Columns
Media: September 2017
Fred Huebner is certainly not a newcomer on the local sports radio scene. His roots go back four decades. “Like a lot of those guys on the Score, I started working at Sportsphone,” he explains. “I was there beginning in 1976. We would do reports that were exactly 59 seconds–and people called the number to […]
Media: August 2017
It’s been ten years since I wrote my first novel $everance (ENC Press, 2007). That book was a satire about what had become of the media business since the original deregulation in 1996. It was intended to shine a light on the dangers of entrusting so much control over news and information in the hands […]
Media: July 2017
When Len O’Kelly was working in Chicago as a music director and disc jockey for radio stations like WJMK (104.3), academia was the furthest thing from his mind. At the time he was a college dropout and working in one of the top markets in the country. He thought he’d be doing that the rest […]
Media: June 2017
When WXRT night jock Ryan Arnold says he grew up on WXRT, he doesn’t just mean that he listened to the station. His mom Marge Arnold worked there when he was growing up, and he spent a lot of time in the hallways. “I literally grew up in the bowels of WXRT back when it […]
May 2017: Media
When Wally Phillips retired from WGN Radio, the afternoon man Bob Collins replaced him. When Bob Collins died in a plane crash, the afternoon man Spike O’Dell replaced him. When Spike O’Dell retired, Steve Cochran was doing the afternoon show at WGN. “They offered me the job, and it was the worst deal offered to […]
Media: April 2017
Charlie Meyerson has been a part of the Chicago media landscape now for four decades as a newscaster for WXRT, WNUA, WGN, the Chicago Tribune and more. Just last year he brought home an Edward R. Murrow award for a report he did at Rivet Radio. “One night at Rivet,” he explained, “we had a […]
Media: March 2017
At the beginning of the 2016 season, WGN Cubs broadcaster Len Kasper got some excellent advice. “One of my best friends is a non-fiction author and we talk about writing all the time. We met for breakfast last year just before spring training and he said ‘You should keep a journal this year. It’ll be […]
Media: February 2017
Bill Cochran was drawn to music radio for the same reason most people are. “I just love music,” he admits. “I’m a music fan – almost a music geek. Since childhood discovering new music was always a joy for me. I grew up in Oklahoma, listening to a radio station with a format, as […]
Sweet Home: Ronnie Baker Brooks
Don’t call it a comeback. Although it’s been an entire decade since Ronnie Baker Brooks has released an album, his presence in the blues industry during that time has been ubiquitous. “I produced Eddy Clearwater’s album, West Side Strut, I did a compilation with Johnny Castro, I co-produced my dad’s last album and I’ve been […]
Media: January 2017
2016 was a rough year. We lost some of our favorite musical and pop culture icons. But we also lost some beloved members and former members of Chicago’s media community. I had the opportunity to interview a few of them, and for those I never met, I reached out to some of their former […]
December 2016: Media
WBBM-News Radio’s Josh Liss grew up in Skokie, and there was one voice that had a real impact on his career direction, though it didn’t manifest itself for a few years. “Harry Caray was the big reason I wanted to do sports broadcasting,” he says. “I didn’t have a dad to take me to […]
RIP: Riot Fest Co-Founder Sean McKeough
Riot Fest Co-Founder and Cobra Lounge owner Sean P. McKeough, 42, passed away suddenly on Tuesday, November 29, the staff at Riot Fest announced today. Sean and co-founder Mike Petryshyn nurtured the punk rock festival from its beginnings as a small club event to its current incarnation as multi-day festivals in Chicago’s Douglas Park […]
Media: November 2016
Patti Haze remains one of the iconic radio voices from the rock and roll era in Chicago. Her sexy alto voice and friendly demeanor graced the airwaves of every major rock station in Chicago (save WXRT). She was on WLUP (twice), WMET, WCKG, and CD 94.7. Despite her incredible pedigree—as arguably the Queen of Chicago […]
Media: October 2016
In 2014, when WGN Radio unveiled their Walk of Fame, two of the inductees were their long-time overnight team – the husband and wife radio duo of Steve King and Johnnie Putman. “That was one of those pinch-me moments,” King says now. “To be mentioned in the same breath as Wally Phillips and Bob Collins […]
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