Andrew Finlayson is the Vice President/News Director for Fox Chicago. 

“It’s good to be back,” said Finlayson, “I grew up in Des Plaines and Arlington Heights, and no matter where I moved, Chicago has been the place I considered my hometown.” 
Finlayson started at Fox Chicago January 1^st of 2006. 

In 2007 the station received honors as AP Station of the Year from the Chicago AP office, and Overall Station Excellence Emmy from the Midwest chapter of NATAS. 

Prior to Chicago, Finlayson was a news director in Nashville and in San Francisco.  In Nashville, WSMV had notable ratings success and added to the reputation of one of the nation’s most honored TV newsrooms.  In the two and a half years that Finlayson was there, the ten pm newscast finished in first place for the first time since 1998, had a midday news win for the first time in twenty years, and won two Edward R. Murrow Regional awards for Overall Excellence – Major Market.  “The people in that newsroom made it a great place to work.  We didn’t have a lot of resources but the team never gave up,” said Finlayson, “They wanted to win and they knew how to do it with quality.”  While at WSMV Finlayson also won two local Emmy Awards for live news events.

Prior to Nashville, he was the news director of KTVU in Oakland, California.  Channel 2 was known for consistently high ratings, winning almost every newscast time period and earning the reputation as the number one prime time newscast in the country.  Some of the notable achievements of the KTVU team included the station being recognized in 2000 by the Project for Excellence in Journalism as having the highest quality local newscast in the country and the reputation around the country for in-depth political reporting.  In 2002 the Los Angeles Times described KTVU as doing “more and better political coverage than any other commercial news station in California” and the AP referenced KTVU as an example of how “intelligent election coverage does result in better ratings.”

“The great thing about working at KTVU at that time was that you had the chance to work with the news director Fred Zehnder and the general manager Kevin O’Brien. They were about as opposite as you get in personality and style but both were passionate broadcasters who really cared about the community and the station,” said Finlayson. 

KTVU is the largest Fox affiliate in the country and Finlayson served on the Fox News Advisory Committee for a number of years.  He said, “Many of the people I had a chance to meet on that committee years ago are still with Fox.  I think it shows the loyalty that people have to this company.  They still are having fun.  That is something that the great newsrooms have…fun.”  Over this time as news director, Finlayson received a three local Emmy awards including best late night and morning newscasts.  KTVU was also recognized as the station of the year by the Associated Press Television and Radio Association (Western Region). 

Before becoming news director at KTVU, he served as the associate news director and special projects producer.  He also worked for a time as a business reporter providing updates on the market from the floor of the Pacific Stock Exchange.  “Kevin and Fred were committed to covering news wherever it happened when it happened,” said Finlayson.  He traveled around the US and overseas including assignments in Hong Kong, China, Russia, Germany, England, the Philippines and South Korea.  

Prior to his reporting and special project work, Finlayson was the producer of the nationally syndicated weekly magazine program “On the Money”.  For over two years the program investigated a wide range of issues including illegal gun sales, traveling con artists, and some of the first television reporting of America’s biggest business success stories.  “We talked to two young people at Stanford about a search engine they were working on,” said Finlayson, referring to Google’s founders.  “And we did a story about a small coffee chain in Seattle that had the strange name of Starbucks.  No.  I didn’t buy stock in either business.”

During this time Finlayson was also writing daily business and real estate reports for the CBS Radio Station News Service, producing over one thousand stories over the course of over four years.

His work with CBS RSNS came following four years at the all news radio station KCBS in San Francisco where he served as a producer, writer and news editor.  “I had a chance to work with many outstanding professionals at that station.  Chet Casselman, who had been a news director at KSFO during the golden years of Bay Area radio, Don Mozley, who reported on World War Two for CBS, and Al Hart, the man with one of the best voices and biggest hearts on radio,” said Finlayson.  “These were people who had seen history up close.  I still have the 1960’s news style guide that Chet shared with me.  I use it to this day.”

Finlayson began his professional career as an assistant librarian for ABC News during the 1984 Democratic Convention.

Finlayson has been a speaker/mentor for the USC Annenberg Health Endowment, a guest speaker at the Poynter Institute, a panelist at the national RTNDA/NAB convention in Las Vegas, and a presenter at various colleges and universities.  He has received short term fellowships from Western Knight Center, the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism, RIAS, the National Press Foundation and grants from the Radio Television and News Director Foundation and the Kaiser Family Foundation.

“The support of these groups, with no restrictions, allowed us to do some extraordinary reporting that newsroom budgets often did not allow,” said Finlayson.  “We were able to do reporting on life after the fall of the Berlin wall, an in-depth look at the candidates in the 2002 election and important stories about the continuing AIDS/HIV crisis in our nation.”  The reporting on the social and economic results after the fall of the Berlin Wall lead to a being a finalist for the Livingston Award for young journalists.

 “We are committed to doing that kind of in-depth reporting here at Fox Chicago,” said Finlayson.  “Fox is investing in Chicago and we are turning that support into great journalism focused on some of the critical issues of our neighborhoods.   We have people who really know Chicago and the suburbs out on the streets every day, camera people, reporters, anchors and producers who are always investigating new stories you won’t see anywhere else.” 

Finlayson’s interest in asking questions goes beyond journalism and lead to writing the book “Questions That Work: How to Ask Questions That Will Help You Succeed in Any Business Situation.” This book was the subject of a number of articles and guest appearances on radio and television.   Finlayson was also the editor of a website based on the book.  Over the last five years the book has been translated into four languages for world wide sales.

Finlayson is a member of RTNDA where he has served as the state representative for Illinois, and is a graduate of San Francisco State University where he was the recipient of the Bob Brown Memorial Scholarship. 

He and his wife Arleen Bolton have two children and one dog.

The above was adapted from MyFoxChicago.com.