Media
Media: April 2018
I was 23 years old the day I walked into the Loop offices for the first time. After getting rejections from the other rock stations in Chicago (and there were quite a few at the time), I had thrown a Hail Mary pass to the biggest of them all, The Loop. I wrote a letter […]
Media: March 2018
In 1968, John Records Landecker was in his final semester at Michigan State University (after beginning his college career at Grand Valley State), when he suddenly got an offer he felt he couldn’t refuse. A big AM rock station in Philadelphia (WIBG) wanted him to be their new nighttime jock. The only problem was […]
Media: February 2018
When I called Chicago radio legend Fred Winston (WLS, WMAQ, WFYR, WCFL, WPNT, WJMK, WLUP, and just about every other station on the dial), the gentleman farmer now living in Southwest Michigan, was in the middle of a project. “You caught me repairing a doorknob. Thank God for the internet. There are scores of YouTube […]
Media: January 2018
If you’ve listened to rock and roll radio for the last three decades, you’ve undoubtedly run across the work of Steve Seaver. He’s been rocking Chicago since 1991 at stations like The Blaze, The Loop, and currently The Drive (97.1 FM). He’s one of those rare personalities who can be identified by one name, […]
Media: December 2017
It’s become a year-end tradition in this space to honor some of the broadcasters we lost in the past calendar year. All of them touched countless lives in the Chicago area, maybe even your own. The Chicago media community is diminished by their absence. JOE COLLINS – Collins was a veteran traffic reporter in Chicago best […]
Media: November 2017
Tom Shaer’s career in Chicago media includes stints as the morning man (and first voice ever) on the Score, ESPN AM 1000, morning sports anchor on WBBM News radio, and TV sports anchor at Channel 5, among other positions, but the Massachusetts native got his start in the business in Boston, and he did it […]
Media: October 2017
Joe Cicero Star 105.5 (McHenry-based) morning show host Joe Cicero grew up in the Chicago area during one of local radio’s strongest eras–the early to mid-90s. “I grew up in Addison,” he explains, “and I dropped out of high school when I was 17 and drove a delivery van. That gave me a lot […]
Media: September 2017
Fred Huebner is certainly not a newcomer on the local sports radio scene. His roots go back four decades. “Like a lot of those guys on the Score, I started working at Sportsphone,” he explains. “I was there beginning in 1976. We would do reports that were exactly 59 seconds–and people called the number to […]
Media: August 2017
It’s been ten years since I wrote my first novel $everance (ENC Press, 2007). That book was a satire about what had become of the media business since the original deregulation in 1996. It was intended to shine a light on the dangers of entrusting so much control over news and information in the hands […]
Media: July 2017
When Len O’Kelly was working in Chicago as a music director and disc jockey for radio stations like WJMK (104.3), academia was the furthest thing from his mind. At the time he was a college dropout and working in one of the top markets in the country. He thought he’d be doing that the rest […]
Media: June 2017
When WXRT night jock Ryan Arnold says he grew up on WXRT, he doesn’t just mean that he listened to the station. His mom Marge Arnold worked there when he was growing up, and he spent a lot of time in the hallways. “I literally grew up in the bowels of WXRT back when it […]
May 2017: Media
When Wally Phillips retired from WGN Radio, the afternoon man Bob Collins replaced him. When Bob Collins died in a plane crash, the afternoon man Spike O’Dell replaced him. When Spike O’Dell retired, Steve Cochran was doing the afternoon show at WGN. “They offered me the job, and it was the worst deal offered to […]
Media: April 2017
Charlie Meyerson has been a part of the Chicago media landscape now for four decades as a newscaster for WXRT, WNUA, WGN, the Chicago Tribune and more. Just last year he brought home an Edward R. Murrow award for a report he did at Rivet Radio. “One night at Rivet,” he explained, “we had a […]
Media: March 2017
At the beginning of the 2016 season, WGN Cubs broadcaster Len Kasper got some excellent advice. “One of my best friends is a non-fiction author and we talk about writing all the time. We met for breakfast last year just before spring training and he said ‘You should keep a journal this year. It’ll be […]
Media: February 2017
Bill Cochran was drawn to music radio for the same reason most people are. “I just love music,” he admits. “I’m a music fan – almost a music geek. Since childhood discovering new music was always a joy for me. I grew up in Oklahoma, listening to a radio station with a format, as […]
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