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, yeah.

- Any fears about where you're gonna go or how this is gonna go, or eyes wide open?

- I think there's always a little bit of anxiety when you start anything new.

When I started my own business, I was really worried about, you know, could I do this.

Could I make a living?

- How'd you get your first client?

Peoria Heights was your first?

- I literally sent out more than 200 emails to every small local government in the region.

And I was surprised to get about a 25% response, frankly, from people who said, "Yeah, we could really use somebody, "but we don't have the budget for it."

And I expected to hear that, right.

So Mike Phelan, the mayor of Peoria Heights, called me.

And Mike and I had known each other for many, many, many years.

And he a Peoria County board member and then mayor of Peoria Heights.

And he said, "We could use somebody.

"Why don't you come in and talk?"

And so I did, and he hired me.

And I'm very grateful to Mike for doing that, opening that door for me.

And through Mike, I met Kim Blickenstaff because he had so many projects.

- [Christine] In the Heights.

- In Peoria Heights, that's right.

And so started to work for him and, you know, really enjoyed it.

It was very different from my previous work life, right, from the newspaper side of things to sort of the public relations side of things.

- [Christine] Right, it was more structured in the newspapers basically, right.

- And Kim was an idea a minute.

And, you know, it's exciting to be a part of that and to be on the side of sort of trying to make things happen as opposed to just reporting on things that happened.

So it was a very different perspective.

And then the superintendent at Morton Schools called, Jeff Hill, and they needed a communications person.

And Jeff and I actually go back 40 years because we were both track teammates at ISU.

And, you know, we had gone our different paths.

But anyway, we'd kept in contact.

And he needed somebody.

And anyway, it's just really worked out.

And like I said, I like the pace of my life and it's just been fun.

And that's what I want this magazine to be, honestly.

I want it to be fun for me.

I want it to be fun for the people who are helping me, - Not a task or a chore.

- Yeah, not a chore.

That's right.

I think you work best when you're enjoying yourself.

Really that simple.

- It's not work.

- It's not a job then.

- Yeah, exactly.

- And so that's my personal goal here.

And I think we can put out a quality product and have fun at the same time.

- I guess we're gonna see.

- We're gonna see.

(laughs) But there's always a little anxiety about that honestly.

But you should do things that scare you a little bit, right, so that's okay.

- Right, yeah, just a little bit of fear isn't gonna hurt anybody.

- And it's not like I'm a complete newbie to working on a publication.

- No, exactly.

This is a little bit different publication than you're used to.

So, you know, you're still pretty fit and you're busy.

And you said you were on the track team at ISU.

So are you still running?

- No, because I ran so much back in the day, I mean I would run probably 12 to 15 miles a day once upon a time, I did a lot of damage to my knees.

(laughs) But I am in the gym every day.

Yeah, right.

And, you know, there was a period I lost a fair amount of weight because I needed to.

And so that really happened after I left the paper.

And I thought: Well, this will be a good time to get into shape and shake things up a little bit.

But I'm in the gym every day.

But I got to do sort of low impact on the joints.

- Well, you know what, and you'll get some ideas at the gym too 'cause people will be talking.

And like I said, everybody's got a story.

I mean, everybody is very interesting.

- Yeah, everybody has a story to tell.

Sometimes you have to dig a little bit to kind of burst that bubble or that, you know, people put up a barrier.

But sometimes, you just gotta talk to people.

- [Christine] Talk and listen.

- Make them feel comfortable.

Listening is really critical.

- It really is.

And you learned that at the.. Well, you learned that from an early age.

- Exactly.

And so, yeah, listening is really critical.

And I've been told by various people in my life that I'm not always the greatest listener.

I have to work on it.

I have to remind myself to listen.

- But are you asking the right questions so that you can listen?

- That's right, exactly.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

And that's just the whole thing.

You know, a lot of times people go, "da, da, da, da, da."

I was watching an interview the other day.

I'm going: Would you just be quiet and let him talk?

But listening is an important skill.

- It is, it really is.

- [Christine] So you're gonna get to do a lot of that.

- Again, yeah.

- Along with your vision for "Peoria Magazine," and to keep their four issues alive.

- That's right, that's right.

We're sort of under the umbrella of WTVP, but we're also apart.

And so, as I said, we need to... - Will you have your own like managing board?

- You know, Lesley has really left it to me to kind of run.

But I'm a big believer in consultation with people and back and forth.

And, you know, I think in practice, Lesley is the publisher here.

I'm the editor.

But we're all working together.

It'll be a team.

I hope it'll be a team atmosphere.

I'll be in and out of the studios here.

So we're under their umbrella, but we're apart.

We need to stand on our own two feet.

I think there'll be some cross promotional opportunities, working with you in the future.

- You got my cell phone number.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, cover stories.

We'd love to bring the people behind those cover stories, maybe talk with you or H or whatever the case may be.

So I think there'll be a lot of cross promotional.

You know, one of the things I guess I would really emphasize is that, you know, we've all chosen to make Central Illinois our home and we really want it to be the best it can be.

- And thrive for our children and grandchildren.

- That's right because yeah, I mean it's important that we have a healthy economy here so that my kids can stay here and that my grandkids can stay here, right, so I get to see them.

- And you can spend more time with them.

- And so to the degree that we can play a small role in really highlighting the positives of this about this being a really good place.

No place is perfect.

But this is a really good place to live and work.

And I've enjoyed it.

It's my home.

And if we can play a small part in highlighting that, we wanna do that.

- Well, you're the best.

- Thank you.

- I'm very excited, very excited to see what you're gonna do with this.

And had all of those years of skills from the newspaper and editing, and then your PR.

And it's gonna be a fun ride.

- It'll be fun.

Thank you.

- Well thanks, Mike Bailey, for being with us.

- Thank you for having me here.

- And I hope you enjoyed this interview because we have a lot to look forward to.

In the meantime, enjoy yourselves and stay safe and healthy.

(upbeat music) Okay, standby.

Next time on "Consider This," Mike Bailey shares his vision for the new "Peoria Magazine."