bio

It all started when…

Carol Fowler is a nationally recognized digital content strategist with more than 30 years of broadcast and digital management experience and a proven track record in establishing and operating award-winning news operations and bringing them into the digital age.

She is also one of the most respected news leaders, having served in senior positions at three of Chicago’s major television stations, where her innovations have continued to reap benefits. WGN Morning News, which she helped create and launch in l994, remains the highest-rated local morning newscast in Chicago.  CBSchicago.com, which she revamped in 2002 by emphasizing breaking news and slideshows, remains one of the top local websites in the market. In 2018, she led the expansion of digital news products at the Chicago Sun-Times, introducing multimedia storytelling and launching several new products. Year-to-year, the Sun-Times saw greatly improved website performance – more users and sessions; younger audience demographics; lower ‘bounce’ rate and longer time-on-page. Fowler now leads content strategy at the NBC affiliate in St. Louis, KSDK-TV.

Fowler is hands-on, with an entrepreneurial mindset. In 2013, BuiltInChicago.com recognized her as one of The Women Driving Chicago’s Digital Renaissance. In 2014, she founded KloboMedia, a Chicago-based social media management agency. Its mission is to help clients succeed in social media by providing curated, competitive content analysis.

As a data-driven journalist with more than 30 years’ experience delivering news across all platforms, she has a reputation for managing content to identify the most compelling news, judging audience interest and providing appropriate context and delivery for optimum impact, whether to build audiences or effect social or political change.

Coverage under her direction has been responsible for some of the most significant social and political action with ramifications beyond the Chicago market.  At WBBM-TV (CBS2), she significantly expanded the station’s commitment to investigative reporting, a move that earned her team the Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia University award, one of the most prestigious honors in journalism. The award-winning series showed how poor tracking of security badges posed a threat to homeland security and passengers at O’Hare International Airport which led to a federal investigation, arrests and hearings with lawmakers.  In 2010, Fowler was recognized for her bold decision at WFLD-TV (FOX32) to air graphic video of the sidewalk killing of Derrion Albert, a high school student who was beaten to death after school. The decision to air an edited version of the amateur video was as significant as the tragedy itself. The coverage attracted attention in Washington, DC, and internationally, winning Fowler and her newsroom the prestigious George Foster Peabody award. That same year, FOX32 was also named Outstanding News Operation in Illinois by the Associated Press.

Throughout her career Fowler has consistently been in the vanguard of combining the best of proven journalism with new technologies to create and deliver the ever fresh and relevant news product.  As such, she has been behind early innovations to engage more effectively with viewers, whether that be leading the successful effort to open Illinois appellate courts to cameras and microphones in the early l980s or managing WGN-TV’s move to a digital newsroom in 2000, the first television news operation in Chicago to convert to non-linear editing and server playback.  She was also an early champion of sharing news across platforms as evidenced by the interactive Town Hall meeting on gun violence she held with WBBM-Radio in 2007 that streamed viewer comments during the live broadcast.

Early on, Fowler recognized the potential of social media to upend traditional news reporting. Fowler was one of the first news directors in the country to create a dedicated newsroom position, “Social Media and Engagement Specialist.” Her keen interest in the social space led to a partnership in 2014 with Kovsky Media Research to find out how journalists in one top-20 market were leveraging social media to share their work. In 2015, she led development of proprietary software (“TheSocReports”) which delivered insights on the social media practices associated with engagement and audience growth.

Managing organizational change is also a strength. She led the transition into HD studios for two Chicago stations.  At FOX32, she introduced control room automation and championed technologies that take advantage of the internet to transmit video where she also developed new ways to offer compelling, first-to-air features and interact with today’s new audiences, who have shorter attention spans, self-select content and no longer wait for “appointment” viewing to get their news. There, she instituted a wide range of innovations and tapped the latest technologies, all of which allow the station to use control room automation, centralized graphics, HD, and file transfer protocol to ensure unrivalled first-to-air features, maintain quality and control costs, and interact more creatively with viewers.  She was viewed as a leader in the parent Fox Television Stations Group where she is one of only five directors nationally tapped to lead an innovation project for late news that resulted in a 23% increase in desired audience demographics within a year and served on a taskforce to update graphics for the 16 X 9 screen. 

Fowler is a strong believer in teamwork and often draws from her own experiences on the street.  Before moving into management, she performed a wide variety of jobs both in front of the camera and behind-the-scenes:  from writing to producing to video editing to live reporting.  At WBBM-TV (CBS 2), she created an aggressive news product, recognized nationally as particularly strong, covering breaking news and severe weather.  In 2004, within months of its launch, the Associated Press named the station’s 6 pm news Best Newscast in Illinois, an award the newsroom won again the following year.  In 2006, CBS 2 won regional and national Emmys for its coverage of the death of Pope John Paul, Farewell to the Pope, then repeated the achievement in 2008, when the CBS 2 news team won regional and national Emmys for its live coverage of the rescue of trapped transit riders, CTA Blue Line Emergency.  In 2008, the station won seven local Emmy awards, taking the Chicago market’s top honor for its live coverage of the shooting rampage on the campus of Northern Illinois University.  In 2007, the station won 12 local Emmy Awards, including top honors for its investigative report, Hiding Homicides.  The previous year, the station won ten Emmys, including Outstanding Achievement for Station Excellence - the first time the award was given.  In both 2006 and 2007, the Associated Press named CBS 2 Outstanding News Operation in Illinois.

In 1996, she led the news, production and engineering committee at WGN-TV responsible for originating newscasts from the Democratic National Convention. She joined WGN-TV in 1994 as managing editor and was soon promoted to assistant news director (1997-1999), then news director (1999-2002).  Before that, she worked at WLS-TV, Chicago, where she joined as a writer and quickly moved into producing the station’s 5 pm newscast (1990-1994). 

Before her move to Chicago, Fowler was an award-winning on-air reporter, covering the Illinois legislature for WCIA-TV in Champaign, IL, and WMBD-TV-AM in Peoria, IL, as well as serving as Springfield bureau chief, where she earned first place (Market 50+) from United Press International for Reporting/Individual Achievement.  She began her broadcasting career as a radio news reporter for WOW-AM in Omaha, Nebraska. 

Fowler graduated from the University of Missouri-Columbia with a Bachelor of Journalism degree and a minor in political science.  In 2019, she left a career as a consultant and teacher at Northwestern University to join one of the leading media companies in the U.S., TEGNA, which owns and operates KSDK (NBC) in St. Louis.

She is married to David Klobucar. They have two adult daughters, Kate and Christine.