Consultant/Recruiter/News Director Tom Dolan Retiring

Longtime consultant/recruiter and news director, Tom Dolan will retire at the end of 2022. As founder and president of Dolan Media Management for the past 23 years, Dolan developed a management recruitment firm for TV news, digital and marketing.

Based in suburban Washington, D.C., the company built and trained management teams for TV stations and all their digital platforms, capitalizing on his 25 years of news experience and two decades as a news consultant and executive recruiter. According to Dolan, he helped place well over 500 managers and producers in some 70 markets.

He has been a resource for a number of companies, especially Hearst Television, as well as several ABC/Disney Owned stations, several NBC owned stations, as well as many owned by Scripps, Cox Television and previous owners Belo, Raycom, Dispatch and Schurz, plus CNN and KSL Salt Lake City. “We remained current by constantly reinventing our focus, adjusting to a changing business, and validating candidate performance through aggressive product review,” Dolan said.

Previously, he had been vice president of news and talent development for the Texas-based Broadcast Image Group from 1996 to 1999. As a consultant for a select group of TV stations, he also spearheaded the company’s management recruitment division for TV news and promotion. Dolan helped develop an advanced database for managers and producers, and a university program for young journalists.

Prior to his consulting career, Dolan was vice president of news at KSAZ Phoenix. During his three years there, he led the station through one of the most challenging news expansion and affiliation switches following the station’s transition to the Fox network. In addition, Dolan spent 20 years with ABC owned stations in Philadelphia, San Francisco, New York, and Chicago.

He was managing editor, assistant news director and news director at WLS-TV Chicago for more than nine years. ABC hired Dolan as a key member of a group that completely rebuilt the news operation at WLS, moving it from last to first place during the 1980s. In those nine-plus years, he was involved in the expansion of news programming from three programs per day to six, and designed the format for one of the first hour-long morning newscasts. Before going to Chicago, Dolan was managing editor and news director at WCAU Philadelphia from 1980 to 1983.

He has produced numerous workshops at national conventions like RTDNA, IRE, PROMAX and UNITY. He popularized the brand, “Topical Investigative,” developing a specialty from his news days in Chicago, coaching staffs how to differentiate and turn major news of the day into stronger investigative content.

Dolan has also produced many workshops at client stations on industry trends, newscast formatting, multi-platform content, and the news/marketing-promotion relationship to ensure that new managers get an effective start.

Throughout his career, Dolan promoted diversity in his newsrooms and continued to make it part of his recruiting and consulting practice.

“Having that impact, providing that kind of guidance, helping to shape so many careers made it very fulfilling. Now, my own personal family goals have led to my decision to retire this year,” he said.