photo by Cara Jepsen

Two of the nation’s coolest indie-rock outlets originate right here in Chicago. Both “JBTV” and CHIRP radio are staffed by volunteers who are more passionate about music than money. And both have launched 24-hour Internet stations.

The 25-year-old, all-volunteer “JBTV” will expand into a 24-hour, multi-genre online TV channel this month (at www.jbtvonline.com). And January saw the launch of the community-based Chicago Independent Radio Project, a state-of-the-art online radio station (Chirpradio.org) that one day plans to go terrestrial.

Program director Shawn Campbell, formerly of Loyola’s WLUW-FM (88.7) decided to form CHIRP in July 2007, “When it became apparent that there wasn’t going to be a station in Chicago that was 100-percent welcoming to community volunteers,” she says. She invited a dozen like-minded people to meet a local pub, and that became the CHIRP’s board of directors.

“For two-and-a-half years we didn’t have a station, just an idea,” says Campbell. “We were dependent on people coming to events and raising donations for something that didn’t exist yet. It told us that it was something the larger community felt strongly about and cared about.”

The station netcasts above a factory in Chicago’s North Center neighborhood. “We literally built our facility from the ground-up,” Campbell explains. “When we came in there was a raw factory floor. Our team of engineers built walls, hung drywall, painted, and laid carpet. Volunteers put their hearts into the project.”

Now, CHIRP has 150 volunteers, including some 60 DJs who must play at least five new tracks and two local songs per hour.

Local music is a crucial part of the station’s identity, and bands are invited to send tracks to music director Billy Kalb. “We think that a really crucial part of what local radio does — and we consider ourselves a local station even though we’re on the Web — is to showcase local bands,” says Campbell.

There are also plans for live performances at the station and at local recording studios — as well as news shows. But all of that costs money. And, because the station is Web-only, license fees are paid per song, per listener. So the more popular it gets, the more the costs will rise.

“We’ve been really fortunate with fundraising,” says Campbell, referring to the station’s record fairs, benefit shows, and grant awards. But their biggest source of income is individual donations.

Campbell is “cautiously optimistic” that CHIRP will eventually launch a Low Power FM (LPFM) version of the station; the House Of Representatives passed a LPFM bill that would reduce the number of clicks required between stations, and give the FCC jurisdiction over further changes. The bill has bipartisan support and could pass the Senate later this year. Still, it would be at least two years before a LPFM station could obtain an FCC waiver and launch a station on Chicago’s congested airwaves.

“People ask, ‘Why bother? Nobody listens to radio anymore,’” says Campbell. “There couldn’t be a stronger message that people are looking for something more. It’s been so gratifying to see the comments coming from the public about how excited they are about the station.

“People have so quickly incorporated it into their daily lives. That’s what we wanted.”

Love is also in the air at “JBTV,” which is celebrating its 25th year as an indie-music showcase (more at JBTVonline.com). “Everyone here loves what they’re doing,” says owner and host Jerry Bryant. “We have a 99-percent volunteer staff. Everyone here has such a passion for the music.”

Bryant now oversees an 18-person team that will launch the 24-hour online network. The station will feature interviews, live performances, videos, and vintage gems from the “JBTV” archives as well as shows from other music genres. The main host will be former Q101 DJ Ryan Manno; Jenna Martinelli covering the local scene; MC/poet Jeff Baraka on the urban beat; and a punk show hosted by Lawrence Arms frontman Brendan Kelly and Red Scare Records owner Toby Jeg.

“We want to bring music programming back to TV, because there’s a serious lack of it now,” says new general manager Christian Piccolini, adding that the webcast will feature six hours of new programming each day.

“There are a lot of people on TV who do shows reading from a script that a writer produces,” he continues. “Everyone here will have a lot to do with their own segments,” and the genre hosts will have free reign to choose the music they play. They’ll also make use of Bryant’s state-of-the-art performance studio.

Bryant will continue do his regular show, which airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m., Thursdays at 8 p.m., and Sundays at midnight on Chicago Cable Channel 25, and Wednesdays at midnight on WYJS-Channel 62.

“This year is the start of a new decade, which is a perfect time to do this,” says Bryant. “There’s a whole new way of thinking, with the handheld devices, portable phones, iPods — there are tons of new opportunities for new media.

“Terrestrial broadcasting is great, but you’re really limited by your signal,” he continues. “With the Internet and wireless technology that’s out there, you can be anywhere and it sounds tremendous. When you’re on the Internet, you’re broadcasting to the ends of the earth.”

– Cara Jepsen

Late last year I got fed up with mechanics and bought my first-ever new car. It came with satellite radio, and in no time I was hooked — even though it didn’t get Howard Stern.

I loved Rosie O’Donnell’s radio show and Little Steven’s “Underground Garage” and the Hindi music station, which plays ghazals, bhajans, and qawwali.

I fell in love before I knew what I was getting into.

The nation’s two satellite radio companies, Sirius and XM, merged in July 2008 — dumping many favorite channels and shows in the process.

The company, now called Sirius XM, sells prepaid subscription cards, so I asked for one for Christmas.

My brother got me a $55 Sirius card at Best Buy, and I called right away to activate it.

After a long time on hold, I was asked what kind of car I drive. I said Hyundai and the line went dead.

I called back and finally a different person picked up. They informed me that they could not activate my account because my car has an XM receiver, and suggested I call XM. “But aren’t you the same company?” I asked. Apparently not.

After eons on hold, someone at XM picked up and told me the card would not work with my radio. Even though the two companies had merged, their billing cycles were still separate. “After a year and a half?” I asked, incredulous. The person on the other line told me that my only recourse was to go to the retailer and make an exchange. (Sirius XM’s press agent did not respond to requests for a comment for this story.)

Not only was Best Buy out of XM cards, but they wouldn’t take back the Sirius card — even with a receipt. “It says on the back of the receipt that we don’t accept return on prepaid cards,” the supervisor told me. I tried to argue: “But both Sirius and XM told me to exchange it here,” and “No one warned us ahead of time that it couldn’t be returned.” She wouldn’t budge.

I finally ended up re-gifting the card to a friend, who has Sirius in her car.

There is a contraption that gets both services: The Sirius XM MiRGE, a dual-band interoperable receiver that costs $249.99 and allows you to get the Sirius XM all-in-one package for $19.99 per month. Existing subscribers to either XM or Sirius need to activate new accounts for the MiRGE, which is then billed separately.

It’s all so convoluted that late last year a Florida subscriber filed a lawsuit against Sirius XM Radio Inc., alleging last year’s merger created a monopoly that raised prices “above competitive levels.”

The lawsuit, which is seeking class-action status, alleges Sirius XM has raised prices without improving consumer program choices, despite committing to the Federal Communications Commission that it would not raise prices of its basic package for three years after the merger was approved.

Nonetheless it has raised fees that are not part of the order, including fees for multi-radio subscribers. Such fees have increased by 40 percent since the two companies merged.

That lawsuit is not to be confused with the 2008 suit filed by 500 Sirius shareholders in 2008, alleging that Sirius XM Satellite Radio sabotaged stock values and violated the Racketeer Influenced And Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act by eroding the value of the company in order to take it private at a discount.

None of which will matter in a few years, when autos are installed with streaming Internet radio, and satellite radio goes the way of the eight-track tape.

ODDS ‘N’ SODS: At press time, Chicago Independent Radio Project (CHIRP) was poised to launch its new online radio station at Chirpradio.org. Two-and-a-half years in the making, the focus will be on “radio that is diverse, exciting, live, and locally based.” The group is also working to change the law so it can launch a low-power FM version. Visit the Web site for the latest . . . Remember WMET anyone? WBMX? WVVX? Radio’s golden age (i.e., prior to the Telecom Act Of 1996) comes alive at the new Chicagoland Radio And Media Web site, where the many features include Memory Lane, which features images of favorite old logos, music surveys, photos of personalities, bumper stickers, and “Where are they now?” and “In Memorium” pages. The site-in-progress also features media news, live feeds for media blogs, columns, ratings links, and more. See for yourself at www.chicagolandradioandmedia.com . . . The roundups of the biggest media stories of the decade seem to have missed the most recent and humiliating debacle of the past 10 years: how the local media completely and utterly misread the city’s bid for the 2016 Olympic games. Or maybe they didn’t misread it, but rather called it as da Mare saw it. Same result — although somehow the rest of the world knew Chicago didn’t stand a chance.

OOPS: Last month we referred to Chicago Reader muckraker and editor Mick Dumke as Mike. Sorry, Mike, er, Mick!

– Cara Jepsen

Mike Stephen and Andy Hermann launched “Outside The Loop” radio on September 28th, 2006 as a way to “create an independent program that featured stories and discussions about local issues that weren’t always getting media attention,” says Stephen. At the time, they were producers at WGN, and launched the weekly audio magazine as a podcast. It started airing on Loyola’s WLUW-FM (88.7) in March 2007, where it’s heard Thursday mornings from 10 to 11 a.m. (and online at outsidetheloopradio.com).

Hermann co-hosted and produced “OTL” until last March; he currently serves as producer for the “Nick Digilio Show.” Stephen, now an audio producer for a local multimedia production company, says, “I’m trying to produce a platform for local issues to be discussed and to even have some fun in the process. I’m a huge fan of NPR, but occasionally I’m irked by how scripted the programming is. There is lots of good content but sometimes it sounds like their hosts/anchors are falling asleep while reading the news! On ‘OTL’ I like to think that I make more of a personal human connection with the listeners.

“I’m a Chicagoan who’s talking about Chicago issues that are important to our community and I’m having fun along the way.”

A recent third-anniversary show taped at a Lakeview bar featured Chicago Reader writer and editor Mike Dumke, Time Out Chicago “The Get” writer Jessica Herman, performance artist and “Feast Of Fools” podcast host Fausto Fernós, and local food blogger Andrea Newberry as well as a long chat with the Parking Ticket Geek (expiredmeter.com), about how to get out of parking tickets.

Although Stephen has some help from an intern, he puts five or six hours into the show each week, booking guests, recording and editing interviews, and updating the Web site. He doesn’t get paid to do the show, which averages about 1,000 downloads per month.

“I keep doing the show because I love doing radio, working with sound, and telling the stories of Chicago on a weekly basis. I feel that ‘OTL’ is a way for people to learn about their community of Chicago and to get informed. I believe that community media outlets are vital to our city and I’m happy to foster local discussions.”

To that end, he invites listeners to post comments at outsidtheloopradio.com or e-mail him, mike@outsidetheloopradio.com.

ODDS N SODS: Emmis Communications’ WLUP-FM (97.9) released Jonathon Brandmeier with three months left in his contract, and replaced him with Canada-born rock jock John “The Byrd” Kempf — which seems to be part of a plan to go more rock, less talk. Johnny B joins a who’s-who of off-the-air local talent, including Steve Dahl, Kathy And Judy, Eddie And JoBo, and Dan Jiggetts and Mike North. The latter will start a new gig February 1st on CBS 2 as part of its new “Monsters And Money In The Morning” weekday mornings from 7 to 9; the money part will be covered by author/Sun-Times money expert Terry Savage and former CNBC business reporter Mike Hegedus. But as media columnist Robert Feder said in his Vocalo.org blog, “What’s missing in the mix is a substantial news presence” . . . Speaking of blogs, Tribuneco’s Chicagonow.com, “created by Chicagoans for Chicagoans,” boasted 148 blogs as of press time, including contributions by Bruce Wolf, Steve Dale (on pets, of course), and Amy Guth. There are also three music blogs — by songwriter and jingle-singer Nikki Lynette, Brian Mazzaferri of the Nintendo pop band I Fight Dragons, and a 22-year-old architecture student and local hip-hop enthusiast from Buffalo Grove who calls himself Sgt Tibbs. Chicagonow recently launched a radio show that airs Saturdays from 9 to 1 on Tribune-owned WGN-AM (720) . . . The magazine Bitch: Feminist Response To Pop Culture needs money again. The 14-year-old publication’s mission “is to provide a feminist critique and analysis of pop culture, to encourage discussion about how the media influences us, and to promote the connection between cultural critique and social-justice activism,” although it’s a lot more hip and fun than that sounds. There’s also a podcast and some really great blogs; more info at bitchmedia.org . . . Former Sun-Times city-hall reporter and local comedian Ray Hanania recently announced he is running for Mayor of Palestine on the “quid pro quo” peace party ticket, saying he opposes violence of any kind. The syndicated columnist, who is a Christian Palestinian-American, supports a two-state solution and said, ” I think what Palestine and Israel need is a candidate who is unequivocal on a vision for peace.” More at www.themediaoasis.com . . . Kudos to Representatives Danny Davis, Luis Guiterrez, and Jan Schakowsky (IL-9) for co-sponsoring the Community Access Preservation (CAP) Act (H.R. 3745), which would “prohibit discriminatory treatment of PEG channels and removes unfair restrictions from funding.” PEG channels are public, educational, and governmental stations that serve and provide important information to local communities. Eroded regulations and lax enforcement of existing PEG protections have led to some cable companies reducing quality and functionality of existing PEGs and/or reducing public cable drops to schools, libraries and other public centers — even though the Illinois’ Cable And Video Competition law of 2007 states that companies with state video franchises must deliver PEG channels with equivalent signal quality and functionality to that of commercial channels. For the latest, visit keepusconnected.org.

– Cara Jepsen

Groundbreaking radio personality Connie Szerszen wrote her new memoir, Top Rock Girly Jock: A Chicago Radio First, four years ago, when she was still an on-air personality at oldies station WJMK-FM. “It had a happier ending in the first draft,” admits the Chicago native, who, along with the rest of the staff, was replaced by the automated “Jack” format and put out to pasture at the short-lived WJMK HD2 in 2005. There, she became the first woman in America to broadcast live on an all-digital station.

It was a far cry from her original claim to fame: becoming the nation’s first female announcer to have a prime-time, major-market AM radio show, as a DJ at WIND-AM in the early 1970s. “WIND had a personality radio format, so ’shtick’ was encouraged,” recalls Szerszen, who invented “Strip Radio” after her program director told her to sound sexier to attract more male listeners. Not that she was comfortable with it. “Every time I did something sexy, it was pretty much a parody,” says Szerszen, who did the bit at the end of her Friday show. “With each song that aired, I’d instruct the listener to remove an article of clothing,” she says, noting that songs were shorter back then.

“Just about the time I’d get to the undies, I’d make sure it was my last song, and usually teased — ‘Well, now I’m taking off . . . See ya next week!’”

The portrait artist and wedding DJ’s exciting career included a date with Neil Diamond, meeting Elvis and other celebrities, and going head-to-head with Oprah Winfrey to host “AM Chicago.” It’s documented in engaging prose — along with over 200 photos — in the book. “The best part about writing an autobiography is that you get to see the big picture,” says Szerszen, who published the book herself.

“The other best part is that I could credit my family for all they had done with their lives. I hoped readers would glean from my story, the fact that everyone has gifts.”

Sadly, not much has changed since she broke barriers in the male-dominated world of radio. “There’s still a predominance of male voices playing music, whereas positions in news and traffic are still more available to women.”

Autographed copies are available at Toprockgirlyjock.com.

NEW MODELS FOR LOCAL NEWS COVERAGE: On November 20th, the Chicago News Cooperative began supplying two pages of local coverage twice a week to the local edition of the New York Times. With startup money from public TV station WTTW and the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the nonprofit is headed by editor James E. O’Shea, the former Chicago Tribune managing editor and the former editor of the Los Angeles Times, who was pushed out last year after refusing to carry out newsroom budget cuts. The advisory board includes journalist and Public Affairs books founder Peter Osnos and former Tribune editor Ann Marie Lipinski. Former Tribune managing editor James Warren writes a regular column (in addition to his duties as the recently named publisher of the beleaguered Chicago Reader).

This summer, Chi-Town Daily News editor and founder Jeff Dougherty and his staff shut down the local online venture to launch the Chicago Current, a public-affairs journal with both an online presence and monthly print edition. Based on publications such as Roll Call and New York’s City Hall, the for-profit will have “an intensely Chicago focus.”

According to the tagline, “Chicago Current targets government insiders, political junkies, and others who are passionate about government, politics, and public policy in Chicago.”

With angel investors providing startup costs, the venture will rely on advertising dollars from the print publication. According to Dougherty, niche print periodicals still command high ad rates.

Dougherty tried to hire former Sun-Times media critic Robert Feder — but he’d already been snapped up by Chicago Public Radio’s Vocalo.org, where his daily column appears at blogs.vocalo.org.

One expects radio, TV, and Internet news sites to begin mining these new organizations for their news stories — whereas in the old days, they’d turn to newspapers. After all, it’s a lot easier than doing your own legwork.

ODDS N SODS: Kudos to venerable V-103 DJ “Cool Gent” Herb Kent for his entry into the Guinness Book Of World Records for “having the longest career by a DJ in radio history.” The 81-year-old Kent — who has spent 65 years spinning dusties and recently co-wrote The Cool Gent: The Nine Lives Of Radio Legend Herb Kent — will receive the award December 5th at the South Shore Cultural Center in a benefit for the Real Men Cook charities; the roast will be co-hosted by Mayor Daley and Governor Quinn, who’ve designated December 5th Herb Kent Day. For more, visit www.realmencook.com/Roast.html . . . Those who live outside Pilsen can now hear the Latino Public Radio station Radio Arte WRTE-FM (90.5) on Vocalo’s secondary HD signal 89.5-2HD2 and on their i-devices using the free app “Public Radio Tuner,” at “Radio Arte Illinois.” Details at Wrte.org . . . The Cook County State’s Attorney’s attempts to subpoena the grades, e-mails, and other information about students investigating the case of Anthony McKinney as part of Northwestern University’s Medill Innocence Project is more than alarming. The group’s work has helped lead to the release of some 31 death-row inmates for wrongful convictions, and earned a new day in court for McKinney, who was convicted of fatally shooting a security guard in 1978. Northwestern is fighting the subpoena; visit www.medillinnocenceproject.org for the latest.

– Cara Jepsen

Bill Jackson, creator of the late, great children’s programs “Cartoon Town,” “The Gigglesnort Hotel,” and “The BJ & Dirty Dragon Show,” will draw, tell tales, and recreate his most memorable characters at a December 5th benefit for the Museum Of Broadcast Communications called “Saturday Morning With B.J. And Dirty Dragon: Live In Person — One Last Time!”

With their whimsical, artistic bent and a cast with names like Blob, Mother Plumtree, and Mertz The Martian Meanie, Jackson’s shows were must-see TV for Chicago-area kids in the 1960s and 1970s.

“I think it’s because kids love imagination, and I tried to pour as much of my imagination into the show as I could, with the facilities I had and whatever I had developed in storytelling ability, production, music, performance, puppetry, and sound effects,” says Jackson, who now lives in California. “I was always pushing to give the kids all the production that normally went into adult shows. I pushed hard, and the people on the shows were wonderful. They would really get into it, but they would also work very hard.”

Jackson, who won four Chicago Emmys and two Iris Awards for the Best Major Market Children’s Television In America, recently released a new documentary, Remembering . . . Cartoon Town And B.J. And Dirty Dragon.

He says he doesn’t have a favorite character. “They all reflect a little of my own character,” he says. “I put a part of myself in all of them.

“I’ve had a lot of people thanking me for creating Weird, because it made it all right for them to be weird, too.”

The cancellation of “The Gigglesnort Hotel” in 1977 marked the end of the era of locally produced children’s TV shows. “More syndicated shows were coming out of Hollywood or New York, and they became cheaper to buy than to mount your own productions,” says Jackson. “The high salaries in the Chicago market went to the very popular newscasters and weathercasters. Individually, we weren’t costing the stations much at all. But when we put together a whole crew and studio time and were doing the kinds of things I wanted to do, that got to be more expensive than buying reruns of ‘The Flintstones.’”

Jackson promises that the December benefit will be “the last time I appear in anything that can be called a performance.” It’s from 10 to noon at the Lake Theatre in Oak Park; tickets are $60 and $120 (which includes front-row seating and private meeting with Jackson); call (312) 245-8200 or visit www.museum.tv. For more on Jackson’s memoir, documentary, or “Gigglesnort” DVDs, visit www.dirtydragon.com.

CROSSING MEDIA LINES: What is the world coming to when journalists migrate to the Internet, and broadcasters write books?

Bill Jackson spent five years writing his highly regarded 2008 memoir, The Only Kid On The Carnival: An Extraordinary Childhood, about growing up on the carnival scene and in small-town Missouri (it’s available at www.dirtydragon.com).

Longtime radio personality Connie Szerszen recently released Top Rock Girly Jock: A Chicago Radio First, about her groundbreaking career as the nation’s first female announcer to have a prime-time, major-market AM radio show. It’s available at toprockgirlyjock.com and will be reviewed here next month.

Bigger-than-life sports-talker Chet Coppock just let loose with Fat Guys Shouldn’t Be Dancin’ At Halftime: An Irreverent Romp Through Chicago Sports (The Good, The, Bad & The Ugly), a colorful riff on Chicago’s major pastimes.

Coppock says that once he inked the deal with Triumph Books, “I was, to put it mildly, in the hurry-up offense,” writing 149,000 words in 98 days.

But it wasn’t all fun and games. “Writing a book must be like pregnancy; I can only recall the good days when I felt like I could write 15,000 words,” he says. “The days I bled from all pores have slowly left my brain. Actually, the title lends itself to a followup. Maybe, Fat Guys: Still Dancin’ And Still Eatin’.”

For the latest on upcoming signings and to hear Coppock’s new podcast, visit www.chetcoppock.com. Coppock also blogs at www.chicagonow.com.

And keep in mind that you can get a signed copy of these books if they’re ordered through the author’s Web site.

ODDS ‘N’ SODS: Citadel Media will end syndication of Doug Banks and DeDe McGuire’s show, “Afternoons With Doug And DeDe,” on December 31st as part of a larger cost-cutting move. The former WGCI-FM star, who’s heard afternoons from 2 to 6 on WVAZ-FM (102.7), should easily find a new syndicator . . . The Local Community Radio Act Of 2009 recently passed out of House Subcommittee — a key first step that would clear the way for more Low Power FM stations, and good news for groups such as the Chicago Independent Radio Project, which since 2007 has been working to launch new music- and arts-focused station in Chicago. Visit chicagoindieradio.org for the latest . . . One of the finest features at former Daily Herald sports writer Dave Miller’s Chicago Concertgoers Web site is the Top 5 lists he solicits from musicians. They range from local folkie Alice Peacock’s favorite cowbell songs to the carnival acts singer/songwriter Tom Russell backed musically in the 1970s: 1) Big Jimmy (the 300-pound female impersonator), 2) Onyx and Pharaoh The Boa Constrictor, 3) El Hombre De Goma (the Rubber Man of Puerto Rico), 4). Spongy The Rubber Girl, and 5) Polka Dot The Dancing Horse. More at chicagoconcertgoers.com.

– Cara Jepsen

Steve Dahl unveiled his new weekday webcast September 8th (www.dahl.com), just after deadline time. The CBS Radio-sponsored show allows Dahl a chance to talk to his fans – something he hasn’t been able to do since CBS took him off WJMK-FM (104.3) late last year, and he won’t be able to return to the airwaves ’til his contract expires in mid-2010.

But former “Steve Dahl Show” co-host (2002-2007) and 23-year rock-radio veteran Wendy Snyder beat him to the punch, launching her own weekly podcast with husband Jimmy “Mac” MacInerney on August 24th.

“I am the mother of two boys (three if you count Jimmy Mac), an avid hypochondriac, and kind of a bitch, if you want to know the truth,” explained Snyder on her site, snyderemarksradio.wordpress.com (where you can also hear the show). Snyder got her start in Chicago radio at WLUP-FM, and has worked with Garry Meier, Kevin Matthews, and Bill Leff. She currently does traffic for Don Wade & Roma’s on WLS-AM, where she recently left the weekly talk show “Women Of Mass Discussion” with Maura Myles in order to spend more time with her family.

“When I stopped doing Women Of Mass Discussion, I kind of lost my outlet for all the crazy things I wanted to share with everyone,” she said in an interview. “My husband had been podcasting for the past few years. He co-hosts an incredible ‘Star Wars’ podcast every week, (forcecast.net) and suggested I start doing one myself. So, I wanted him to co-host with me until I got comfortable, and I am comfortable working with him.”

Although her favorite musicians include Bob Marley, Elvis Costello, Cyndi Lauper, Molly Hatchet, The Allman Brothers, and White Stripes, the first show was all banter between Snyder and her husband.

“We treat it as a live show, but . . . we sit in the backyard with a couple of cold ones and record the show,” Snyder said. “Not exactly the protocol you’d find at your typical radio station. Come winter, you’ll find us in our unfinished basement.” (Dahl also podcasts from his basement).

On Snyder’s first 20-minute podcast, Jimmy Mac ribbed her for trying to maintain her cool rock-chick credentials while being a PTO president and – in her words – “worst mom ever.”

Topics on the second episode included the division of labor in the Mac-Snyder household; Wendy fixes the toilet and does the landscaping, while Jimmy mows the lawn and hangs action figures in his “Star Wars” room.

A discussion about Jimmy Mac’s aversion to grilling was interrupted again by one of the sons, who had lost a tooth.

“I want to have fun and talk about things people can relate to,” said Snyder.

READER’S NEW OWNERS: The New York-based hedge fund Atalaya Capital Management recently took over Creative Loafing, Inc., the bankrupt parent company of the Chicago Reader. Atalaya won a court auction against the founders of the Tampa-based weekly chain – which routed the Reader of some of its best talent after taking it over two years ago.

Atalaya has brought in former Chicago Tribune managing editor James O’Shea as editorial adviser and board member of the new company, and former Pioneer Press chief executive Richard Gilbert as interim CEO. Gilbert has said that investing in talent will turn the company around, while O’Shea said he would advise rebuilding editorial staffs.

Maybe now the Reader has the scratch to hire back some editorial and sales people, as well as top-notch journalists John Conroy, Tori Marlan, and John Borgia so Ben Joravsky will no longer be the paper’s sole remaining muckraker.

But it is a hedge fund after all. Isn’t its job also to pillage and sell?

ODDS ‘N’ SODS: The International Federation Of Journalists recently complained that the U.S. military had been monitoring reporters in Afghanistan to see if they were supportive of the American cause. Apparently journalists seeking to be embedded with U.S. armed forces there were being screened first by the Washington, DC-based PR firm The Rendon Group to determine how they may portray the conflict. According to The Stars And Stripes, an independent daily covering the military that broke the story, the government has since canceled its $1.5 million contract with the firm . . . Janet Dahl’s Dahl.com blog “Janet’s Planet” has morphed into “Janet Dahl, et al” and appears on the Tribune’s Chicago Now site . . . Look for re-ousted WLIT-FM (93.9) host Melissa Forman to re-launch her Web site, www.melissaforman.com. Maybe she’ll launch a podcast one of these days, too . . . Sam Silk finally started his long-awaited afternoon show at Power 92 (WPWX-FM) on September 14th . . . Last February, “Rebel Radio” became the first full-time heavy-metal radio station in Illinois, when it expanded to daytimes on suburban WPJX-AM (1500). DJ Laura Sigwalt holds down mornings from 6 to noon, while Scott Davidson does the noon to 6 slot. It still airs Sundays on WKTA-AM (1330). More at www.rebelradio.com.

– Cara Jepsen

Watch “JBTV” this week (beginning September 3rd) with featured guests Tim Hiatt and Steve Forstneger from IE. Check www.jbtvonline.com for air times.

“I’m still here rockin’, but I need a sponsor,” says “JBTV” host/owner Jerry Bryant, who’s been bringing alternative-music videos, concert footage, and free-form interviews to the Chicago airwaves since 1986. “I don’t know how much longer I can keep going. It’s hard to keep doing the show without someone to help pay for things. But where do you find sponsors?”

“JBTV” has always been a labor of love for Bryant, who earns a living with his advertising agency. “It’s not a profit-making show, but for the love of music. I want to give local groups a place to perform,” he explains.

Over the past 24 years Bryant has done some 3,600 shows – featuring a who’s who of local and national bands – and hasn’t made a dime. Nor has he taken a vacation.

Each of the shows he produces at his $2.5 million state-of-the-art facility uses eight HD cameras, and costs about $6,500, says Bryant, who estimates he’s lost “millions” on “JBTV” – which won two Billboard Video Awards for Best Local/Regional Alternative Modern Rock Show. But he says it’s all been worth it. “The studio is built that way so bands can look like they do on ‘The Tonight Show,’” he explains.

“The only reason I’m still on TV in Chicago is because WJYS is still a mom-and-pop station,” says Bryant, who believes that consolidation has taken the local flavor out of radio, TV, and newspapers. “At least with a local company you can buy airtime and put a show on the air.”

In an ideal world, “there would be some actual benefactor who would come in and give us enough money to get by for another year and fund some concerts at the Metro or the Vic – and not to have that much input into the show. That’s the problem – you take some people’s money with advertising, and they say, ‘We expect to have this artist on.’ But I want to stay true to my format.

“I would like to get some local beer company or business, so it’s win-win for everybody. We could help them and promote their events and they can help us; it’s a community thing.”

With financing, he’d eventually like to have a nightly live-music webcast. “It’s whole new world out there,” he says. “An up-and-coming band can’t go on tour and make money any more. They have to go from city to city and be the opening band for 10 people and try to live on that. So I’d like to get a platform where I could put our ‘JBTV’ show online and have nightly live webcasts. I could have bands come in and play and get exposure and gain popularity on a different kind of level, instead of some crummy, handheld iPhone video.”

“Every band, no matter if they’re starting out or the Dandy Warhols, gets treated the way they should be treated, with the audio and video done properly. We have to make the band look as good as we can, because this may be their one shot.”

He adds, “This is the calm before the storm. We’re at the beginning of something great. We just have to figure out how to make it work for us.

“We need a sponsor who is adventurous, and who realizes there is a whole new world out there.”

“JBTV” airs Saturdays at 11 p.m. on WEDE-Channel 34 and HDTV WJYS-Channel 62-2 as well as on Chicago Cable TV Channel 25 Sunday night at midnight, Thursday night at 8, and Wednesday night at 9. You can see videos at www.jbtvonline.com.

STEVE DAHL RETURNS: Steve Dahl’s new one-hour daily podcast starts Tuesday, September 8th and will be available at www.iknowjack.com, www.dahl.com, and via iTunes. “I will be podcasting from my basement (deconstructing) every weekday for an hour, and the show will be up by noon,” Dahl said in an e-mail interview. “I am paying for all of the equipment and for my staff. The staff will include Mary Van Daele (my producer), ‘Production’ Pete Zimmerman, ‘Jim Kid’ Ruffato, Brendan Greely, and Stephanie Fallara. I will try and get Buzz to stop by from time to time. I am still broadcasting under the auspices of CBS, so I am bound by their rules and regulations. I am excited to get back behind the microphone, and I want this to be successful so I can get out of my basement.”

ODDS N SODS: Where do former print journalists end up? On the Internet of course, where they launch new Web sites. Former Daily Herald sports writer Dave Miller joins his out-of-work brethren with an awesome new concert site, www.chicagoconcertgoers.com. It features a comprehensive concert schedule that’s searchable by date or venue, as well as a daily listing of music-related TV appearances and music related news, plus musings on past concerts . . . The latest Illinois community to get a low-power FM station is Ottawa, where local attorney Jonathan Freeburg recently launched a classic-rock station for a couple thousand dollars, at 103.9 FM. The show originates from his attic, and primarily consists of Freeburg putting his AOR-crammed iPod on “shuffle.” Thank goodness someone is finally providing a locally based alternative to corporate radio.

– Cara Jepsen

“Print remains a viable media source, especially if you have unique distribution,” says True Star magazine co-founder, publisher and executive director DeAnna McLeary, whose free magazine for, by, and about local teens is distributed at high schools, YMCA’s Boys & Girls Clubs, McDonald’s, barber shops, beauty salons, libraries and retail clothing stores. “We distribute directly to our readers and are not newsstand driven.”

McLeary started the nonprofit magazine with Na-Tae’ Thompson in 2004 as part of an After School Matters journalism program with 17 teenagers at Rainbow Beach Park on Chicago’s South Side. The result was a four-page newsletter underwritten by the Black McDonald’s Operators Association.

“Na-Tae’ and I were doing this as a way of giving back to the community by teaching teenagers writing skills; we never thought this would end up being a full-fledged venture five years later,” she says.

Now, there are 13 such programs across the city, and the magazine is a glossy 44-page quarterly whose mission is “to inform, entertain, educate, and serve as the voice of 21st-century youth.” Students, who are recruited from schools and community centers, participate in every aspect of the magazine, including writing, design, and illustration. And they’re paid for their efforts.

A typical issue of the hip, colorful magazine includes dating and money tips, advice on dealing with parents and teachers, and personal stories. One issue had an article comparing city to suburban schools and an interview with solo artist and former Destiny’s Child member LeToya Luckett that included questions about her teen years – and how to survive them.

Although the magazine has a Web presence and will launch a blog program this summer (see Truestarmagazine.com or www.raceunity.com/ts), McLeary says having a print edition is particularly relevant to today’s urban teenagers.

“There is a significant digital divide in the urban community, and the majority of urban youth still do not have Internet access at home and very little access at school,” she explains. “There is also a misconception [about] teens being on the Internet. Teens are active on popular networking sites, and are huge text massagers. [While] Facebook and text messaging are primary activities for urban teens; it’s a lot different from reading a magazine online.

“Teens like something portable and glossy, and to see their names and image in print.”

McLeary hopes to launch True Star programs in Atlanta and Washington D.C. in the next two years, and eventually expand to Philadelphia, Detroit, Miami, Los Angeles, Houston, and New York, as well as other countries.

But each will have a local focus. “Teenagers are not monolithic and you cannot create one book for all teens,” she says. “You have to empower teens locally at a grassroots level and give them a platform to discuss issues that directly affect them.

“True Star would also like to be the number one employer of teens in the country, and give them opportunities they couldn’t fathom.”

FURTHER PROOF THAT PRINT LIVES: ALARM MAG: Chicago-based ALARM Magazine debuted a series of a new collector-quality book format with its latest issue, which features Nick Cave, Pit Er Pat, Vivian Girls, Parts & Labor, Yo Majesty, Young Widows, and more. “We bring together this strangely connected group of artists,” explains founder and Editor-In-Chief Chris Force. “In the process, we have also grown a fanatical following of diehard music fans making the decision to move to our new book format a logical step forward. The transition works well with our longer, in-depth writing style and also highlights our attention to design and the best in contemporary music photography. Like a well-played album, each issue will be something readers can collect and revisit for years to come.” The smart, beautifully rendered indie mag has covered everything from punk to hip-hop to neoclassical to world to alt-country to jazz since it debuted in 1995, and promises the new format will contain nearly double the content of previous issues. Annual subscriptions are $30; read more at www.alarmpress.com.

ODDS ‘N’ SODS: We’re pleased that WLS-AM (890) picked up “Steve Dale’s Pet World,” which was recently dumped by WGN-AM (720) and now airs Saturdays from 2 to 3 p.m. with an additional hour-long online-only show at www.wlsam.com. Now, if they’d just make it a single two-hour on-air show . . . Look for that other Steve – Dahl – to make an announcement about a new, CBS-backed daily podcast later this month . . . Chicago radio vet James VanOsdol is looking for help self-publishing his upcoming book, Chicago Rocked! 1990-1999. And how is VanOsdol – a veteran of WKQX, WZZN, and WXRT (and currently an Affiliate Manager for Emmis/Chicago) going to do this? Via a pledge drive, of course. Learn more at blog.jamesvanosdol.com, where you can see a blurry 1997 photo of Van Osdol with members of Fig Dish, Smoking Popes, Veruca Salt, and Pulsars . . . WGCI-FM (107.5) recently dumped two female personalities – Frankie Robinson and Bionce Foxx – and replaced them with two female imports originally from New Orleans – Loni Swain (9 a.m. to 2 p.m.) and Consuella Williams (6 to 10 p.m). May Robinson and Foxx land on their feet soon – in Chicago, of course.

– Cara Jepsen

“We’re encouraging local bands to support each other in a grassroots way,” says John Sink, executive producer of “Chicago/ Live,” a new live, weekly music performance series that airs Wednesday nights at midnight on WJYS TV-Channel 62 — just after “JBTV.”

Editors note: Due to an internal scheduling conflict at WJYS TV, the program CHICAGO LIVE, originally scheduled to air Saturday, July 11th at 3:00am did not air. The program will resume its broadcast Saturday July 18th at 3:00am.

“Usually when you go to a venue like the Elbo Room and there are multiple bands performing, the band’s audience leaves after they’ve performed,” says Sink, who is in the middle of shooting 13 Sunday-night performances at the venue. “That’s the rule 90 percent of the time. What we’re doing on the night of the performances is to say, if you really support live local music, then stay. If your band played first, unless they’re going to another place to play again, don’t go anywhere. Stay here, and support and encourage the other bands. So at 12:30 the room is pretty full, and the last band isn’t just playing for 20 of their fans.”

Sink speaks from experience; he earned a living from 1969 to 1996 playing in local blues, party, and cover bands.

He and “Chicago/ Live” co-producer Phillip Amerson, who fronts the band Bitterson, got the idea for the show while working on the WPWR magazine-style series “Tattoo Factory TV.”

“Just for fun, we started to have bands that happened to be inked come in and do a three-camera studio-session thing,” says Sink. “It was fun shooting it and editing those segments. That got the bug planted.”

“We recognized the Chicago music scene as huge, diverse, strong, and extremely talented and unique, and to our knowledge, there was nothing on television out there showing it off,” says Amerson. “There’s a whole live-music world that operates in the clubs and venues of Chicago that needs support from fans, press, fellow bands and artists, and the people of this city to survive . . . and our hope is that this show would help the scene grow and bring people together within the scene for continued longevity of live music.”

Hosted by actress and music fan Kate Black, each episode includes live performances shot with five cameras, plus backstage interviews, music news, and words of wisdom from local journalists. Interested bands can learn more at Chicagolive.info.

Sink says the audience is an integral part of the local scene.

“There are 28,000 small-venue seats in the greater Chicago area, and we average 6,000 people a night. So there’s a lot of space and room for the growth in the local live-performance scene. 

“You can go to the United Center and see Bruce [Springsteen] or whoever when they come, but there’s always an alternative. And it’s usually pretty inexpensive to go out on a Wednesday night and see a good local band or two. Our angle is, if we don’t do it, it’s going to disappear.”

ODDS N SODS: WGN’s axing of “Kathy & Judy” after 20 years is not just another painful blow for women in the boys’ club called broadcasting, but for local radio. Whether you liked them or not, the pair actually connected to their audience and provided a whiff of non-dogmatic fresh air on a station that appears to be steadily drifting to the right. As VP/General Manager of WGN Radio Tom Langmeyer said in a statement, “This was a business decision. The media business and the Chicago radio market have changed dramatically in the last few years, including a new method of ratings measurement. WGN needs to respond to these changes, and this is the time to move in a new direction” . . . The FCC recently launched a probe into to the Arbitron’s Portable People Meter, to which Langmeyer refers, in order to determine whether the new system underreports minority listernership (if you ask us, women are radio’s biggest minority). The new system replaced books with a pager-like device that tracks listening habits. FCC acting Commissioner Michael Copps said in a statement that underreporting of black and Hispanic listeners “has had a devastating effect on their ability to compete.” James Winston, executive director of the Washington-based National Association Of Black Owned Broadcasters, Inc. told the FCC in testimony last year that “virtually all” of the stations serving black and Hispanic markets in Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles showed ratings declines after the meters were introduced. Arbitron vice president of research Beth Webb recently said minority-sampling numbers should improve; we’ll see when they’re released July 16th . . . We had no idea of the good work former WGN “Pet Central” Steve Dale has done to save animals ’til we read Rick Kaempfer’s interview in Radio Spotlight. Dale, whose syndicated programs “The Pet Minute” and “Steve Dale’s Pet World” continue to air, was instrumental in making dog parks a reality in Chicago and convincing Alderman Shirley Coleman to back off her crusade to ban pit bulls and rottweilers. Hopefully, someone will snap up Dale’s show soon . . . We love that former Tributosaurus frontman, “Sound Opinions” producer, and Sporting News Radio host Matt Spiegel has teamed up with Dan McNeil 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. weekdays on sports-talker WSCR-AM 670 . . . Yet another one bites the dust: Thirty-six-year-old radio-and-music-industry trade publication Radio & Records ceased operations June 5th. Who’s next — Rolling Stone?

–Cara Jepsen

A few years ago, Massachusetts-based musician Candace Clement was in a band called Better Friends Than Lovers when she started taking a hard look at how the music industry works. “A pattern quickly emerged — one where very few companies seemed to control all content,” says Clement, now a campaign coordinator for the media-reform group Free Press.

“Five major record labels ran the music industry; six corporations controlled nearly all of radio, television, and print. It didn’t take long to realize that in the broadcast-media world, this didn’t happen by accident. It was the direct result of public policies that were passed not in the interest of the people but for the profits of large corporations.

“These companies have been given a free license to broadcast on the public airwaves, but what are they giving back to us?”

She says it’s nearly impossible for local bands to get airplay on commercial radio stations. “Commercial radio is dominated by payola schemes and limited genres, and with only a handful of companies controlling local radio it was nearly impossible to get your foot in the door.

“I’m not saying we were the next Nirvana or anything, but where could we even begin if we wanted to get local airplay? Commercial stations aren’t happening, vibrant locales that you can stroll into and hand over your CD to an eager DJ. In many communities, DJs have been replaced by computers and you are lucky if anyone is at the station at all.”

The place for musicians to promote their music, she says, is local, community-based radio — not the Internet. “There is a saying that the Internet is great at connecting people across the world, but not at people across the street. I would add that getting heard online doesn’t do much to turn people out to a show on a Friday night. Local radio allows musicians and bands a way to connect with people in their own communities.”

Clement is spearheading Free Press’ efforts to pass the Local Community Radio Act Of 2009 (HR 1147/SR 592). The legislation would open the airwaves to more community-based Low Power FM (LPFM) radio stations that would broadcast at the local level to neighborhoods and small towns. It has nearly 50 co-sponsors in Congress (learn more at Freepress.net.lpfm).

She says musicians can lobby their lawmakers and spread the word at concerts. They “can also talk to other musicians and groups in their community about starting a station and working together to spread the word.”

The Chicago Independent Radio Project has been working hard to get such a license for Chicago; visit Chicagoindependentradioproject.org for more.

SWINE FLU AT WGN: It seems that listeners are not happy with the changes at WGN-AM (720) — which include weekdays with John Williams in the morning and Garry Meier in the afternoon. But fans seem most upset about the station’s new weekend programming. Out are “Sports Central: (which still airs weeknights 7 to 9 p.m.), “Your Money With Bill Moller,” “The Technology Tailor” Alex Goldfayn, and Steve Dale’s “Pet Central.” They’ve also canned the long-running Saturday-morning movie reviews that launched Nick Digilio’s career. Replacements include “Simon Rendezvous” with Paris-born ad exec Simon Badinter, 27-year-old www.thenews junkie.com founder Shawn Wasson, and former WLS jock Jerry Agar. Veteran news director Wes Bleed was also let go, and fill-in host and local comedian Dan Deibert left voluntarily, saying on his blog (www.dspotblog.com), “I just felt that my forward progress had stopped. I’ve been in radio situations before where you are just spinning the tires. I’ve also stayed in those situations too long. I learned my lessons and decided I wasn’t going to let that happen to me again, because in the end, it never works out.” Maybe there’s a reason program director Kevin Metheny — who took over WGN last December — was christened Pig Virus by Howard Stern in his 1993 memoir, Private Parts (after all, it’s just another term for Swine Flu).

ANOTHER NAIL IN JOURNALISM’S COFFIN: We winced when we learned that four of the city’s five largest TV stations — WMAQ-Channel 5, WFLD-Channel 32, WGN-Channel 9, and WBBM-Channel 2 — are launching a joint news-gathering operation. Each station will provide two camera crews, who will be dispatched to cover news by a single managing editor in a position that will be rotated every 12 months. So now, instead of four managing editors making their own decisions, there will be a single person deciding what’s newsworthy for most of the market. Kudos to WLS-Channel 7’s Emily Barr for opting out in an effort to maintain the station’s independent voice.

MAYOR COW? We never liked Mancow Muller much — until we heard he has been talking to experts ranging from fundraiser Jimmy John Liautaud to former Republican house speaker Dennis Hastert about running for Mayor of Chicago. “I already have enough money, so it wouldn’t be a desperate attempt to cash grab like Blago,” said the self-proclaimed Libertarian. “I truly believe this city is anti-human, costly, dangerous, and corrupt.” He’s right about that. Plus the campaign — and a win — would take him off the air for at least five years.

–Cara Jepsen

Schaden was inducted into the Radio Hall Of Fame in 1993 for his work preserving those historic shows, and grew up glued to the radio. “Radio in those days was for everybody,” he says. “When I was a kid, my mother was on the sofa darning socks and my dad was sitting in his easy chair reading a newspaper or magazine and my brother and I were on the floor, all listening to the same program.
“Every network and many of the independent stations all had a variety of programming; the networks would have comedy shows, mystery shows, adventure programs, programs for women during the day, kids’ shows after school, news in the morning, classical-music hours, quiz programs, news broadcasts, intellectual programs. You could go to any one station and hear all of these things.”

He calls radio’s golden age — from the mid to late 1930s to the late 1950s — “the shortest golden age of anything.” Although he loved Jack Benny and “Fibber McGee And Molly,” his favorite show was the “Lux Radio Theater,” which did hour-long radio versions of movies — usually with the original stars.

In those days, shows were produced by a single advertiser, and 30-minute programs would have only three minutes of ads. “There was a lot of respect for listeners on the part of sponsors and producers,” he says. A typical season was 39 weeks, with replacement shows airing in the summer. “While there were ratings, the real rating was whether the show sold the product,” he says. “If a program was number 17, but they couldn’t keep the product on the shelves anymore, they didn’t care that it wasn’t number one.”
Schaden started seeking out the shows after television all but killed off radio in the 1950s. “Finally, in the late 1960s a friend of mine sent me a couple of reels of tape with shows on them from the Armed Forces Radio Service,” he says. “I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. I rolled up my sleeves and started searching everywhere I could to find people who had copies of them — performers, production people, ad agencies, sponsors, technicians.”

Most of them were on reel-to-reel tape, but some were also on 16-inch records. “In the beginning, people just came over to my home and sat around and listened, but soon we ran out of potato chips,” he quips. “It’s not a group thing anyway; radio is kind of personal.”

Although he didn’t think he had the voice for it, he landed a Saturday-afternoon gig on Evanston’s 1,000-watt WNMP on May 2nd, 1970. To his surprise, the show caught on. Since then, he has spent Saturday afternoons playing old-time radio shows alongside the historic interviews he has conducted over the years with its key players, which are collected in his 1998 book, Speaking Of Radio: Chuck Schaden’s Conversations With The Stars Of The Golden Age Of Radio.

But Schaden says he’s most proud of his five-year look at World War II, during which he aired programs from December 1941 through V-J Day in 1945 in chronological order from 1991 to 1995. The programming included news broadcasts, speeches by everyone from Winston Churchill to Chiang Kai-shek, as well as radio shows that did programming about the war. “The radio programs all got behind the war effort,” he says. “It may get a footnote in history books, but it comes to life on radio.”

In July, Schaden will hand the reins of the show to fellow fan and listener (and former IE contributor) Steve Darnall, who took over his Nostalgia Digest magazine in 2005.

“I’m 75-years old,” he says. “I’ve done this for more than half of my life. While I’ve loved every minute of it, it’s time for my wife and I to move into another phase of life — one that has no other obligations other than to ourselves and to our family.”
His final live broadcast will be an open house on June 27th at The Morton Grove Civic Center (visit Nostalgiadigest.com, click on “Those Were The Days,” and scroll down to “June 27″ for more).

“It’s been terrific for me, because I’ve been able to do something I love to do and have found that the people I’m doing it for loved it as well,” he says, noting that 39 is the age Jack Benny claimed to be for decades. “It’s a win-win situation. You can’t beat that.”

ODDS N SODS: The world is indeed topsy-turvy: Garry Meier has a radio show and Steve Dahl does not — and on WGN-AM (890) no less. Meier now holds down weekdays from 1 to 4 p.m., with help from his former WCKG-FM sidekick (and IE contributor), Jim Turano . . . “Crazy” Howard McGee is back on Chicago airwaves in a minimal way, co-hosting “The Jeffery Leving Father’s Rights Legal Show” Sundays at 2 on Soul 106.3 (WSRB-FM) . . . Conscious Choice magazine’s April issue was its last gasp (no joke); former staffers are starting up Mindful Metropolis, due to hit the streets May 1st. More at Mindfulmetropolis.com . . . Sports talker and Webio founder Mike North has a new book, Settling The Score: Talkin’ Chicago Sports (Triumph Books, $16.95, co-written by Steve Silverman). He’ll flog it Thursday, May 14th at 12:30 p.m. at Borders Books & Music, 150 N. State. Visit www.northtonorth.com.

– Cara Jepsen

In those pre-Internet days, The Reader was the thick, independent weekly everyone picked up on Thursday afternoon, so they could plan their weekend. Miner wrote its popular “Hot Type” media column, and Conroy was an investigative staff writer and author of the 1987 book Belfast Diary: War As A Way Of Life. His 1990 Reader cover story, “House Of Screams,” broke the John Burge, Area 2 police-torture scandal.

And I was a filmmaker and waitress, trying to decide which journalism grad school’s offer I should accept: Northwestern or Columbia College. Miner said I’d probably get a better job down the line if I went to North-western’s Medill School Of Journalism.

So I went to Medill – where one of my classmates was Mo Ryan, editor/publisher of the fan-zine Steve Albini Thinks We Suck. Ryan is now the TV writer for the Chicago Tribune.

But I lasted only a week; I knew I couldn’t stay when one of the professors asked if any of us thought we’d never be an editor, and I was the only one who raised their hand. That same professor also predicted newspapers were on their way out and showed us a study that proved it.

I earned a master’s degree in public affairs reporting at Columbia College, where we spent an afternoon at the now-defunct City News Bureau, the cooperative news agency that provided news to member media outlets. That day, Managing Editor Paul Zimbrakos told us there were more students in journalism school than working journalists, and to get out now. I didn’t listen (in fact, I did an independent study with Chicago Sun-Times media critic Robert Feder, who helped me land this column in 1994).

I went on to write for local newspapers and magazines, and did the Reader’s “Days Of The Week” column for eight years.

I saw Conroy and Miner chatting between sessions at February’s Chicago Journalism Town Hall at the Hotel Allegro Chicago. Eighteen years later, it felt like journalism was indeed dying – especially when event architect and former WBEZ Program Director Ken Davis kicked off the event with “My name is Ken Davis, and I’m a recovering journalist.”

His panel included Miner, who still does “Hot Type.” But the Reader was purchased in 2007 by Creative Loafing, which shrunk the paper into a thin tabloid, fired a large chunk of the staff, and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last year.

The firings included Conroy, who continued to pursue Chicago police torture and wrote the 2000 book Unspeakable Acts, Ordinary People: The Dynamics Of Torture. He has won countless awards, including a Mac-Arthur grant, and his articles were cited in Illinois Supreme Court cases that helped free four death-row inmates.

But he was let go by the Reader in 2007 – shortly after it published his final police torture article. One day later, the City Of Chicago agreed to a $20 million settlement with four former death-row inmates who claimed Burge and his men tortured them. It is doubtful that would have happened without Conroy’s heroic work. Now, he appears occasionally on WBEZ-FM (91.5).

I lost the Reader gig in 2004, amid a redesign sparked by the local launch of Time Out magazine. Now, I write part time and teach yoga full time.

I was in good company at the Town Hall, where the audience was full of current and former journalists – as was the panel, which ranged from Chi-Town Daily News founder Geoff Dougherty to former Sun-Times reporter Lee Bey.

The subject was the future of journalism, which has been shedding reporters like bad mortgages. John Callaway said newspapers as we knew them are dead, and it was suggested publications such as the Huffington Post that use and comment on content from traditional print media should pay for its use. Panelist Carol Marin called it “content without compensation.”

Huffington Post’s Chicago Editor, Ben Goldberger, said his stories drive “tons” of readers to the papers’ Web sites and pointed to the staggering number of comments the stories generate. “It’s not just news,” he said. “It’s a dialog.”

Callaway suggested a foundation be created that pays journalists to report the news, at least until a new model is found. “It is about creating an environment where journalism could flourish,” said panelist Feder. This model would require editors and infrastructure as well as beat and investigative reporters – which would be expensive.

Andrew Huff pointed out Gapers Block, which uses volunteer writers, costs him just $100 per month for the server. Dougherty also runs his nonprofit Web site on a shoestring.

Audience member and former broadcast journalist Carolyn Grisko suggested readers make micro-payments to read articles, or that newspapers adopt the cable-TV subscription model.

But the best moment came when the Tribune’s Eric Zorn noted that someone in the room had been unfavorably live-Tweeting the proceedings, and asked him to speak up. It was Angryjournalist.com founder Kiyoshi Martinez, who said newspapers must reinvent how they advertise. Instead of burying tiny ads on a busy Web page, they should copy Gawker.com, whose ads are large, singular and hard to miss – not to mention profitable.

The Town Hall airs Friday, April 3rd at noon on CAN TV21. Visit http://chijournalismtownhall.com for more. Conroy’s police torture articles are archived at www.chicagoreader.com/policetorture/.

– Cara Jepsen

The open-ended talk program “Kup’s Show” continued the tradition, as did Siskel & Ebert’s bare-bones “Sneak Previews” and “Soul Train,” which started in a South Side basement. Many of our Reasons To Be Cheerful picks – including “Chic-A-Go-Go,” “This is Hell,” and “JBTV” – also qualify. So do Chicago’s greatest radio shows – including Steve Dahl and Garry Meier’s in their heyday and Ira Glass and Gary Covino’s old WBEZ-FM (91.5) show, “The Wild Room.”

A fine example of that type of spontaneity is “The Eclectic Company,” which is presided over by rotating musicians/ hosts Jon Langford and Nicholas Tremulis Tues-day nights from 10 to midnight on WXRT-FM (93.1). Guest hosts have included Steve Albini, Beck, John Doe, Alejan-dro Escovedo, and Robyn Hitchcock. In-stead of pushing their new albums, guests simply play their favorite records and talk about them. As Langford once explained, “This is the opposite [of] what commercial radio has become, which is to repeat the familiar. Plus I get to sit around and talk rubbish with my favorite musicians.”

Chicago Public Radio’s “Sound Opinions” (Fridays at 7 p.m. and Saturdays at 11 a.m.) continues the “Sneak Previews” dueling-critics tradition, as the Sun-Times Jim DeRogatis and the Tribune’s Greg Kot duke it out over music on “the world’s only rock ‘n’ roll talk show.” There are also guest interviews, theme shows, and trendspotting. Plus there’s a segment where listeners – who come off as incredibly bright, even for public radio – put in their two cents.

We love how nimble and relevant live, local radio and TV can be – such as WBEZ-FM’s public-affairs magazine “Eight Forty-Eight” (weekday mornings from 9 to 10). On the same morning flames engulfed Holy Name Cathedral, co-host Richard Steele interviewed Chicago cultural historian Tim Samuelson about the church’s cultural and historical significance. To have pulled the show together while the cathedral was still smoking is what local radio is all about (full disclosure: My essays used to air on the show).

WTTW-Channel 11’s “Chicago Tonight” (weekdays at 7 p.m. and repeated the next day at 12:30, 4:30, and 9:30 a.m.) is another live show where experts dissect local news on a nightly basis; the hour-long format allows host Phil Ponce and his guests enough time to offer more than just perfunctory coverage. The night before the Illinois House impeachment vote, Ponce featured an informed and lively discussion with former Illinois Comptroller Dawn Clark Netsch, DuPage County State’s Attorney Joe Birkett, and WBBM-AM political analyst Bob Crawford.

You never know whether you’ll hear an interview with an author, artist, musician, actor, or former president on WGN-AM (720)’s “Extension 720 With Milt Rosenberg” (weeknights at 9), which remains one of the freshest shows on the radio despite dating back to 1973. Topics have ranged from Aztecs to international terrorism to the state of childcare. But it’s thanks to the author and University Of Chicago professor of psychology’s amazing ability to turn even the most trenchant subject matter into something relevant.

We have high hopes for WTTW’s “Rewind With Anna Davlantes,” in which the NBC5 anchor discusses trends and current events with a diverse cross section of everyday Chicagoans (which somehow includes KISS-FM 103.5 morning host Drex). The episodes we saw were vibrant and fast-paced, as locals discussed everything from identity theft to dog cloning to housing the homeless in foreclosed homes. At press time, the show’s future was up in the air; view past episodes at Wttw.com.

ODDS N SODS: The switchover to digital TV has been postponed until June 12th, which means there’s still time to get a government-subsidized converter box up and running. Visit www.dtv2009.gov or call (888) DTV-2009 for coupons. A box with “analog pass through” will allow you to continue receiving analog signals . . . Freak, who was recently fired from his post as program director and DJ at south suburban WRXQ-FM (100.7), is back on the air weekdays from 2 to 7 p.m. and Sundays from 10 a.m. to noon . . . The death of longtime late-night radio king Eddie Schwartz sparked an almost poignant Chicago Tribune tribute by none other than Steve Dahl – who used to mercilessly poke fun at the former WGN stalwart. It also brought back former Chicago Sun-Times media critic Robert Feder for a wonderful obit in which he said “his passion for Chicago and concern for others were matched only by his oversized girth.” We’ll miss the Chicago original – just as we miss hearing Dahl on the radio and seeing Feder in the paper. You can listen to Schwartz’s old WIND show on Chicago-based Talkzone.com . . . The Museum Of Broadcast Communications may not have a bricks-and-mortar home, but its online archives boast thousands of hours of digitized radio and TV shows, from Johnny Cash’s 1964 appearance on WGN’s “The Barn Dance” to Aaron Copland appearing with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Visit www.museum.tv.

– Cara Jepsen

“I love to help those that have talent, give them a place to be a rock star . . . on ‘JBTV,’” says Jerry Bryant, who has been bringing alternative-music videos, concert footage, and free-form interviews to the Chicago area since 1986. “JBTV” has featured everyone from The Afghan Whigs to Zwan, and won two Billboard Video Awards for Best Local/Regional Alternative Modern Rock Show.

Music fan Bryant calls the program “Chicago’s longest-running, lowest-rated, most-respected local-TV show dedicated to the music lovers.”

He started out playing videos that weren’t considered mainstream enough for MTV, but soon artists ranging form Peter Murphy to Joey Ramone were inviting themselves on the show to play their favorite videos. He has done it all without sponsors, funding everything out of pocket.

“The main reason I’m always cheerful is that I get to work with musicians and artists that have the same big idea . . . that music is for the people,” says Bryant, who estimates he has lost “millions” on the show. “I’ve been doing ‘JBTV’ as my hobby; I have never made any money from the show. I only produce ‘JBTV’ for the love of music and I also feel the inner need to help those artists that need exposure from the beginning of a career.”

Bryant began shooting high definition before it became mainstream and was the first to produce an HDTV concert special (with Blink 182 in July 2001). The “JBTV” HD sound stage has nine HD cameras, and he recently produced the “20th Annual JBTV Don’t Drink And Drive” 10-hour music marathon on CAN TV 19 and Cable 25.

But now he’s looking for sponsors to help fund the show and take it to the next level. “I have a million ideas, but need a million dollars to make it happen, and in today’s economy I don’t know what is next,” says Bryant, who has no sales crew or management team.

In a perfect world, “JBTV” would be on a “real” TV station, with plenty of viewers and sponsors. Until then, it airs Saturdays at 11 p.m. on WEDE-Channel 34 and HDTV WJYS-Channel 62-2 as well as on Chicago Cable TV Channel 25 Thursday night at 8 and Wednesday night at 9. You can see videos at www.jbtvonline.com.

THE HD SWITCHOVER CONUNDRUM: The analog-to-digital TV switchover presents a dilemma for Luddites who receive their TV signal from an antenna. Come February 18th, that old analog TV will no longer be able to receive digital signals.

A cheap solution is to keep the old TV and get a digital converter box using two $40 coupons afforded to each household by the federal government (visit www.dtv2009.gov or call (888) 388-2009), but at press time the government was out of converter-box funds. The new Obama administration was requesting a delay in the switchover date, though residents can still get on a waiting list for coupons. When shopping, be sure to look for a feature called “analog pass-through” to continue getting analog signals from low-power stations or those that haven’t yet switched to digital. Even without a converter, analog sets will continue to work with the VCRs, DVD players, and gaming consoles you already own.

According to blogger, web designer, and former “Steve Dahl Show” contributor Mark Czerniec, antennas can now pick up loads of free channels. In an article called “Could Free TV Make A Comeback” (at Czerniec.com), he wrote, ” Many of the familiar channels now also have an auxiliary channel — or two or three of them. While one program is airing on the main PBS channel, for example, there’s a completely different additional show in Spanish, plus a cooking show, plus a local weather channel. [My neighbor] Mary Jean could now potentially receive 80 or more channels between all of the Chicago and Milwaukee stations and their multiple channels. Sure, some are just satellite weather images, but once you own an antenna, they’re all free.”

Another option is to connect the old analog TV to a paid service like cable or satellite, which is a new monthly expense.

Buying a new TV with a built-in digital receiver creates the problem of what to do with the old set, which contains hazardous and toxic materials that pose a threat to the environment.

United Recycling Industries (URI) in West Chicago charges 25 cents per pound to dispose of analog TVs (they also take other items; call (800) 270-8220). Another option is take it to your local electronic and hazardous waste disposal center. The City Of Chicago’s Household Chemicals And Computer Recycling Facility (1150 N. North Branch on Goose Island – (312) 744-3060) recycles what they can, and safely disposes of the rest. The city and the Illinois EPA also conduct electronics collection days; for details on that and how to recycle everything from appliances to tires, visit the Chicago Recycling Coalition’s Web site at www.chicagorecycling.org.

ODDS ‘N’ SODS: MORE GOOD NEWS: Kudos to Salem Media-owned WIND-AM (560) for launching “Chicago Overnight,” which airs Tuesday through Saturday from midnight to 4 a.m. Instead of distant, automated voices, night owls get to hear real, live “Living Large” host Geoff Pinkus doing a locally based program complete with roving reporters, news, guests, and “stories about what makes Chicago great in the spirit of WIND radio legends like Eddie Schwartz.” He’s joined by producer Bonnie Sporn, formerly of WCKG-FM’s “Stan And Terry Show” . . . We’ve also heard nothing but good things about WIND’S morning duo, Big John Howell and Cisco Cotto (5 to 9 a.m.) . . . Nine FM is ba-ack – if you live in Kankakee, anyway. On December 19th, Newsweb Radio Company replaced 92.7 WKIF-FM’s (92.7) CNN Headline News format with “We play anything.” It’s only 3,000 watts, but at least now there’s something to replace Newsweb’s three Nine FM stations, which switched to progressive talk in October.

– Cara Jepsen

A few weeks earlier, B96’s longtime morning team, Eddie Volkman and Joe “Jobo” Bohannon, were dumped by CBS Radio with eight months left in their contracts – and no chance to say goodbye. In June, CBS-owned WSCR let Mike North go when they could not settle on a contract – worth less than the $1.5 million the former hot-dog vendor had been making (North’s WEBio show streams 9 to 11 a.m. weekdays at Northtonorth.com).

That’s about what Dahl, Volkman, and Bohannon were earning, and their firings came in the wake of poor ratings via Artibtron’s Portable People Meter, which uses a new methodology to report listenership. According to PPMs, middays are now the biggest daypart – not morning drive. “The days of the overpaid morning star and everybody else making chicken feed may be over,” Volkman told Radio-info.com. We thinks the days of decently paid local personalities are over, period.

Dahl, who said a dignified goodbye to listeners, had two-and-a-half years remaining on his JACK-FM (105.9) contract – sidekick Buzz Kilman was not so lucky – and at press time had no plans to go back on the air (find out the latest at Dahl. com). In an ideal world, he’d reunite with Garry Meier and do afternoons on WGN-AM (720). Not that the beleaguered Tribune Co. could afford them.

On that same “Black Friday,” CBS canned US99 nighttime personality and 30-year radio veteran Wild Bill Garcia as well as WSCR sports news anchor Fred Huebner. Chicago Public Radio almost simultaneously dumped 11 staffers, including WBEZ-FM (91.5) producer and former WLUW-FM (88.7) program director Shawn Campell. Perhaps her efforts to bring a community radio station to Chicago will soon bear fruit (visit Chicagoindependentradioproject.org). In an ideal world, CPR head Torey Malatia would hand her control of his beleaguered Vocalo project.

REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL, PT. II: GOING LOCAL: And as corporate belts continue to tighten, media innovation will take place off the radar on these homegrown, low-budget shows.

That’s the case with Scott Davidson’s “Rebel Radio,” which has been bringing heavy metal and the like to local airwaves since 1994 (Wednesday through Saturday, midnight to 2 a.m. on WSBC-AM (1240) in Chicago and simulcast on WCFJ-FM (1470) in the South suburbs). Davidson and his DJs play a ton of local bands; send promo packs to Rebel Radio, 4320 Dundee, Northbrook, IL 60062.

Chuck Mertz’s free-wheeling WNUR-FM (89.3) public-affairs talk show “This Is Hell” explores current world events from perspectives often ignored by mainstream media – and makes you laugh while you learn. A recent Question From Hell for listeners and guests: “Which change that you would like to see during the Obama administration will not happen?” Answers ranged from single-payer health care to a two-state solution for Israel/Palestine. It’s on Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and online at Thisishell.net.

Though he’s on the most commercial of radio stations, WGN-AM (720), Nick Digilio flies under the radar Friday nights 11 to 2, Saturday nights 8 to midnight, and Sunday nights 10 to 2. The 43-year-old horror-movie fan and playwright is quicker-witted than many better-known (and paid) local personalities, plus he has a vast knowledge of pop culture and does a mean Mayor Daley impersonation. Podcasts are at www.podcastblaster.com/directory/podcast-12524.html.

Steve Cushing’s handcrafted “Blues Before Sunrise” focuses on the first 50 years of recorded blues music (1920 to 1970), ranging from jump and jive to rhythm and blues, gospel, comedy, and doo wop. Cushing also profiles many of the artists he airs, and has archived interviews with many long-gone greats. It airs Sunday mornings from midnight to 5 a.m. on WDCB-FM (90.9) and at www.wdcb.org.

ODDS ‘N’ SODS: We’re not pleased by Nextmedia’s firing of former Mancow sidekick Freak from his post as program director and daytime jock at Joliet’s WRXQ and WIIL. The man knows his music. Yet at press time he was winterizing his farm and collecting unemployment (visit Myspace.com/southlandfreak) . . . The merger of Sirius and XM has resulted in the loss of XM channels Chrome, Fungus, Raw, Viva, X-Country, Beyond Jazz, Fine Tuning, The System, Caricia, Aguila, and Sports Nation and Sirius’s The Strobe, Sirius Disorder, Backspin, Boombox, Universo Latino, and Movin’ Easy. Subscribers must also pay a premium for Howard Stern on Sirius and Oprah & Friends, and there’s still no Bollywood channel. No wonder Sirius XM’s combined third quarter losses totaled $4.88 billion . . . National Public Radio has been offering first-listens on albums from artists such as Pink, Bob Dylan, and Neil Young, which seems to require quid-pro-quo in on-air coverage. Visit www.npr.org/music . . . You know a print outlet has jumped the shark when it does a flashy redesign aimed at a younger audience that ends up alienating loyal fans. The Chicago Reader did it in 2004; the shrunken paper’s parent company recently fired for bankruptcy protection. Now it’s the Tribune’s turn at the print equivalent of adding Oliver to “The Brady Bunch” . . . After unveiling Skokie’s new 10-watt emergency-advisory radio station at 1660-AM called WQIQ672 AM, Manager Al Rigoni called the technology “one of the best communications tools to come along ever.” Take that, Internet!

– Cara Jepsen

A few weeks earlier, B96’s longtime morning team, Eddie Volkman and Joe “Jobo” Bohannon, were dumped by CBS Radio with eight months left in their contracts – and no chance to say goodbye. In June, CBS-owned WSCR let Mike North go when they could not settle on a contract – worth less than the $1.5 million the former hot-dog vendor had been making (North’s WEBio show streams 9 to 11 a.m. weekdays at Northtonorth.com).

That’s about what Dahl, Volkman, and Bohannon were earning, and their firings came in the wake of poor ratings via Artibtron’s Portable People Meter, which uses a new methodology to report listenership. According to PPMs, middays are now the biggest daypart – not morning drive. “The days of the overpaid morning star and everybody else making chicken feed may be over,” Volkman told Radio-info.com. We thinks the days of decently paid local personalities are over, period.

Dahl, who said a dignified goodbye to listeners, had two-and-a-half years remaining on his JACK-FM (105.9) contract – sidekick Buzz Kilman was not so lucky – and at press time had no plans to go back on the air (find out the latest at Dahl.com). In an ideal world, he’d reunite with Garry Meier and do afternoons on WGN-AM (720). Not that the beleaguered Tribune Co. could afford them.

On that same “Black Friday,” CBS canned US99 nighttime personality and 30-year radio veteran Wild Bill Garcia as well as WSCR sports news anchor Fred Huebner. Chicago Public Radio almost simultaneously dumped 11 staffers, including WBEZ-FM (91.5) producer and former WLUW-FM (88.7) program director Shawn Campell. Perhaps her efforts to bring a community radio station to Chicago will soon bear fruit (visit Chicagoindependentradioproject.org). In an ideal world, CPR head Torey Malatia would hand her control of his beleaguered Vocalo project.

REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL, PT. II: GOING LOCAL: And as corporate belts continue to tighten, media innovation will take place off the radar on these homegrown, low-budget shows.

That’s the case with Scott Davidson’s “Rebel Radio,” which has been bringing heavy metal and the like to local airwaves since 1994 (Wednesday through Saturday, midnight to 2 a.m. on WSBC-AM (1240) in Chicago and simulcast on WCFJ-FM (1470) in the South suburbs). Davidson and his DJs play a ton of local bands; send promo packs to Rebel Radio, 4320 Dundee, Northbrook, IL 60062.

Chuck Mertz’s free-wheeling WNUR-FM (89.3) public-affairs talk show “This Is Hell” explores current world events from perspectives often ignored by mainstream media – and makes you laugh while you learn. A recent Question From Hell for listeners and guests: “Which change that you would like to see during the Obama administration will not happen?” Answers ranged from single-payer health care to a two-state solution for Israel/Palestine. It’s on Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and online at Thisishell.net.

Though he’s on the most commercial of radio stations, WGN-AM (720), Nick Digilio flies under the radar Friday nights 11 to 2, Saturday nights 8 to midnight, and Sunday nights 10 to 2. The 43-year-old horror-movie fan and playwright is quicker-witted than many better-known (and paid) local personalities, plus he has a vast knowledge of pop culture and does a mean Mayor Daley impersonation. Podcasts are at www.podcastblaster.com/directory/podcast-12524.html.

Steve Cushing’s handcrafted “Blues Before Sunrise” focuses on the first 50 years of recorded blues music (1920 to 1970), ranging from jump and jive to rhythm and blues, gospel, comedy, and doo wop. Cushing also profiles many of the artists he airs, and has archived interviews with many long-gone greats. It airs Sunday nights from midnight to 5 a.m. on WDCB-FM (90.9) and at www.wdcb.org.

ODDS ‘N’ SODS: We’re not pleased by Nextmedia’s firing of former Mancow sidekick Freak from his post as program director and daytime jock at Joliet’s WRXQ and WIIL. The man knows his music. Yet at press time he was winterizing his farm and collecting unemployment (visit Myspace.com/southlandfreak) . . . The merger of Sirius and XM has resulted in the loss of XM channels Chrome, Fungus, Raw, Viva, X-Country, Beyond Jazz, Fine Tuning, The System, Caricia, Aguila, and Sports Nation and Sirius’s The Strobe, Sirius Disorder, Backspin, Boombox, Universo Latino, and Movin’ Easy. Subscribers must also pay a premium for Howard Stern on Sirius and Oprah & Friends, and there’s still no Bollywood channel. No wonder Sirius XM’s combined third quarter losses totaled $4.88 billion . . . National Public Radio has been offering first-listens on albums from artists such as Pink, Bob Dylan, and Neil Young, which seems to require quid-pro-quo in on-air coverage. Visit www.npr.org/music . . . You know a print outlet has jumped the shark when it does a flashy redesign aimed at a younger audience that ends up alienating loyal fans. The Chicago Reader did it in 2004; the shrunken paper’s parent company recently fired for bankruptcy protection. Now it’s the Tribune’s turn at the print equivalent of adding Oliver to “The Brady Bunch” . . . After unveiling Skokie’s new 10-watt emergency-advisory radio station at 1660-AM called WQIQ672 AM, Manager Al Rigoni called the technology “one of the best communications tools to come along ever.” Take that, Internet!

– Cara Jepsen

U-verse boasts something like 900 channels (including more than 41 in high definition) and a DVR that can record four shows at once.

But activists say it doesn’t give consumers easy access to government, educational, and public-access channels. You know, the ones where you can watch local concerts and city council meetings and find out about school closings and emergency alerts.

Those channels are often the only place where such information can be found. But – as subscribers in Lake County and the western suburbs have learned – on U-Verse they can be hard to find, slow to load, and lower quality than commercial counterparts.

“Some of what is going on is segregating the access channels off the lineup with substandard functionality,” says Barbara Popovic, executive director of Chicago Access Network Television. In September, she spoke in front of a U.S. House subcommittee on behalf of the Alliance For Community Media and Alliance For Communications Democracy, organizations devoted to public, educational, and government (PEG) access. According to witnesses, the PEG stations also lack closed captioning, are not included in the program menu, and cannot be recorded via DVR.

“In the testimony, I held up a channel card from the western suburbs, which had close to 350 channels listed,” says Popovic. “There was not a single government or educational channel listed. But Illinois law is clear: it has to be in the channel listings; it has to be handled in a manner equal to commercial channels. It does not do that.”

A spokesperson for AT&T says the bit rate and resolution of PEG programming have been increased, making for improved picture quality, and that PEG channels can be recorded using a commercial DVR.

PEG channels came out of the 1984 Cable Act and have been historically easy to find – even when systems had fewer channels.

“Now we’re talking about a 1,000-channel system, and these public channels are being removed,” says Popovic.

She says the problem stems from the Federal Communication Commission’s 2006 video-franchising orders, a regulatory shift that did not safeguard PEG access. States began passing laws that removed local authority, weakened consumer protection, and generally undermined PEG access. “As cable operators opt into these new state laws, we’re seeing a reduction in pre-existing PEG obligations of incumbents, like studio closures in Michigan, Indiana, and other states,” Popovic testified.

The hearing resulted in a letter to the FCC, asking it to investigate the treatment of public-access channels. Leading the charge were subcommittee co-chairs José E. Serrano (D-NY) and Illinois 10th District Congress-man Mark Kirk. “From what I can tell, they want to be sure their constituents can communicate using these media,” says Popovic.

Illinois law states these channels must exist. “People who are concerned can file complaints and let the attorney general’s office know that non-commercial channels are important to them,” says Popovic. “They should also tell their own state legislators, who did pass this law and expect it to be followed.”

She continues, “If you look at issues around media consolidation, preserving public space in the media is of critical importance to all of us. And there’s precious little space to speak of. This is all about preserving that as we move into the digital age – and making sure artists, educators, and the government are not left behind using hyped-up excuses about how technology is changing. I don’t care what the technology is, we need to preserve this space for the public.”

A CLASS ACT CALLS IT QUITS: We didn’t mourn when sports writer Jay Mariotti abruptly left the Chicago Sun-Times, but we’ll sorely miss TV and radio critic Robert Feder, who spent the past 28 years doing a stellar job covering the ins and outs of radio and TV in Chicago.

Feder announced he was stepping down with a full year’s pay and benefits and would explore other options. “Covering the minutiae of the broadcast business isn’t as much fun as it used to be,” he wrote in his column.

He was one of the most honest, straight-shooting reporters in America. Unlike others who cover media (myself included), he refused to go on TV or radio because it would be a conflict of interest. (Full disclosure: Feder has been a mentor of mine since 1992.)

We’ll miss how he stood up for fairness and integrity – like this brief, well-placed jab in a recent piece about cutbacks at Metro Networks/Shadow Broadcast Services by parent Westwood One, which will result in the loss of 300 jobs, including at least five on-air Chicago staffers.

“What makes these job losses especially galling is that so many local stations rationalized the elimination of their own news operations in the first place by outsourcing those functions to bare bones Metro/Shadow,” he wrote.

“Shame on all of them.”

ODDS N SODS : Paste and and online news site Huffington Post have both launched Chicago outlets . . . They’re baaack: The old WSCR-AM duo of Dan Jiggets and Mike North will reunite this January in a morning drive slot on Comcast Sportsnet Chicago . . . Former Chicago Sun-Times city council reporter-turned-comedian Ray Hanania has a new 8 to 9:30 a.m. show on west suburban WJJG-AM (1350) . . . Former WGN-AM (720) sports announcer Chuck Swirsky has returned from a decade in Toronto to do play-by-play for the Chicago Bulls on ESPN’S WMVP-AM (1000) . . . Atlanta-based Creative Loafing Inc., the company that bought the Chicago Reader in 2007, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. “This is not a management issue. It’s strictly the economy tanking,” explained company CEO Ben Eason. Phew – that’s a relief!

– Cara Jepsen

In late August, however, the print media lost one of its biggest names when longtime – and controversial – sports columnist Jay Mariotti suddenly resigned from his Chicago Sun-Times job to pursue Internet writing opportunities. It is the most high-profile defection to date and gives those doomsayers more reason to tout their predictions.

On August 27th, the Tribune quoted Mariotti as saying that during his time in China covering the Beijing Olympics, he realized most writers were not writing for print publications, but for Web sites. After returning home and abruptly resigning his print post, he told Tribune reporter Jim Kirk he was pursuing Internet possibilities for his brand of spitfire sports commentating, and that the future of journalism “sadly is not in newspapers.”

During his 17-year career at the Sun-Times, Mariotti became the star of the sports section and arguably the entire paper. His lengthy daily columns pontificating on local and national sporting events and characters were oftentimes all that was needed for some readers to pick up the tabloid paper. His caustic columns and larger-than-life persona landed him a regular spot on ESPN’s “Around The Horn,” a TV gig he apparently will hold on to as he also seeks a Web-based outlet.

Mariotti’s critics (who are also some of his most avid readers) view his ditching the Sun-Times as cowardly; others see it as a shrewd move that could open the gates for fellow writers to do the same, depending on the outcome. Mariotti summed up his decision with this quote in the Tribune: “I’m a competitor and I get the sense this marketplace doesn’t even compete. Everyone is hanging on for dear life at both papers. I think probably the days of high-stakes competition in Chicago are over. To see what has happened in this business . . . I don’t want to go down with it.”

Chicago is one of the last great newspaper towns, by virtue of its two competing daily papers, a journalism rarity these days whose only notable exception is New York City. The notion that print medium is a sinking ship is a grim reality for local print journalists, but it is also bad news for the general public, as journalistic competition breeds journalistic excellence no matter how it is delivered.

Local print media isn’t the only one experiencing defections to the Internet. Terrestrial radio recently lost one of its most high-profile and outspoken sports commentators to a Web radio show. Former WSCR-AM 670 personality Mike North teamed up with restaurateur Rich Melman (of Wildfire restaurant and the broader Lettuce Entertain You group) for “The Mike North Webio Show,” which debuted September 8th, the day after the Bears season opener. The show streams live at Wildfirerestaurant.com weekday mornings from 9 to 11, with downloads available later each day. This move is the only broadcasting option for North at this time. He left The Score in June – after having served as the signature voice since the station’s inception 16 years ago – when contract talks with CBS went nowhere. An alleged six-month, non-compete clause, during which he cannot take another traditional TV or radio gig, seems to have steered him to the Internet and to an odd relationship with Melman, one that will certainly draw North’s fans to the restaurant’s Web site for cross promotion.

“Radio is still very viable, but the Web is the next big thing,” North told the Tribune. “[My show] will sound like radio. People say, ‘But Mike, I can’t get you in the car.’ Well, guess what? You can get me in your high rise. You can get me in your downtown office. You can get me on your iPod.”

The choices and convenience of the Internet once again trump what traditional mediums can offer.

Regardless of where readers get their news, they still should not believe everything they read. On August 28th, the news outlet Bloomberg mistakenly posted on its news wire an obituary for Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who was very much still alive. Jobs successfully battled pancreatic cancer years ago, a fact that perhaps made the premature obituary (major news outlet often have obituaries for high-profile persons at the ready) more believable.

Last month Bloomberg was involved in another to-do when it ran with news United Airlines filed for bankruptcy, triggering a nosedive of parent company UAL Corp. stock prices. Shares dropped 70 percent in just five minutes, according to the Sun-Times, after Bloomberg posted the report, based on an alert from the Florida-based Income Securities Advisors Inc. Apparently, during the course of Googling relevant news, ISA employees found a December 2002 Chicago Tribune article titled “UAL Files For Bankruptcy” on the Tribune Co.-owned South Florida Sun-Sentinel Web site. Tribune Co. issued a statement washing its hands of the situation, insisting the article was clearly in the archives section. United, though, blasted the Sun-Sentinel anyway, calling the piece an “irresponsible posting” and demanded a retraction.

No matter who is right or wrong, these gaffs illustrate no matter what the medium, misinformation happens.

– Jason Scales

For WKQK-FM 101.1 listeners, the morning drive is now an awful lot like the afternoon drive.

On August 11th, the former afternoon team of Brian Sherman and Steve Tingle took over the morning slot after Alan Cox and Jim Lynam’s “The Morning Fix” was given the ax. Program Director Marc Young (mistakenly identified as “Mac” in the print edition) promised listeners via a Web post that they would “get the same great show [they've] come to expect in the afternoon: ‘Taps At The Tens’ and ‘Trash At The Thirties’ every weekday starting at [6 a.m.].”

The debut “Sherman And Tingle” morning show, an afternoon fixture since spring 2007, kept to that simple formula, sticking mostly to playing alternative rock from the past two decades (Red Hot Chili Peppers, Bush, Rage Against The Machine, Gnarls Barkley, The White Stripes, Weezer, and Smashing Pumpkins). Between songs the duo kept the banter brief, at one point ruminating on which celebrity would die next, given the deaths of Bernie Mac and Isaac Hayes and the superstition that celebrity deaths happen in clusters of threes, a topical subject for what passes for edgy humor on terrestrial radio. (Michael Jackson was nominated as the next to go, by the way.) For a “Phone Tap,” show character Clairissa Jenkins, pretending to be an insurance agent, pranked a listener’s roommate and told her she couldn’t keep her gay-pride rainbow stickers on her car anymore. One topic for the “Trash At The Thirties” segment allowed a listener to call out his buddies who wanted their wives to join their fantasy-football league. Paul The Perve delivered the not-so-helpful traffic report, and Taryn Levesque chimed in with music news. The song selections and humor topics suggest the show is targeting aging grungsters.

SATELLITE SYNDICATE: Regular Chicago radio listeners who prefer less music and more zaniness haven’t had a decent alternative rock morning show since Erich “Mancow” Muller’s ousting from Q101 in 2006, but Sirius satellite radio listeners who followed Howard Stern’s migration have. For about two-and-a-half years now, Stern has been free to explore his actual edgy humor and scathing social commentary on satellite airwaves. Stern sidekick and comedian Artie Lange’s deteriorating physical condition and admitted drug use has been mined for humor and grim fascination for months now. Stern’s planned marriage to longtime girlfriend Beth Ostrosky has balanced the show and allows the host to do what he does best: hold up his life and actions as an entertaining hook for vicarious listeners.

The future for satellite radio got a boost on July 29th when the U.S. Federal Communications Commission approved the merger between XM Radio and Sirius. Mel Karmazin, CEO of the newly formed Sirius XM Radio Inc., spoke to Stern in early August. While not completely forthcoming with details, Karmazin did say the basic subscription prices of XM and Sirius would not increase and the hardware would not turn obsolete. He pointed out XM and Sirius receivers have been placed in millions of new cars, a virtual promise the receivers would continue to work for the life of the car regardless of any merger-induced changes. He also said once the details are worked out, current Sirius customers, estimated to be 9.5 million, would be able to add channels from XM – Major League Baseball broadcasts, for example – for a yet-to-be-determined subscription increase. The same holds true for current XM customers, estimated to be 9 million, who would be able to add Sirius channels (including Stern’s) for a similar increase. After this appearance on Stern’s show, Karmazin was in a spending mood. Bloomberg reported on August 4th that the media mogul bought 2 million shares of Sirius XM, bringing his total investment to $11.8 million. The stock was hovering around $1.40 a share in mid-August.

Sirius customers have had to deal with a minor headache as a result of the merger. The output of the FM transmitter (which allows the receiver to operate wirelessly through a car radio) exceeds the limits established by the FCC and therefore causes interference with other nearby radios. A recent letter sent to Sirius customers promises no health concerns and offers multiple solutions to the FCC violations, one of which requires professional installation at the company’s expense. That can’t be good for the stock price.

CHOPPING BLOCK: The cutbacks in newsroom personnel and page count at the Chicago Tribune are seen in the paper’s slimmed-down redesign, utilizing briefer stories and more informational graphics. “Nation Briefing” and “World Briefing” pages inside the main section chop the day’s news into the bare facts, with simple maps of where the action is taking place. Columnist John Kass – a crusader against City Hall corruption – provided a bright spot in coverage recently, effectively making news happen when he wrote a front page column revealing a top official for the Chicago Aviation Department received a personal electric generator from ComEd when storms knocked out power to his neighborhood in August. Neighbors ratted him out to Kass, who showed up at Dave Ochal’s house with WGN cameras in tow. Kass previously criticized Ochal in print after the city employee allegedly had a pool built in his backyard without obtaining the proper permits. Although Ochal was cleared of any wrong-doing in the “Pool Boy” crisis, Kass ultimately prevailed in the generator fiasco when Ochal resigned his post, according to a August 9th story in the Tribune.

– Jason Scales

That’s the domain of college radio – where students and community DJs often play (and say) anything, and with its focus on the local and offbeat, college radio is a great place for local bands to get airplay.

Here are a few local stations of note:

At press time, Loyola University’s WLUW-FM (88.7/Wluw.org) was in flux. For the past decade the 100-watt station has been a true listener-supported community station, with shows ranging from indie rock to local public-affairs like “Live From The Heartland” to programs serving everyone from the Vietnamese, Ethiopian, Islamic, and Native American communities to shows for labor activists, queer music aficionados, and Latin American indie rockers.

But all that started to change just before July 1st, when the university’s new School Of Communication took over the station so it could “become an integral part of the learning environment for our growing number of new majors in the communications field.” That’s when a handful of longtime community DJs jumped ship – including indie rocker Mary Nisi and “Hump Day Dance Party” hosts Dr. Drase and Michael Flavor.

“Loyola said they didn’t want us to go, that nothing is going to change yet,” says Nisi (the university did not respond to an e-mail request for an interview). “But they implied that it could change at any time. I’ve been doing my show for seven years, and didn’t want to have it taken away from me when I wasn’t looking. And I didn’t want to be part of the station the way it sounds now.”

She and other WLUW alumni are part of the Chicago Independent Radio Project (CHIRP), which plans to launch a community-based Web radio station later this summer and eventually start a low-power FM station (Chicagoindependentradioproject.org).

The format is all free-form, all the time at Northeastern Illinois University’s WZRD-FM (88.3/Neiu.edu/~wzrd), where different genres of music, spoken word, and sound effects are played side-by-side in a way that usually flows rather than jars. With a library of rare recordings that includes 15,000 records and another 15,000 CDs, cassettes, and reel-to-reels, there’s no telling what you’ll hear. “We always say if you don’t like what you hear right now, turn us on again in five minutes and you’ll hear something completely different,” says former Program Director Dan Demchuk.

DJs, called Wizards, don’t say their names on air (full disclosure: I was a Wizard in 1988). “We want people to stay focused on music and the message, and not worry about self-aggrandizement,” says Demchuk.

WZRD is also home to the longest-running live-music radio show in Chicago, “Thursday Night Live,” which airs Thursdays around 10:30 p.m. and dates back to 1979. The station also airs “Democracy Now!” At 7 and 8 a.m. and “Free Speech Radio News” weekdays at 4 and 10 p.m. (Web streaming is in the works.)

Northwestern University’s WNUR-FM (89.3/Wnur.org) calls itself “Chicago’s Sound Experiment” and boasts a whopping 72,000 watts of power. Its major formats are indie rock, jazz, hip-hop, and world music. There’s also reggae, folk, blues, classical, Southeast Asian, and punk rock, in the form of “Fast ‘N’ Loud” (Saturdays at midnight). The engaging and funny (yes, funny) public-affairs show “This Is Hell” airs Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., and the live-music show “Airplay” (Saturdays evenings from 5 to 7) has featured in-studio performances since 1988.

“Then HPK was the only station that would fuck with rap,” says Common in his 1994 song, “Nuthin’ To Do.” He’s referring to the University Of Chicago’s 100-watt WHPK-FM (88.5/Whpk.org), one of the first radio stations in the country to play rap thanks to mid-’80s DJs J.P. Chill, Ken Wissoker, and Patrick Moxey, Jr.

Called “The Pride Of The South Side,” WKPK uses volunteers from the university and community, and its call letters stand for Woodlawn-Hyde Park-Kenwood. There’s indie rock and jazz along with shows such as “Jazz In Flight” hosted by the husband-and-wife team of Zimprov frontman Zimbabu Hamilton and vocalist Phoenix Hamilton (alternating Tuesday nights from 7 to 9) and Arkansas Red’s “The Blues Excursion” (Saturdays from 7 to midnight), in which the host sings over songs, takes calls, and skewers his competitors. There’s a live mix show Sundays from 10 p.m. to midnight, and the Thursday night “Dusties Party” airs from 8 p.m. to midnight; public-affairs shows range from an open forum called “The Radio Soapbox” to “The People’s Radio,” which focuses on tenants’ issues. The live, in-studio performance show “Pure Hype” airs Fridays from 9 to 10:30 p.m.

The College Of DuPage’s WDCB-FM (90.9/Wdcb.org) is a professional, 5,000-watt public-radio station that focuses on jazz, folk, blues, reggae, and classical music. Musicians/DJs include Barry Winograd, Paul Abella, John “British Buddy” Burnett, and Bruce Oscar.

Several shows have migrated to the station from other outlets, including Steve Cushing’s “Blues Before Sunrise” (early Sunday mornings from midnight to 5 a.m.), Victor Parra’s “Mambo Express” (Sundays at 3 p.m.), and Chuck Schaden’s old-time “Those Were The Days” (Saturdays at 1 p.m.). An unusual standout is Steve James’ metal show, which features local talent and airs early Monday mornings from midnight to 5 a.m.

– Cara Jepsen

Weigel Broadcasting, which owns WCIU-Channel 26 (where “Soul Train” got its start back in 1970), as well as WWME-Channel 23 and WMEU-Channel 48, recently hired Harvey Moshman and Randy King to create local content in new formats.

From 2002 through 2005, King was vice president of programming at WTTW, where he helped revamp “Chicago Tonight” and developed the live-music shows “Soundstage” and “Legends Of Jazz.” He’s now production manager at Weigel.

As executive producer of program development, former “Wild Chicago” producer Moshman will oversee the syndicated program “First Business,” which originates at the Chicago Board Of Trade.

Weigel Broadcasting is a local, independent company with a storied past. John Weigel founded it with $2,000 when he purchased the license for what became the first UHF station in Chicagoland. WCIU (it stands for Chicago, Illinois UHF) went on the air in 1964. Weigel, who created “The Stock Market Observer,” was ousted in a 1965 hostile takeover, but the name stuck (he moved to Kenosha and started a dairy farm and is the father of WBBM-TV sports anchor Tim Weigel). The station’s past creations include the shows “A Black’s View Of The News,” “Mulqueen’s Kiddie A-Go-Go,” and “Svengoolie.” At press time no new music shows were in the works yet.

ALTERNATIVE VOICES: Beachwood Reporter founder Steve Rhodes began doing a political blog for NBC-Channel 5 in March. Called “Division Street” (in homage to the Studs Terkel book and the diversity of its namesake), it’s at www.nbc5.com/politics. A typical post: “Barack Obama officially disowned Trinity Church on Saturday but remains associated with a far more sinister organization with a long record of divisive misdeeds and criminal behavior that is likely to become an issue in the general election: The Cook County Democratic Party.”

Amy Goodman’s excellent NYC-based alternative news show “Democracy Now” airs weekdays at 7 and 8 a.m. on WZRD-FM (88.3), at 9 a.m. on WLUW-FM (88.7), and at noon on WRTE-FM (90.5). Watch live on cable at 7 a.m. on CAN TV Channel 19. For satellite listings, live streaming, and podcasts go to Democracynow.org.

Since doubling its signal last November, progressive talk radio station WCPT-AM (820) has been much easier to hear. Earlier this year Michael Feldman’s brilliant “What’Ya Know” was added live on Saturdays (10 to noon). Retired WMAQ-TV political commentator Dick Kay does a show Saturdays from 2 to 4 p.m., and Public Enemy frontman Chuck D hosts Sunday nights at 10.

WCPT recently brought back MSNBC regular Rachel Maddow (5 to 8 p.m.). The only daily Air America show currently carried is “The Thom Hartmann Show” – heard on tape delay from 2 to 5 p.m. except on Fridays at 4 p.m., when there’s an hour-long program just for WCPT listeners. (Daily hosts Bill Press, Stephanie Miller, and Ed Schultz are with Jones Radio Network).

SEXISM AND THE AMERICAN MEDIA: Last month, Andrew Stephens, of U.K.-based socialist magazine The New Statesman, raised interesting questions about the media’s role in fanning the flames of American misogyny during the Democratic primary season. In the article, called “Hating Hillary,” he wrote, “I am no particular fan of Clinton. Nor, I think, would friends and colleagues accuse me of being racist. But it is quite inconceivable that any leading male presidential candidate would be treated with such hatred and scorn as Clinton has been. What other senator and serious White House contender would be likened by National Public Radio’s political editor, Ken Rudin, to the demoniac, knife-wielding stalker played by Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction? Or described as ‘a fucking whore’ by Randi Rhodes, one of the foremost personalities of the supposedly liberal Air America? Would Carl Bernstein (of Woodward & Bernstein fame) ever publicly declare his disgust about a male candidate’s ‘thick ankles’? Could anybody have envisaged that a [Web site] set up specifically to oppose any other candidate would be called Citizens United Not Timid? (We do not need an acronym for that.)

“. . . It is nonetheless pointless to argue whether sexism or racism is the greater evil: America has a peculiarly wicked record of racist subjugation, which has resulted in its racism being driven deep underground. It festers there, ready to explode again in some unpredictable way.

“To compensate meantime, I suspect, sexism has been allowed to take its place as a form of discrimination that is now openly acceptable. ‘How do we beat the bitch?’ a woman asked Senator John McCain, this year’s Republican presidential nominee, at a Republican rally last November. To his shame, McCain did not rebuke the questioner but joined in the laughter. Had his supporter asked ‘How do we beat the nigger?’ and McCain reacted in the same way, however, his presidential hopes would deservedly have gone up in smoke. ‘Iron my shirt,’ is considered amusing heckling of Clinton. ‘Shine my shoes,’ rightly, would be hideously unacceptable if yelled at Obama.”

For the rest of “Hating Hillary,” go to www.newstatesman.com and search “Hating Hillary.”

– Cara Jepsen

The most witty, politically incisive talk show on the radio doesn’t air on a commercial station.

It’s engineered by students, who are trained on the job.

And the host isn’t paid.

In fact, “This Is Hell!” host Chuck Mertz hasn’t received a dime since his program began to air on Northwestern University’s WNUR-FM (89.3) more than a decade ago.

“This is something I have to do if I want to be happy, to feel like my life is fulfilled in some way,” explains Mertz, who describes himself on the air as a “bitter, blind, broke, gap-toothed radio-show host.”

Mertz, who is legally blind due to a rare neurological condition, spends more than 60 hours a week preparing for the irreverent, politically oriented talk show, which airs Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. (www.wnur.org or Thisishell.net).

Each week he serves up interviews and news analysis from those outside the mainstream media, and talks to regular contributors – including rants from playwright and fiction writer Jeff Dorchen and a tech expert named LaddieO.com, who delivers tech news from “the hermetically sealed room at URL Labs.”

And he does it with ample humor.

Mertz would love to find a bigger outlet for the show, whose motto is “Brave enough to be live, dumb enough to be goofy, stupid enough to think we can be a regular part of your Saturday morning hangover.”

“I think it’s good enough for somebody to pick it up,” he says. “Over the past two years, the majority of the shows have been pretty good.” He and a “pseudo-agent” are about to make a push to market the show, which raised $11,000 in four hours during WNUR’s pledge drive last year and regularly sets fundraising records at the station. In 2004 Mertz was approached by the local Air America affiliate to do a show – without a studio, Web site, or budget (he turned them down). “We have a ton of listeners,” he says. “People in the media industry have heard about it. So I’m surprised we haven’t been at least approached by anybody.”

Last year “This Is Hell!” made it to the final seven in the Public Radio Talent Quest contest, beating more than 1,400 entries. “It was like ‘American Idol’ for [National Public Radio],” he says. “But our show isn’t what public radio sounds like. By the final three, everything sounded like ‘This American Life,’ even though they were stressing the whole time that they weren’t looking for another ‘This American Life.’

“I don’t mind,” he continues. “We won $1,500 from them, and our podcasting went through the roof. We have 37,000 downloads of the show each week, and the online streaming has gone drastically up.”

The program has featured long-form interviews with more than 1,500 guests. “I really work hard not to have repeat guests on, because I want to give as many people access to the airwaves as possible,” says Mertz, who has not had a regular job in seven years but receives a small monthly disability check. “I like ‘Countdown With Keith Olbermann’ at times. But what I hate is that he has the same eight people on every week. I hate that whole ‘usual suspects’ kind of idea. That’s why I have people on who contradict other people. That’s O.K.; it’s up to the audience to decide which opinion they like most.”

Or, as he says on the Web site, “We do not want to tell our audience what to think, but what to think about . . . and we try to do this without boring you to death.”

To that end, each interview ends with “The Question From Hell,” which often elicits a surprising response.

One of his least favorite guests was a man from the Anti-Boring Institute “who was the most boring person I’ve ever had on the show.”

He’s also not a fan of condescending guests. “The most enjoyable people are those who have a good sense of humor and get the entire idea of the show,” he says. “[Activist, historian, and playwright] Howard Zinn listens to your questions and thinks about it and has a really good sense of humor.” Mertz also cites linguist Noam Chomsky and independent war reporter Dahr Jamail.

His dream guest is veteran war journalist Seymour Hersh, who won a Pulitzer Prize for breaking the My Lai Massacre during the Vietnam War and exposed torture at Abu Ghraib.

In the meantime, he has been asking listeners to e-mail their top choices for the all-request 10th anniversary show, which will air June 7th. Rather than dusting off the archives, he’ll do a new, live interview with each guest.

Afterwards he’ll give away new “This Is Hell!” posters during a meet-and-greet at Cary’s Lounge (2251 W. Devon). He started the after-show event last year. “I hate doing public appearances, but one thing I have to do to promote the show is to do things in public,” he says. “One time Martyrs’ wanted me to be part of a debate on the war in Iraq. I said, ‘There are tons of experts on that in town – why don’t you ask them?’ It’s part of the glorification of celebrities, like getting Angelina Jolie to talk about hunger; there should be more interest in talking to experts in the field.

“I thought that this is a way in which I’m not going to be talking about something bigger than the radio show. The listeners can meet each other.”

– Cara Jepsen

“There’s been a lot of agitation on the part of the electronic media and regular press to open up the courtrooms,” says courtroom artist Andy Austin, author of the new book Rule 53: Capturing Hippies, Spies, Politicians, And Murders In An American Courtroom (Lake Claremont, $19.95). Rule 53 is a Federal Rule Of Criminal Procedure, which prohibits cameras and recording devices in the courtroom, in turn ensuring artists like Austin have a job.

Her book is a riveting, behind-the-scenes look at 11 prosecutions spanning 38 years of Chicago crime history – including the trials of John Wayne Gacy Jr., the El Rukn street gang, and various mobsters and governors. It features more than 100 of Austin’s courtroom sketches.

One of the most dramatic is a gagged Bobby Seale tied to a chair as part of the Chicago Seven conspiracy trial for the 1968 Democratic National Convention protests.

Austin got her start at that trial. The Vassar graduate studied art in Italy, and had been drawing at home and on the street before deciding to sketch in the federal court. “It just happened that I went to this incredible trial that was historic,” she says.

She talked her way into a job drawing for ABC-TV when their courtroom artist had to leave to cover the Ted Kennedy/ Chappaquiddick trial. “When I started I wasn’t very good and I had terrible days and I’d think, ‘Oh my God, I can’t imagine this going on the air’ – particularly for a national story,” she recalls. “Somebody who really cares about being a great artist wouldn’t like this job.”

Still with ABC, she has also covered trials involving celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey, Michael Jordan, Michael Jackson, and the Bee Gees.

“I loved the idea of journalism, and this was like being a reporter but without being responsible for all of that note-taking,” she says.

Nonetheless, she has always taken notes in the margins of her sketches. “When I hear something good, I can’t help but put it down. That’s how it started – even back at the conspiracy trial. But around 1987 I thought I had to write a book. Then I wrote more and more. I’m sort of famous for having written so much stuff you can hardly find the sketches sometimes.”

Sometimes, she was sent to “babysit” a trial without a reporter – and took notes in case something newsworthy happened. She also did a lot of eavesdropping through the years. “There were these old men who used to come and watch trials, the court buffs. It was like free theater for them. Because they were mostly deaf they’d talk in these really loud voices. I wrote down what they said and kind of used them as a Greek chorus in the book, commenting on the action. There are hardly any of them left – I think because people at that age are at home watching TV. But this generation of old gentlemen grew up before television.”

Austin is all for keeping cameras out of the courtroom. “Many of us feel very strongly that the right to a fair trial would not allow this – partly because it would be like entertainment, and partly because the witnesses would be intimidated. If you’re testifying against mobsters, you don’t want them to see you there – or for someone to see you on TV. Their lives might be in danger.

“People also may feel that judges and lawyers may act differently and start playing to a larger crowd. They may have larger political ambitions, as many state’s attorneys often do.”

Not that everyone gets the picture. “There’s a new problem, which just happened in court the other day,” she says, referring to the corruption trial of political fundraiser and businessman Tony Rezko. “Somebody was taking pictures with their cell phone. Actually, it was a member of the press, who should have known better and was happily snapping away.”

Courtroom artists often sell their sketches to the people in them; even Conrad Black bought some – though, she says, “It’s unusual for a defendant to buy sketches. More often it’s the lawyers and judges.”

So far there are no plans for a follow-up. “I could write so many sequels, because practically every trial I’ve covered is interesting,” says Austin, who went through reams of court transcripts to check facts for the book. “But I don’t feel like doing it again right away . . . it was an enormous amount of work.”

Austin will appear at 57th Street Books (1301 E. 57th) for a book signing Tuesday, May 27th at 6 p.m.

ODDS ‘N’ SODS: Also on the book beat, award-winning WBBM-Channel 2 organized crime reporter John “Bulldog” Drummond just released It Ain’t Pretty But It’s Real (Chicago Spectrum Press), a sequel to his 1998 memoir . . . And just in time for the 60th anniversary of the first Cubs game broadcast on superstation WGN-Channel 9 (April 16th, 1948) is a DVD and book, Cubs Forever: Memories From The Men Who Lived Them (Triumph Books) . . . The co-hosts of the new half-hour magazine show “24/7: Secrets Of The City” are club owner Billy Dec, “Bachelorette” finalist Jamie Blyth, and former “Your Nude Hippo Show” beat reporter Catie Keogh. It airs Saturdays at midnight, right after “Saturday Night Live” . . . The Department Of Justice has O.K.’d the merger of Sirius and XM Satellite Radio. First announced more than a year ago, the merger would put Howard Stern, Bob Edwards, Oprah Winfrey, and Opie And Anthony on the same “station” – once it’s approved by the Federal Communications Commission.

– Cara Jepsen

Two years ago Steve Rhodes left his post as Chicago magazine media and political writer and launched The Beachwood Reporter, an online magazine chronicling all things Chicago (www.beachwoodreporter.com).

Last year longtime New York Daily News TV critic David Bianculli made the leap to the Web with Tvworthwatching.com, after the newspaper he’d been with for 14 years did not renew his contract. Former Chicago Reader music critic Bill Wyman also recently made the leap to the Web, with a music and media blog, Hitsville.org.

Wyman says the idea for his blog dates back to 2002, when he was an arts editor at National Public Radio. (Wyman was also arts editor at San Francisco Weekly and Salon.com and co-founded the rock ‘n’ roll talk show “Sound Opinions” with Sun-Times rock critic Jim DeRogatis in 1993. (He was not, however, a founding member of The Rolling Stones.)

“Many years ago, back on the radio show, we had Bob Guccione Jr. on – [former] editor of Spin,” Wyman explains. “I asked him why he didn’t cover the actual music business. ‘Oh, but we cover so much of the music business,’ he answered. To really savor the conversation, you have to envision him responding in his fake British accent. ‘No, you don’t,’ I’d said. ‘We do stuff all the time,’ he said, again with the accent. ‘Name one story,’ I said, and the silence was deafening.”

Wyman was a well-known music critic in Chicago, particularly in the early 1990s when his “Reader Hitsville” columns provoked letter wars with Chicago producer and Big Black/Shellac frontman Steve Albini over such topics as the relative merits of Liz Phair, Urge Overkill, and Smashing Pumpkins (these letters can be accessed; all of the Reader’s archives are now open at www.chicagoreader.com/hitsville/pander.html).

Wyman’s new blog covers everything from the future of file-sharing to the demise of No Depression to Maxim’s review of a Black Crowes record the critic hadn’t even heard in its entirety.

“The vaporization of the music industry is marvelous to watch,” says Wyman. “Now we get to see if the TV and movie industry learns from the mistakes.

“There’s the age-old complaints about financial exploitation of bands, which are often justified, but the vast majority of that is just the workings of the biz, and the rights the band signs away to get the advance. To turn Michael Kinsley’s dictum about politics upside down, the real scandal is not what’s legal – it’s what’s illegal. Labels don’t pay the bands the royalties they are entitled to. Up until recently, almost every song a radio station played was paid for by a record company. R. Kelly – it’s amazing he’s walking around a free man. There’s three very well-documented child-porn or child-sex charges against him, and he’s allowed to tour – to charge young girls money to be in the same room with him. What do people think goes on after an R. Kelly concert? It’s amazing.”

Rhodes’ clever and well-written Beachwood Reporter boasts regular contributors that cover everything from music to politics (they’ve even produced a few parody songs that have aired on the radio).

But its centerpiece is Rhodes’ daily front-page segment, “The Papers,” an incisive roundup of the newspapers’ top stories.

Rhodes said he started The Beachwood Reporter out of frustration with print media’s inability to embrace the new technology – and the demise of his popular online column, “Pressbox.”

“I felt like a revolution was going on and I was missing it,” he says.”To me the Internet is the most exciting thing to come along for journalism in a really long time. The print world has always been threatened by the Internet and defensive about it. I never really understood that. For me the Internet is a place where we can push journalism even further. It offers so many opportunities to do better reporting and better journalism, and you get that instant feedback from your readers.”

Sadly, none of these sites are overflowing with advertising. Yet.

At the same time, more journalists are losing their jobs as media organizations consolidate and “streamline” their holdings. Most seem to have been looking the other way when the Internet came to life.

“I think the Reader is a great example of getting caught flat-footed and not understanding the changes and not being innovative and not making the transition soon enough to the Web,” says Rhodes. “Now they’re kind of figuring it out. But I think it’s too late.

“Today I was reading a Tribune editorial dissing the New York Times story about John McCain, and reading it online,” he continues. “There was no link to the New York Times story that their story was about. They can’t even do basic linking. This says to me there’s a long way to go.”

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE: On April 7th, Chicago-based Pitchfork Media, which Rhodes calls “probably the most influential music site on the planet,” will launch its own online music TV channel, Pitchfork.tv. Described in press materials as “a visual extension of the music coverage Pitchfork has provided for more than a decade,” it will air everything from obscure indie music videos to full-length concerts and documentaries to bootleg videos. They promise high-resolution, on-demand features. “Now that the technology is here, we’re finally able to do it the way that people who really care about music have always wanted to see it done.”

Cara Jepsen’s weblog, No Sleep Til Mysore, dates back to 2003 and is at Mysore.blogspot. com.

– Cara Jepsen

But at least they can subsidize our TV viewing.

The government is spending some $1.5 billion on its digital converter switchover program, which will ensure people with analog TVs can continue to watch over-the-air programming when the signals go completely high definition February 2009.

Analog TVs that use an antenna won’t be able to tune in unless they’re connected to a $60 device that converts the HDTV signal to standard-definition (SDTV).

The government will issue two $40-off coupons to each household that makes a request before March 30, ‘09.

It may seem like a giveaway to the networks, the National Association Of Broadcasters, consumer electronics manufacturers, and electronics stores, but apparently it’s a matter of public safety. The program is part of the Digital Television Transition And Public Safety Act Of 2005, which is overseen by the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications And Information Administration (NTIA).

About 14 percent of U.S. households watch TV over the air exclusively – or some 15.5-million households, according to a Federal Communications Commission report (the Consumer Electronics Association says there are some 13.5 million such households). However consumer groups say $1.5 billion won’t cover all the analog TVs – as many as 73 million – that might need conversion.

The boxes are only necessary for analog TVs that receive their signal through an antenna. Analog TVs hooked to cable and satellite television will require a digital cable box or receiver from a cable carrier in order to watch digitally delivered programming. But even they may want to get a couple converters as backup. Because you never know (at least in my neighborhood) when the cable will go out. And public safety really is important.

The $40-off coupon is good only for a single-use receiver. Devices with other features – such as a DVD recorder or DVR – will not be covered by the coupon. Although households are entitled to two coupons, only one can be used towards each device. The converter won’t turn an analog set into HDTV, but experts say the SDTV signal will probably look better than old-school analog.

No word yet on whether it will improve WBBM-TV Channel 2’s notoriously poor signal.

The coupon is expected to look like a plastic gift card and will expire after 90 days; it will also be tracked electronically. For an application, call (888) 388-2009 or visit www.dtv2009.gov. The coupons can be used at any electronics store. That is, when they become available. As of press time they still weren’t around. The FCC’s most recent estimate was late February or early March.

ODDS ‘N’ SODS: Not that there will be much to see on TV even though the Hollywood writers strike just ended – unless, of course, you like reality TV. One ray of hope is British comedian Tracey Ullman – whose successful pre-TV recording career included the 1984 hit “They Don’t Know” (the video of which featured a cameo by Paul McCartney). Her new show comes to Showtime on March 30th. Though there are only five episodes in the can, “State Of The Union” looks promising. It has Ullman playing different characters and presenting a day in the life of America. It sounds not unlike what she did on her eponymous, Emmy award-winning Fox show back in the 1980s – where “The Simpsons” first appeared as a series of animated shorts. “State Of The Union” appears after “The Tudors” Sundays at 8 p.m . . . If we get really desperate there’s Fox’s new reality show, “When Women Ruled The World,” in which participants are sent to a remote location to create a new society where women are in charge and men take the orders. According to the press release, it’ll be a world “in which there is no glass ceiling and no dressing up to impress. In order to win, the men must accede to the women’s every demand, 24/7. Here, women command and men obey.” Yeah, right. It premieres March 3rd at 7 p.m. Kind of reminds us of a half-baked version of the brilliant 1977 satire, “All That Glitters.”

Some 14 full-time and three part-time Newspaper Guild Of America employees were laid off and 12 others took buyouts during the recent Chicago Sun-Times purges. They included TV critic Doug Elfman, who has made his way back to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, where he used to be music critic (and where his syndicated “Game Dork” column runs). His new incarnation is as entertainment reporter. He never was able to fill former Times TV critic Phil Rosenthal’s shoes after the latter sold out to the Tribune in 2005. But we’d still rather see a lame local critic covering the media than some syndicated voice from afar. Look for the paper to be sold – soon. And read “The Watcher” Maureen Ryan in the Tribune before she disappears, too . . . Just a few weeks after his Madison-based “Whad’Ya Know?” was dusted by WBEZ-FM (91.5), Michael Feldman’s lively call-in quiz show was picked up by by Newsweb Corp-owned WCPT-AM (820). It’ll air live for the first time in years on the progressive talk station – Saturdays at 10 a.m. Now, if WCPT could only find a way to boost their signal. Perhaps the government will step in and help them, too. Somehow we doubt it.

– Cara Jepsen