Talk:Stewart W. Bainum Jr.

Proposing article update
Hi there, I'm here to ask editors to help expand and update this article to improve its readability and further develop the noteworthy aspects of Stewart W. Bainum Jr.'s life. As disclosure, I do have a financial conflict of interest, as I am here as part of my work at Beutler Ink, consulting on behalf of Mr. Bainum.

Overall, my draft seeks to improve the structure of this article, fix inaccuracies throughout, and highlight the details of Mr. Bainum's business and political careers (where appropriate and properly sourced, of course). In particular, from news clippings provided by Mr. Bainum and from research on Lexis Nexis and HighBeam, I've been able to find a lot of older sources that provide information about his political career and development of the company that became Choice Hotels.

The new draft is saved in my user space here: User:16912_Rhiannon/Stewart_W._Bainum_Jr

You can see the changes vs. the current article's wording.

Given there is a lot of new material, I'd like to suggest editors start with Early life, which my draft proposes changing to Early life and education. You'll see the draft includes additional detail and sourcing to give a more complete overview. For ease of discussion, I've included the section draft below:

Let me know if you have any feedback or questions about the new draft and specific changes made. As I do have a COI, I do not intend to make any edits to the live article, and instead hope that an uninvolved editor (or editors) can review and make the changes they feel are appropriate. Thanks in advance! 16912 Rhiannon (Talk · COI) 17:23, 14 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Pinging Zigzig20s, who created this article, to see they'd be interested in reviewing my proposal to expand and update this article. As I've detailed above, I was able to get access to older press clippings that helped with clarifying information and adding more detail. Let me know if you have any feedback or questions. Thanks in advance! 16912 Rhiannon (Talk &middot; COI) 18:02, 21 April 2017 (UTC)


 * I think "was named in 2010 as one of the 100 Most Inspirational Alumni over a 75-year span" sounds like advertising.Zigzig20s (talk) 13:15, 22 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Can you please provide a link to the Washington Life article or send me a PDF?Zigzig20s (talk) 13:18, 22 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Hi Zigzig20s! Thanks for the initial feedback re: the alumni award, let me know if there's anything else you'd suggest adjusting / trimming. I'll send you a PDF of the Washington Life article as it's not available anywhere online. 16912 Rhiannon (Talk &middot; COI) 12:58, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Hi again, Zigzig20s, while you're reviewing the Washington Life source, I just wanted to let you know that I'm going to reach out in a couple of places to see if others would like to help review this draft, too. For now, I've trimmed out the inspirational alumni detail in my user space and am looking forward to more of your feedback as you're able to share it. If you're occupied elsewhere right now, that's ok too, I'll see if other folks can take a look in the meantime. 16912 Rhiannon (Talk &middot; COI) 20:19, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I will take a look, but why are you in such a hurry?Zigzig20s (talk) 20:27, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
 * No hurry, I just take a "more the merrier" approach to getting feedback. 16912 Rhiannon (Talk &middot; COI) 20:46, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

As you have both edited this page in the past, I'm wondering if you might also be interested to review my expanded draft for the page? The new draft is in my user space, here. As noted above, I do have a financial COI, so I'm looking for uninvolved editors to provide feedback and make the edits if they look ok. Thanks in advance! 16912 Rhiannon (Talk · COI) 20:55, 26 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks so much to Whoisjohngalt for reviewing my draft and moving it into the live article! Everything looks great. Just as a quick follow-up query: I've uploaded a photo of Mr. Bainum to Commons and the permissions release has been confirmed via OTRS just in the last couple of days. Would you be willing to add the photo into the infobox? The file is here: File:Stewart_W._Bainum_Jr.png Thanks again, 16912 Rhiannon (Talk &middot; COI) 20:34, 13 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Photo is ✅ -- thanks again Whoisjohngalt! 16912 Rhiannon (Talk &middot; COI) 21:00, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

Request to add Giving Pledge
Hi there, I'm here to ask if someone would be willing to add mention of Stewart W. Bainum Jr.'s commitment to the Giving Pledge (a campaign for wealthy individuals to donate a large portion of their fortunes) to this article. As disclosure, I do have a financial conflict of interest, as I am here as part of my work at Beutler Ink, consulting on behalf of Mr. Bainum.

Mr. Bainum's commitment to the campaign has been covered in reliable sourcing and based on that, I'd like to propose adding a simple sentence at the end of Personal life, as follows:


 * Bainum and his wife committed to The Giving Pledge, a campaign to encourage wealthy people to contribute a majority of their wealth to philanthropic causes, in September 2018.

Let me know if you have any feedback or questions about this request. As I do have a COI, I do not intend to make any edits to the live article, and instead hope that an uninvolved editor (or editors) can review and make the changes they feel are appropriate. Pinging Whoisjohngalt, who reviewed a previous request here: would you be able to take a look at this suggestion? Thanks in advance! 16912 Rhiannon (Talk · COI) 21:02, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks so much, Whoisjohngalt for reviewing and adding this to the article. Just one quick fix needed: it looks like your edit duplicated the Personal life section; would you mind removing the extra one here? Thanks again! 16912 Rhiannon (Talk &middot; COI) 20:00, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Done.Whoisjohngalt (talk)
 * Fantastic, thank you, Whoisjohngalt! 16912 Rhiannon (Talk &middot; COI) 21:02, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

Request to add ALIS Award and UCLA Alumni of the Year
Hi there, I'm back here to ask if it would be possible to add in two new pieces of recognition received by Stewart W. Bainum Jr. Specifically, a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Americas Lodging Investment Summit and the 2020 John E. Anderson Distinguished Alumni Award from UCLA. As disclosure, I do have a financial conflict of interest, as I am here as part of my work at Beutler Ink, consulting on behalf of Mr. Bainum.

If it seems reasonable to make these additions, I'd like to propose adding them at the end of Business career as follows:


 * In 2019, Bainum received a Lifetime Achievement Award for his work in hospitality, from the Americas Lodging Investment Summit. The following year, UCLA Anderson School of Management named him the recipient of its 2020 John E. Anderson Distinguished Alumni Award.

Would someone be willing to add these to the article? Thanks in advance for taking a look and please do let me know if you have any questions at all! 16912 Rhiannon (Talk · COI) 01:23, 9 September 2020 (UTC)


 * Done, with minor changes to the text shared. Westminster88 (talk) 08:14, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks so much, appreciate the review Westminster88! 16912 Rhiannon (Talk &middot; COI) 14:15, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

Overly detailed
This article seems overly-detailed in several places such as these sentences: "Bainum had considered a run for Maryland governor in 1994. The day before he had been scheduled to officially kick off his candidacy, Bainum announced he would not seek the office, choosing instead to focus on his family and businesses. " That's a report of a non-event that non-happened nearly 30 years ago.

Also, the section on his politics only mentions achievements and successes, and it does so at some length. While those are written encyclopedically for the most part, the overall effect seems kind of PRish/advertise-y. Novellasyes (talk) 19:38, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Request re: Tribune and The Baltimore Banner
Hi there, in the last year Mr. Bainum has received a lot of media coverage for his attempt to buy The Baltimore Sun and then for establishing a news non-profit (the Venetoulis Institute), and local news outlet, The Baltimore Banner. As this has not been updated within his Wikipedia article, I'd like to suggest some material to summarize the main points as covered in reliable sources. In full transparency, I am here on behalf of Mr. Bainum via my company, Lumino, and have a financial conflict of interest, so I am looking for uninvolved editors to review this request and add this update if it looks ok.

The below would replace the existing sentence at the end of the Business career section about The Baltimore Sun as well as the non-sourced sentence about The Baltimore Banner in the Political career section. On that point, Mr. Bainum has not relaunched the strike paper, but he has established a news outlet with its same name, so the draft clarifies that this is a new publication.

In February 2021, it was announced that Bainum was establishing a non-profit entity that would seek to acquire The Baltimore Sun. The newspaper was one of several owned by Tribune Publishing, which was in the process of being acquired by Alden Global Capital. Bainum struck a deal with Alden to acquire The Sun as part of the Tribune sale agreement. He had stepped forward in response to the "Save Our Sun" campaign launched by some of The Sun's staff, who were keen to find a local owner who could turn the paper into a non-profit. When Bainum's deal with Alden fell through, he initially sought to form a buyer group to acquire the whole Tribune business. He committed $200 million of his own money for the acquisition, with the goal of finding "responsible buyers" for each of the Tribune-owned publications. Bainum was unable to find a buyer for the Chicago Tribune and the effort failed.

He formed the Venetoulis Institute for Local Journalism with his family, as a non-profit organization focused on local Baltimore news and statewide news in Maryland. He is the chairman of the Institute, which is named after the former Baltimore County executive Ted Venetoulis, who was an advocate for local news and died in early October 2021. Bainum met with several local news start-up organizations to learn best practices for creating a news publication that provides broad local coverage of politics, sports and culture. In October 2021, he announced that he had established an online non-profit news outlet, named The Baltimore Banner, the budget for which is initially supported by donations. The Banner is overseen by the Venetoulis Institute. Inside Philanthropy named Bainum as the "Journalism Hero of the Year Who Wasn’t (and Then Was)" in its 2021 Philanthropy Awards.

If editors are comfortable with adding this, I was wondering if it would make sense to do so as a new Philanthropy section? This doesn't quite fit as part of his Business career or Political career, since the Institute and The Banner were established through donations by Mr. Bainum. If that makes sense to set up a new Philanthropy section, these details could be included along with the sentence about the Bainums' commitment to the Giving Pledge.

Is anyone willing to review and add this to the article? Please let me know if you have any feedback or questions about this request. Thanks in advance! 16912 Rhiannon (Talk · COI) 23:07, 8 February 2022 (UTC)


 * , is your paying client Mr. Bainum or is it one of the entities he funds? Novellasyes (talk) 02:28, 10 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Sorry if this wasn't clear from my disclosure above, my client is Mr. Bainum himself. 16912 Rhiannon (Talk &middot; COI) 15:03, 10 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Hi Aboudaqn, I saw that you had added a new Philanthropy section, and had done a little re-organizing of details in the article, which looks great, thanks. Did you have a chance to review my suggested addition for the new section above? Do you have any feedback or would you be comfortable adding the draft to the article? Thanks in advance! 16912 Rhiannon (Talk &middot; COI) 16:27, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

Factual, documented, encyclopedia-style content works for me - Aboudaqn (talk) 23:03, 16 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Aboudaqn, would you be willing to add this to the article for me? Due to my COI, I shouldn't edit the page directly. Thanks again! 16912 Rhiannon (Talk &middot; COI) 16:04, 17 February 2022 (UTC)


 * Hi Adavidb, I saw your recent edit and wondered if you might be interested in reviewing this requests? One editor has reviewed and left feedback, but I'm still looking for some assistance. Thanks in advance for any feedback! 16912 Rhiannon (Talk &middot; COI) 20:36, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks for reviewing the edit above. Did you add it to the article? If not, can you add it in for the COI so that we can close this request? Thanks! Z1720 (talk) 00:56, 3 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Hi Z1720, thanks so much for checking in here about the status of this request. The text has not been added to the article. I did ping Aboudaqn a couple times and I figured they may just prefer not to make the edit themselves, so I've been looking for someone else to review and add this if it looks ok. Would you be willing to help with that? Thanks in advance! 16912 Rhiannon (Talk &middot; COI) 16:41, 4 April 2022 (UTC)
 * At this time, I am not working on longer edit requests. Hopefully your comment above will let other reviewers know that this is still open and in need of evaluation. Z1720 (talk) 13:04, 5 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Z1720, I appreciate you helping to ping here. It's been a couple of months and I've reached out in a few places and not had any luck finding an editor to help review. Whoisjohngalt: I know it's a while since you've been involved with this page but I wondered if you would be be able to review this request? Thanks in advance! 16912 Rhiannon (Talk &middot; COI) 21:06, 7 April 2022 (UTC)


 * Your proposed addition is neutral, however, it is much too detailed for what boils down to "he wanted to buy something and a couple business people reacted". It is also very long - 2 decent sized paragraphs when the article as it is has the content of about 8 similarly-sized paragraphs to your proposals, giving undue coverage and leaning to recentism. I am also confused by the structure as it is, before your suggestion to add another section. Honestly, you seem to want to do good work here (better than a lot of editor-clients), so can I suggest you look at other biography articles of similar minor business figures and maybe propose a Draft:Stewart W. Bainum Jr. that is overall better-written (and with your proposed changes); a whole draft COI might even get more eyes. But, yes, I think the main takeaway with your current proposal is that it goes into way too much detail. Kingsif (talk) 21:22, 15 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks so much for your note, Kingsif, I really appreciate this feedback and especially your thoughts about recentism. When I was putting the proposed content together, I was thinking about the level of coverage Mr. Bainum had received for all of this and that was what I was considering re: whether it was undue or not, but I do see your point about the amount of detail for such recent events. While I'm not currently able to tackle the whole article, I have trimmed back my requested addition significantly, and posted it below for consideration. 16912 Rhiannon (Talk &middot; COI) 21:48, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

Updated draft
Following feedback from Kingsif (see above), I have trimmed back my suggested addition to the article to one paragraph. To recap: This is a proposed summary of Mr. Bainum's attempt in 2021 to purchase The Baltimore Sun, and his subsequent establishment of a non-profit organization and an online news outlet. Also, below you can see my suggestion on placement for the new material, if editors are comfortable with adding this. I'm suggesting placing it within the Philanthropy section, replacing the existing sentence there about The Baltimore Banner. I also would suggest removing the sentence about The Baltimore Sun from the end of the Business section.

In February 2021, it was announced that Bainum was seeking to acquire The Baltimore Sun, whose parent company was being acquired by Alden Global Capital. His bid was in response to the "Save Our Sun" campaign launched by some of The Sun's staff to find a local owner to turn the paper into a non-profit. After he was unsuccessful in this effort, he committed $200 million of his own money to compete with Alden to acquire all of Tribune Publishing Company, with the goal of finding "responsible buyers" for each of the Tribune-owned publications. Bainum was unable to find a buyer for the Chicago Tribune and the effort failed. He then formed the Venetoulis Institute for Local Journalism with his family, as a non-profit organization focused on local Baltimore news and statewide news in Maryland. He is the chairman of the Institute, which was named after former Baltimore County executive Ted Venetoulis, an advocate for local news who died in 2021. In October 2021, he announced that he had established an online non-profit news outlet, named The Baltimore Banner. The Banner is overseen by the Venetoulis Institute and initially supported by donations. Inside Philanthropy named Bainum as the "Journalism Hero of the Year Who Wasn’t (and Then Was)" in its 2021 Philanthropy Awards.

In 2018, Bainum and his wife committed to The Giving Pledge, a campaign to encourage wealthy people to contribute a majority of their wealth to philanthropic causes.

In February 2021, it was announced that Bainum was seeking to acquire The Baltimore Sun, whose parent company was being acquired by Alden Global Capital. His bid was in response to the "Save Our Sun" campaign launched by some of The Sun's staff to find a local owner to turn the paper into a non-profit. After he was unsuccessful in this effort, he committed $200 million of his own money to compete with Alden to acquire all of Tribune Publishing Company, with the goal of finding "responsible buyers" for each of the Tribune-owned publications. Bainum was unable to find a buyer for the Chicago Tribune and the effort failed. He then formed the Venetoulis Institute for Local Journalism with his family, as a non-profit organization focused on local Baltimore news and statewide news in Maryland. He is the chairman of the Institute, which was named after former Baltimore County executive Ted Venetoulis, an advocate for local news who died in 2021. In October 2021, he announced that he had established an online non-profit news outlet, named The Baltimore Banner. The Banner is overseen by the Venetoulis Institute and initially supported by donations. Inside Philanthropy named Bainum as the "Journalism Hero of the Year Who Wasn’t (and Then Was)" in its 2021 Philanthropy Awards.

Does this shorter addition work? Please do let me know if you have any other feedback. To note once more: I have a financial conflict of interest as Mr. Bainum is a client of my firm, Lumino, and I am here on his behalf. Thanks so much, 16912 Rhiannon (Talk · COI) 21:48, 18 April 2022 (UTC)
 * I support the suggestions; the draft and its placement. I don't know if you want more eyes on it, but barring any opposition, you can ping me again to make the appropriate edits. Kingsif (talk) 22:14, 18 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks so much for the swift review, Kingsif, and thanks for adding the new content, Whoisjohngalt. Really appreciate both your help. 16912 Rhiannon (Talk &middot; COI) 20:24, 21 April 2022 (UTC)