Dina Bair

Bitter Jester Music Festival Judge

Dina Bair is a 14 time Emmy award-winning journalist who is currently the anchor for the WGN Midday News & Medical Reporter. Dina has managed a team producing Emmy award winning documentaries on Violence, Sex Trafficking, Experimental & intensive care medicine. A natural story teller, Dina has covered Presidential elections, natural disasters, mass shootings, Vatican News including the election of Pope Francis. As Medical reporter she highlights health and wellness, new technology, medical breakthroughs and breaking outbreaks like Covid-19. After 30 years covering medical and breaking news she advises station staff and management, translates critical health information and lends perspective for response to developing stories.
Dina joined WGN-TV as a full-time general assignment reporter in September 1992.

In 2013, Dina traveled to Italy to cover the election of the new Pope. She reported live from Vatican City.
Prior to WGN, she worked at WHOI-TV in Peoria as an anchor, reporter and producer. Dina also worked at WMAQ-TV in Chicago as a field producer.

Dina is the recipient of numerous awards including 14 Emmy awards, a Peter Lisagor award from the Society of Professional Journalists, and multiple Associated Press awards for both anchoring and reporting. Dina was named a Fellow by the National Press Foundation for the “Cancer Issues” seminar in Washington D.C. In perhaps the most rewarding story of her career, Dina spent a month reporting inside the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at Children’s Memorial Hospital. Her news series and documentary, “Intensive Caring,” detailed the cutting edge medical treatments and life and death decisions won awards for its news and documentary coverage.

“My kids competed in the Bitter Jester Music Festival years ago and I have always thought it was a brilliant idea to support young, budding artists!”

Dina is originally from the East Coast and received her B.S. in Radio-TV-Film from Northwestern University in Evanston. Dina has eight children and is a tri-athlete who enjoys running, boxing, lifting weights, and competitive ballroom dancing.

She is a founding Board member of the breast cancer charity One in a Million: Dancing With Chicago Celebrities. Dina leads a media running team devoted to raising funds for charity. Dina is also involved with The National Italian American Foundation, the Muscular Dystrophy Association, LUNGevity, Respiratory Health Association, American Cancer Society, and is an Advisory Board Member for Saleh Freedom, a movement to aid victims of sex trafficking. She is also a Minister of care, visiting sick patients in hospitals and nursing homes bringing Communion and offering counsel.