Advertise on podcast: Charlie Meyerson interviews

[Originally posted July 8, 2026. Update, Sept. 5, 2026: Ms. Morgan’s death today at 85—announced by her son on Facebook—makes this interview all the more memorable.] I doubt that back in 1972, when I bought the first issue of Ms. Magazine—whose cover featured the iconic declaration “Wonder Woman for President”—I could’ve imagined that a bit more than 20 years later I’d sit down with that magazine’s then-editor-in-chief Robin Morgan to talk about the state of the women’s movement. At the time, she was promoting her book The Word of a Woman: Feminist Dispatches, 1968-1992. Few of my archival interviews through the years resonate as much with the current day as this one does—including Morgan’s comments about the downsides of advertiser-compromised news media. Listening takes me back to a time that was in many ways hopeful—and conjures a parallel universe we never made. And although some of those hopes have yet to materialize, Morgan’s words then suggest we may yet find our way back. I hope you find this interview, presented here for the first time since its broadcast on WNUA-FM in Chicago Dec. 13, 1992, as engaging as I do. Hear here. Shortly after hearing this resurrected recording, Morgan dropped me an email: Hey Charlie! What a thoughtful, intelligent interview! Your questions were fair and excellent, and our conversation stands as certainly one of the best interviews I’ve ever done. So thanks again! And feel free to post this! All best, Robin Hear more of my conversations with thought leaders through the years on this website, in Apple Podcasts, on Spotify or Pandora, via your favorite podcast player and at Chicago Public Square.

A decade later, I realize that the work that won the team at Rivet a 2016 national Edward R. Murrow Award for audio investigative reporting hasn’t had a place on this website—or in the Meyerson Interviews podcast series. This oughtta fix that. Here’s the entry submission: 2016 Edward R. Murrow Awards Audio Investigative Reporting Our glass desk exploded. Yours could, too. Charlie Meyerson, Jonah Meadows, Elizabeth Giadans, Marc Filippino, George Drake Jr. Hear this entry on SoundCloud: soundcloud.com/rivetradio/our-glass-desk-exploded-yours-could-too ABOUT THIS ENTRY: What would you do if, while you were working overnight, a nearby glass desk just … exploded? When it happened to Rivet’s Jonah Meadows and Elizabeth Giadans, we investigated. What we learned surprised us. Because it happens a lot. (Posted to Rivet Nov. 8, 2015.) ABOUT RIVET RADIO: Rivet Radio provides customizable audio news globally and across platforms. With millions of listeners, Rivet’s cloud is powering consumer, automotive, home, media and business applications. It’s radio reimagined. Rivet was honored last year with the regional and national Radio-Television-Digital News Association Edward R. Murrow Awards for “Best Use of Sound” and a regional Murrow for “Best Online News Organization”; and with the Chicago Headline Club’s Lisagor Awards for “Best Newscast” and “Best Consumer Reporting.” Rivet was named Best Online Startup at the 2013 Lisagors.

The collapse of the indictment of six people who in the fall of 2025 were protesting the Trump administration’s “Operation Midway Blitz” immigration crackdown created problem after problem for the feds—and in particular for the U.S. attorney’s office in Chicago. As you’re about to hear, that case might’ve gone quite differently if not for a fateful connection between two dads who met on the fields of Oak Park Youth Baseball: One of the defendants, Oak Park Village Trustee Brian Straw, and the man who would become his lawyer, Chris Parente. In a Wednesday Journal / Chicago Public Square podcast, recorded at Oak Park’s historic 19th Century Club, Straw and Parente explain how it went down, what it means for the nation … and what a movie about the case should look like. Hear them in conversation June 25, 2026—after an introduction from Journal founder Dan Haley. Listen here, or hear this and other Square podcasts on Spotify, Pandora, YouTube, Amazon’s Alexa-powered speakers or Apple Podcasts. If you prefer watching to just listening, here’s video of the session (link corrected), produced by John Roberts and Edward Pitts of Absolute Streaming. And you can read all about the discussion here. ■ Enjoying these podcasts? Reader support makes them possible. ■ And consider subscribing—free—to the daily Square email newsletter. _____ Photos, left to right: Meyerson, Straw, Parente. Photographer: Todd Bannor.

The death in March 2026 of Pulitzer winner Tracy Kidder—a reporter The Associated Press credits with turning “everything from computer engineering to life in a nursing home into unexpected bestsellers”—sent me diving back into the archives for the time in 1993 that I was fortunate enough to sit down with him to discuss his then-new book, Old Friends, documenting his year spent visiting and observing the proceedings at a nursing home in western Massachusetts. To hear him now is to celebrate journalism at its best. Here’s that interview, digitized and newly available for the first time since its broadcast on WNUA-FM in Chicago on Oct. 17, 1993. (Recorded Oct. 15, 1993.) Hear more of my conversations with thought leaders through the years on this website, in Apple Podcasts, on Spotify or Pandora, via your favorite podcast player and at Chicago Public Square.

… in which acclaimed broadcaster and podcast host John St. Augustine and I discuss the intersection of news, podcasting … and farmers’ market music. Thanks, John, for the kind words about my modest efforts in all three arenas. (Interview recorded March 29, 2026; published May 30, 2026.) If you like this, check out more of my podcast guidance on Rivet’s website and elsewhere on this blog. And hear more of my conversations with thought-leaders through the years on this website, in Apple Music, on Pandora or Spotify, via your favorite podcast player and at Chicago Public Square.

Have you thanked a journalist lately? Coming off one of the most challenging years ever for local U.S. reporters, the historic 19th Century Club in Oak Park gathered a panel of journalists—and a gerontologist—to assess the present and future of local news, with your Chicago Public Square publisher as a moderator. And now, in a Square podcast, hear how it went, May 9, 2026—with Monica Eng of Axios Chicago; Manny Ramos of Block Club Chicago; Max Reinsdorf, general manager of the Newswell Chicago newspapers; and gerontologist Dr. Lydia Manning. Listen here, or on Spotify, Pandora, YouTube, Amazon’s Alexa-powered speakers or Apple Podcasts. If you prefer to watch your podcasts, here’s video of the session, produced by John Roberts and Edward Pitts of Absolute Streaming. ■ Enjoying these podcasts? Reader support makes them possible. ■ And consider subscribing—free—to the daily Square email newsletter. _____Photos, left to right: Meyerson, Manning, Eng, Ramos, Reinsdorf.Photographer: Todd Bannor.Raw audio: John Roberts and Edward Pitts, Absolute Streaming.

Every fall, the Farther Foundation—a nonprofit devoted to providing global travel opportunities for students from families and communities that have faced chronic disinvestment and sustained inequity—hosts a Story Slam at the historic FitzGerald’s Night Club in Berwyn. I was honored to be invited to take the stage in 2023 but—as you’re about to learn—couldn’t make it. The foundation nevertheless invited me back the next year. And—given its belief in the life-changing power of travel—well, I couldn’t resist sharing the story of how one particular seemingly ill-fated trip changed my life absolutely for the better. Here’s how it sounded, Oct. 10, 2024. If you enjoyed this story—or even if you didn’t—consider making a tax-deductible contribution at fartherfoundation.org/donate. If you’re not in a place where you can listen, here’s a transcript. [Cheering and applause.] I am unworthy of those woos, but thank you very much. You know, one of the Farther Foundation’s overarching themes is learning from travel experiences. Interesting fact: I prepared what you’re about to hear in 2023, when it turns out I was not allowed any travel experiences—because I came down with COVID just before last year’s big Farther Foundation fundraiser. For you, the good news is that I’ve had a year to practice this. (Not that I have.) So … Driving a car is a kind of travel, right? I have to confess: I’m not a great driver. I’m a lot better than I used to be, but I’m probably still not great. Let me give you an example that’s become a running joke in my family: I’m driving to the airport, more often than not to drop off or pick up a relative approaching the airport. The signs say Arrivals and Departures. So. I’m arriving at the airport to drop off a son who is departing for another city. Which way do I go? Or: I’m arriving at the airport to pick up someone, and then we’ll depart from my home in Oak Park. Which way do I go? More than once, I confess, I have made the wrong choice over the years. I’ve mostly managed to keep this cognitive dissonance at bay by focusing on the icons: Airplane pointed up? Someone leaving Chicago. Airplane pointed down? Someone coming home with me. But I’m still easy to fool. My son, Joel, not long ago—as I wrote this last year—screwed around with me as I took him to a flight out of town. “We’re arriving at the airport,” he said helpfully, “so go to arrivals.” And he said it with such straight-faced authority—I’ve come to trust my sons on driving counsel—that I started to head down until he laughed nervously, just before I made the wrong turn: “No, no, no. I’m departing. Go up! Go up!” In the fullness of time, the reasons for my motorist shortcomings may become clearer. But—right now, at this point in my life—I have a few theories: Maybe because my mom died when I was 14 and my dad, his hands full with me and my two younger sisters, kinda left me to figure out the whole driving thing on my own with some help from my friends. Or maybe it’s because as a high school kid in band, I recognized that I had to sacrifice one of my academic elective slots to band rehearsals. So, after my freshman year, I exploited a loophole in the rules to push to the shorter six-week summer sessions the classes I didn’t really care about. You know, P.E, health and, uh, yeah, driver education. So I didn’t really get that much driver education. And then I flunked my driver’s license test—twice. For, you know, little things like turning right when the examiner said to turn left. I passed on the third try only because the examiner took pity on me: “Ya failed twice? Ah, man. No one should fail twice. Ge’ me back alive and I’ll give ya yer license.” So, besides all that, I was an early embracer of the environmental movement, and I didn’t buy into the whole car culture thing. I liked bicycling a lot better. In the summer of 1976, I biked 120 miles back to our home in Orland Park from the University of Illinois, where I had worked at the student radio station, WPGU—where a friend fatefully there would later recommend me for my first job out of college, as news director at an AM/FM combination in Aurora. And so it was that in July 1978, I was driving back home to Orland Park from Aurora in my Volkswagen Rabbit—with a manual transmission, because back then they were more fuel efficient, if a little more attention intensive. I’d worked a long day—got in around 5 in the morning and I was leaving that day around 4:30 in the afternoon—and I was headed home along 75th Street through Naperville, just east of Fox Valley Mall, if you know where that is. Probably was fiddling with the radio because, you know, I worked in radio—when the car ahead of the car ahead of me stopped. And the car ahead of me stopped. And I stopped—but not quite soon enough. My little Rabbit crashed into the big Buick LeSabre that was ahead of me. The LeSabre suffered, maybe, like, a cracked taillight. The Volkswagen Rabbit crumpled up like an accordion. Fortunately, no one was hurt. The young woman in the car ahead of me got out and—as I recall—said, not as I might have said, “What the hell? Weren’t you paying attention?” but “Oh, your poor car!” Well, the Rabbit was functional enough to ease to the side of the road as we awaited the arrival of a police officer, who sat us in the back of his cruiser, allowing us to exchange insurance information and phone numbers—and who chose, to my good fortune, not to issue a ticket. But it was clear nevertheless that, as the motorist whose car had rear-ended another, it was my fault and my insurance company and I would pay. So the Rabbit limped home to Orland Park on what seemed like the worst day of my young adult life. The repairs weren’t gonna be cheap and the deductible wasn’t trivial for a recent college graduate. But I thought to myself: “Hmm. She seemed nice.” The next week mercifully was a vacation week for me. Unfortunately, the state of the Rabbit meant I wouldn’t be able to make a date I’d planned with a former girlfriend whom I’d hoped to reconnect with, and so that was off. But I thought to myself again about the other driver in my accident on what had seemed like the worst day of my young adult life: “Hmm. She seemed nice.” So I called her to make sure that the insurance company was taking care of the damage, and—of course, it was just a polite thing to do—to offer to take her to lunch. And once I was back at work with a functioning car, she accepted and we had a lovely lunch. And that was that, I thought. My duty was discharged. I’d made amends for my lousy driving on what had seemed like the worst day of my young adult life, and that was that. Also, she was four years younger than I was, so that was that. But then she called me at work just to say hi. Because the radio station I worked at was playing at the mall clothing store where she worked—Best & Co.—and she wanted to know if I could get a song played: The Moody Blues, as I recall. Well, as the news guy, I didn’t control the music and the Moody Blues were not in the main rotation at the station, but she seemed nice. So I walked down the hall and I begged the DJ to break format and play a Moody Blues song, and he did. And that was that. Then she called another time or two, for another song or two, and one day she called to say she was considering transferring to the University of Illinois and would I be willing to talk to her about the U. of I., and I said, thinking that she seemed nicer all the time, that I’d be happy to—in fact, I happened to have two press tickets to the Second City performance at Aurora’s Paramount Art Center that weekend so maybe we could go to dinner and a show and talk about the U. of I. along the way. And she said yes. I don’t remember talking much about the U. of I. that night, but whatever I said or did, she later told me, prompted her to tell a friend late that evening that … um …she was in love. And it turns out she decided to attend DePaul University instead of the U. of I. And, to make a long and somewhat winding story short and a little straighter, almost five years after what seemed like the worst day of my young adult life, we got married. And three sons, three grandsons and a granddaughter later—now, just a bit past our 46th crashiversary, as we call it—we remain happily married. And she still seems nice. And with some embarrassment but much joy, I would have to concede that none of it would’ve happened … … if I had been a better driver.

The existence of my daily email newsletter, Chicago Public Square, became public Jan. 27, 2017, during a visit to my alma mater, WGN Radio. So it seems appropriate, eight years later to the day, to share audio from another interview on WGN—earlier this month, at 10 p.m., Jan. 4, 2025—joining two people I’ve known for (wow) close to half a century: Steve King and Johnnie Putman. Johnnie and I met at my first job out of college, news director at WMRO-AM and WAUR-FM in Aurora—where I designed this T-shirt: (2017 photo) It was a privilege to take Johnnie and Steve’s questions about Square, my journalism career and the state of the news biz. You can hear how it went here. If you’d like to hear their full show from that night, with other guests to follow, you’ll find that on WGN’s website here. Or if you’re the readin’ type, here’s a rough—and roughly edited—transcript: Johnnie Putman: We have a full show tonight. Steve King: We do. And we are going to reconnect with a long-time friend that many of you know from this radio station and other radio stations around the Chicago area. Charlie Meyerson is gonna be joining us. Putman: Yep. King: Charlie is now the publisher of a wonderful news site, Chicago Public Square. Ron Brown: Isn’t that great? Putman: It is. King: It is one of the go-to news sites that we have every day. Putman: Wasn’t it just recognized as being the best blog? King: I think, yeah. Didn’t they get the Reader’s award for the best blog? Brown: If not once, several times. But at least once. And deservedly so. There’s nothing that really compares. There’s nothing as good. I’ve seen others. And they really pale in comparison. Putman: Yep. Brown: Yeah. Putman: He puts a lot of effort into making that a first-class site where you can go and just get all the news you need to start your day. Brown: Maybe you can get ’im to talk a little bit about that. Putman: Ya think? Brown: Maybe be a good idea. King: We’ll see if we can twist his arm. Putman: 1977 is when we started together. Dean Richards, Charlie Meyerson and yours truly at WMRO and WAUR in Aurora. Brown: Oh, is that right? I didn’t know that. Putman: It was a wonderful radio station, too, ’cause it was like the WGN of the Fox Valley. King: It really was. Putman: Don’t laugh at that, ’cause Aurora was a big town. King: That was back in the day when the suburban radio stations, they played for their own audience. Like, at WJOB in Hammond—same thing. On the outskirts of Chicago—but still: Full-service radio station for their own audience, which is what WAUR was doing. Putman: WMRO in particular, ’cause we were talk and sports and we had a great sports department and carried all the NIU Huskies sports because we were a stone’s throw from DeKalb. It was a perfect fit. One of the funnest things that I ever did when I worked out there—there were competing Aurora teams and it was such a big competition. They had me out there with the wives of the coaches from the Aurora teams. I was like, OK, is this gonna be like a wrestling match? What’s gonna happen? I did not realize just how intense the rivalry was, and I think it’s probably still that way. But it was great because they had a radio station where you could listen to those games and it was a great service. And it was also pretty fun to be a big fish in a small pond. King: Sure. We gotta take a quick break and then we’ve got a whole lot coming up. So stay with us at WGN. Musical interlude: Bill Haley and His Comets, “The Paper Boy.” King: Steve King and Johnnie Putman at WGN Radio. Tell me just what. Do you read? We read Chicago Public Square, and we’re gonna talk about that and a whole lot more with a man that you know from the days when he was working at this here radio station, but Johnnie started her career with him. So I’m gonna turn it over to you. Putman: Yes, he is Charlie Meyerson. How are you tonight, Charlie? Meyerson: I’m fine and I’m delighted to be with you. And I’m gonna, I’m gonna steal a little bit of your thunder, Johnnie, because I wanna recap all the ways that that we have intersected over the years. Are you ready? Putman: I think yes. Meyerson: I listened to Steve on WLS during my formative years. I’m still in my formative years … King: Don’t blame me for this. Meyerson: … my earlier formative years. I started my first job out of college alongside Johnnie at WMRO-AM and WAUR-FM in Aurora in 1977. I attended your wedding—a wonderful event in 1984—where Steve did a killer version of “Johnny B. Goode.” Am I correct? King: Yes, I did. I did. Meyerson: … which I’m just now thinking about. “Johnny B. Goode”: What a great selection for a song that was, when you’re marrying someone named Johnnie. And I found myself working the swing shift at the Chicago Tribune in 2008 and I was honored to join you guys nightly, it seems, for a regular segment “From the Update Desk of the Chicago Tribune.” And then, when I joined WGN News as news director, we won awards together, as you led coverage of a big fire overnight. King: Yeah, it was right down on Michigan Avenue. And, oh, and our producer was Margaret Larkin at that point. Putman: Wow. I’m still reeling at all these times that our paths have crossed. You didn’t even mention that I attended your wedding, which was one of the great stories of all time because when we were working together out in Aurora and you came in and talked about being in a car accident and the fact that you had collided with this lovely young woman who you ultimately married. So there on the top of your wedding cake were the cars colliding. Meyerson: Two little Matchbox cars, yes, that proved—I tried with a hammer to bang them up, so they kind of resembled what happened in the accident, but let me tell you, I speak from experience—Matchbox cars are almost indestructible. Putman: Unless you step on them, and then you break your foot. Meyerson: No, even then. I tried to hammer them. A couple of paint flecks came off. But yeah, it was close enough. So yeah, you were there at the very beginning of my wonderful marriage to my wonderful wife, Pam. Putman: And who was at fault in that car accident? I don’t recall that. Meyerson: It’s not important. There were no tickets issued. Putman: That’s right. And you just got her number. That was the important thing, right? Meyerson: If she were here, she’d interject, “His insurance company paid.” Putman: Ah-huh. We should tell folks that—they certainly recognize your name. You’ve been at a few radio stations here in Chicago, and we are so fortunate because—born and raised in this area, you’ve always worked here. You never left, right, Charlie? Meyerson: I have to correct you there. I was not born here. I was actually born in Detroit. But, at 13, moved to Orland Park—unincorporated Palos Township, but so you know, almost— Putman: But your entire journalism career has been at radio stations in Chicago, as well as the Chicago Tribune, and that’s pretty, pretty impressive for 40-plus years, Charlie. King: I don’t know that I’ve ever asked you this, Charlie, but what gave you your passion? Because you have a passion for good journalism. What ignited that in you? Meyerson: First of all, thank you for asking. I have to credit my parents, who both were at various points in their careers newspaper people. My dad was a newspaper editor in the Detroit area. The reason that we moved to Illinois when I was 13 in 1968 was that my dad, who had been teaching journalism at a suburban community college outside Detroit, got the same job at Moraine Valley Community College in Palos Hills. So— he was a journalism teacher and taught me much of what I know and what I’ve taught and what I’ve tried to apply about concise writing and good journalism. My mom was a community journalist and would write, both in Michigan and here in the suburbs of Chicago, community news roundups for, among others, the Palos Regional newspaper back in the day. But also, you guys know, I’m a comics fan. Putman: Yes. King: Are you? Meyerson: And Steve— King: That’s one of the many things we bonded on. Meyerson: Absolutely. Who are some of the most prominent journalists in comics? Clark Kent and Peter Parker. King: Yeah, there you go. Meyerson: And, Peter Parker—Spider-Man as a teenager—was working for this big newspaper in New York. And it gave me the idea in high school that maybe I could do some journalism in high school—in addition to working for the student newspaper. When a reporter for then the Star/Tribune newspaper, Barb Hipsman—who went on to teach journalism in Ohio [at Kent State University]—was interviewing high school students about what we thought about the war in Vietnam, I said, “Hey, do you need a stringer? Do you need any volunteer journalists?” And, lo and behold, they started sending me to cover some school board meetings and park district meetings. And so, in high school, I was, like Peter Parker, kinda pretending that I was a journalist. Putman: Were you a nerdy high schooler? Meyerson: Johnnie, I think you’ve known me long enough to know the answer to that. That’s a loaded question. And yes, I think my wife and my kids and my sisters—yeah, and anyone else who’s known me all these years—would tell you, “Yeah, he is still pretty nerdy. The nerd is strong in this one.” Putman: I still have to say, though, it’s very impressive that you never had to leave town to get the job of your dreams, ’cause you’ve had some awesome positions. How many years were you with WXRT? Meyerson: 10 years. 1979 to 1989. Yeah, and when I talk to young people who are considering journalism as a career—and, sadly, there aren’t as many of them as there used to be—I tell them that, assuming they have the l

The American Dialect Society’s 2023 word of the year? Enshittification. And our guest on this edition of Chicago Public Square Podcasts, Cory Doctorow, is the guy who coined it. Hear him define it—and his harrowing explanation of how he, one of the world’s most tech-savvy authors and journalists, got scammed out of $8,000 before he could figure out what was going on. Also: The one “ironclad” rule you should follow to avoid a similar fate. And then, in this—our first conversation since this podcast from 2019—you’ll learn, among many other things, why he thinks Amazon embodies enshittification and why so many major publishers refused to consider one of his books. Listen here, or on Spotify, Pandora, YouTube, Amazon’s Alexa-powered speakers or Apple Podcasts. Or if you prefer to read your podcasts, check out the transcript below. And if you’re a completist, here’s the original, mostly unedited, behind-the-scenes raw audio and video from the recording of this podcast via Zoom on YouTube. ■ Enjoying these podcasts? Help keep them coming by joining The Legion of Chicago Public Squarians. ■ And consider subscribing—free—to the daily Chicago Public Square email newsletter. Now, here’s a roughly edited transcript of the interview, recorded March 7, 2024: [00:00:00] Charlie Meyerson: The American Dialect Society’s 2023 Word of the Year? Enshittification. And our guest is the guy who coined it:[00:00:10] Cory Doctorow: What I think is going on is that this bad idea, right?—“Let’s make things worse for our customers and our suppliers and better for ourselves”—is omnipresent in every firm. [00:00:21] CM: Cory Doctorow’s a science fiction author, activist, and oh, I’d say a very active journalist with an email newsletter he publishes daily. His new book is The Bezzle, a high-tech thriller whose protagonist is … an accountant. More on that to come. I’m Charlie Meyerson with ChicagoPublicSquare.com, which, yes, is also an email newsletter. And this is a Chicago Public Square Podcast. Cory, it’s great to see you again. What’s new since the last time you and I recorded a podcast—almost exactly five years ago this month, back in 2019?[00:00:55] CD: Well, there was a pandemic, and you know, lucky for me the way that I cope with anxiety and stress is by writing. And so I wrote nine books, which are all coming out in a string, which has left me pretty busy—but in a good way. My friend Joey Dilla says, when life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla. So that’s definitely where I’m at now.[00:01:18] CM: You have a daily email newsletter, you have a podcast, and you’re on this nationwide book tour now, although you’re home now in California. When do you rest, huh?[00:01:27] CD: Well, when I rest, I think about how terrible everything is, and so I try to do as little of that as possible. I mean, my family and I go off and do things from time to time. But, yeah, I have always written as a way of processing the world, and the world needs a lot of processing, so I’m doing a lot of writing.[00:01:48] CM: Did your, uh, restlessness contribute to an unfortunate happening that I think shocked a lot of readers on February 5, 2024, when it was the most-tapped item in Chicago Public Square? And I’m gonna quote you here, “I was robbed $8,000-plus worth of fraud before I figured out what happened, and then he tried to do it again a week later.” What happened?[00:02:11] CD: Yeah, that was while I was taking a rest as it happened. So for Christmas break, my wife and I, and then my daughter and my parents joined us, went to one of my favorite places in the world, New Orleans. So, we landed and needed cash. So I went to an ATM in the French Quarter, was like a, a chase ATM, and the whole transaction ran and then it threw an error and said, we can’t give you your money. I was like, Ugh, what a pain. And later on, we were walking through town and we passed a credit union’s ATM branch.I bank with a one-branch credit union. And most credit unions don’t charge fees to each other. So I was like, oh, we’ll just use this one. So I got some money up. A couple of days go by, it’s time to leave, my folks have already gone, my wife and daughter are at the hotel, and I’ve gone out to get my very favorite sandwich just before we go. And my phone rings and it’s the caller ID for my bank.And they say, “Mr. Doctorow, this is your bank calling. Uh, did you just try and spend a thousand dollars, uh, at an Apple store in New York?” And I was like, Ugh. One of those ATMs turned out to be dodgy. Either was the one that threw that error. And the reason was that it had, like, a skimmer mounted on it and they captured my card number.Or maybe it was that cheap Chinese ATM that the one-branch credit union I went to was using one or the other. I was definitely skimmed. So, you know, I make my peace with it and I start talking with this guy and you know, when you bank with a little one-branch credit union, they don’t have their own after-hours fraud unit. They just contract out. And so these guys, you know, they’re a little clumsy. They’re a little amateurish. They ask you a bunch of questions your bank should know the answer to because they’re not really your bank, they’re their fraud center partner.I’m just going through this whole thing and it’s going on and on, and I can see the store that sells my sandwich, and I can see the time ticking down.And finally, I said like, “Look, fella, you’ve already frozen the card, you’ve gotten most of the recent transaction data. I’m gonna go. When I get to the airport after I clear security, I’ll call the bank’s after-hours number,” and he got really surety and I was like, you’re just gonna have to suck it up.This is how it goes. You know, whatever losses you’re experiencing have nothing compared to the losses of me missing my flight with my wife and daughter. So go back and go to the, go to the airport and on the way I look at my phone and I find out that DC-737 Max Boeing Aircraft has just lost its door plug and all the 737 Maxes in the U.S., they’ve just been grounded. And we get to the airport and it’s a zoo. Everyone’s trying to rebook. By the time we get to the gate, we’ve got five minutes. ’Cause there’s just the lines, you know. Massive.So I call the bank’s after-hours number and they say, “Sorry, sir, you pressed the wrong button. This is lost cards. Fraud’s a different number, but it sounds like you told the guy to freeze your cards. So it should be fine. Just come in on Monday and get your new card.”So, uh, Monday morning I print out the list of all the fraudulent transactions, about $8,000 worth, and I go into the bank. And the cool thing about the one-branch credit union is that the person who helped me out was a vice president there and she was pissed about this $8,000 fraud. ’Cause if Visa wouldn’t cover it, then we’d have to eat it. You know—not me, but the credit union and, and so she’s pissed. I’m pissed. And I say, “Look, you know, some of this has to do with that crummy after-hours fraud center you guys use. ’Cause I told them to freeze my card on Saturday and all this fraud took place on Sunday.”And she said, “Ugh, that’s no good. I’m gonna call them up now and find out what’s going on.” She comes back five minutes later and says, “They never called you on Saturday. That was the fraudster.”My card hadn’t been skimmed at all. So it turns out that guy—I’m like thinking about all the information I gave him: “Well, I gave him my name, but that’s in my Wikipedia entry. Gave him my date of birth; that’s in my Wikipedia entry. I gave him where I live; that’s in my Wikipedia entry. I gave him the last four digits of my credit card, and that’s not an—and then I was like, “Wait a second. He didn’t ask for the last four digits. He asked for the last seven digits”And I said to the vice president of the bank, “You guys only have a single VISA prefix, right? The first nine digits are the same for every card you issue?”She’s like, yep.And I’m like, “OK. So I gave him the last seven digits and that was enough. Then he had the whole card number. And that’s how they robbed me.”And he did it again the following Friday just before MLK weekend. And he called at 5:30 just before the bank’s closed for a three-day weekend or just after the bank’s closed for a three-day weekend, which is like the fraud golden hour.And, you know, I recognized who it was and, and he said, “You know, your car’s been compromised. It’s so and so.” And I’m like, “No, it hasn’t. Card’s still in my wallet. Hasn’t left my wallet since I picked it up on Monday. Why don’t you tell me what the after-hours number on my card is? ’Cause I’m looking at it now. You tell me what number I call back to speak to you.” And he is like, “Mr. Doctorow, this is not a game. I have told you that there is active fraud on your card. If you don’t complete the anti-fraud protocol with me right now, then any losses will be yours to bear. The bank will not identify you.”I’m like, “That’s adorable.” So I hang up on him and he calls me back and I’m like, oh, this guy is like definitely a fraud, right? Any doubt I had is immediately dispelled. So I just hung up with him and blocked his number. And then I called the risk management person at the bank when they reopened on Tuesday—’cause again, small bank, you get to talk to the person, and it turns out that there’s some a leak somewhere in America’s credit union supply chain. And somehow fraudsters are calling people knowing what bank they bank at, and knowing their phone number, neither of which is a matter of public record for me.And that was the convincer for me. So even though I go to Defcon, the big hacker conference every year, and I go to those

I haven’t posted much here lately about my work with the talented team I helped assemble a decade ago at Rivet (now formally known as Rivet360)—mostly in secret at the beginning. That’s partly because, as I’ve shifted focus since 2017 to my award-winning Chicago Public Square email news briefing (subscribe free!), I’ve eased into a role as Rivet’s Vice President of Editorial and Development—or, as I call myself, Nagger-in-Chief. And it’s partly because the company’s shifted its focus from journalism to become an innovative podcast consultancy—producing audio for others as well as shows of its own. One of those shows, PodWell—a guide to becoming better podcasters—is hosted by my friend and colleague Terri Lydon, who was kind enough to share the mic with me in her June 6 edition (recorded May 3, 2023, when I was just getting over a cold or something else that really wasn’t COVID-19). That gave me nine minutes or so to nag on one of my favorite topics: How best to open a podcast. If you like this, check out more of my podcast guidance on Rivet’s website and elsewhere on this blog. And hear more of my conversations with thought-leaders through the years on this website, in Apple Music, on Pandora or Spotify, via your favorite podcast player and at Chicago Public Square. (Meyerson headshot: Steve Ewert.)

[Updating this original post—from March 1, 2015—on Nov. 20, 2022: Greg Bear is dead at 71.]  Science fiction writer Greg Bear in a 1994 interview with me on WNUA-FM, Chicago, on the future of the Internet: “It’s going to be a huge intellectual telephone line, with graphics and library materials, all available at a few minutes’ notice. That, I think, will be revolutionary. ... We have a lot of people from the entertainment industries thinking it’s going to be a lot of the same old, same old — where they can simply market movies in new ways, and I don’t think it’s going to be that way at all. ... The people who are loosely called Generation Xers are going to have their say on this. And I think we may not be able to predict what they’re going to do with it.” Update, Jan. 4, 2018: A later interview with Greg Bear, from 1996, when we talked about the prospect of life on Mars.

She’s worked for Chicago’s biggest newspapers and he’s worked for Chicago’s most successful radio stations. And now … they do email. Joining Charlie Meyerson for this edition of the Chicago Public Square / Rivet360 podcast, Chicago Media Talks: Axios Chicago newsletter authors Justin Kaufmann and Monica Eng. Listen on Spotify, Pandora, YouTube, Amazon’s Alexa-powered speakers or Apple Podcasts. Or if you prefer to read your podcasts, check out the transcript below. And if you’re a completist, check out the behind-the-scenes raw audio and video from the recording of this podcast via Zoom on YouTube—including deleted segments like Eng and Kaufmann’s answers (at 34:50) to the question, “How did Charlie most annoy you?” ■ Enjoying these podcasts? Help keep them coming by joining The Legion of Chicago Public Squarians. ■ And consider subscribing—free—to the daily Chicago Public Square email newsletter. _____Now, here’s a roughly edited transcript of the interview with Eng and Kaufmann. Charlie Meyerson 0:00 She’s worked for Chicago’s biggest newspapers, and he’s worked for Chicago’s most successful radio stations. And now, they do email. Monica Eng 0:08 At WBEZ they kept saying, “Would you like to write our newsletter?” And I’m like, “Are you kidding me? I’m a reporter! Stop with the insulting questions.” And now, like, I love it. Meyerson 0:20 Monica Eng is a longtime Chicago reporter who’s covered food, culture, health and the environment for the Chicago Sun-Times, the Chicago Tribune and, yes, also at a radio station, WBEZ. Justin Kaufmann’s a former talk show host and producer in Chicago at WBEZ and WGN Radio. They’ve teamed up to create the Axios Chicago newsletter, rounding up the day’s biggest Chicago news plus coverage of their passions, including food and sports. Justin Kaufmann 0:44 Chicago is a different place. It is going to be a different newsletter than Denver. It should be a different newsletter than San Francisco. Meyerson 0:52 Coming to you despite a cough, congestion and a mild fever that a test assures me do not signify COVID-19, I am a well-medicated Charlie Meyerson with Rivet360 and Chicago Public Square, which, yes, is also an email newsletter. And this is Chicago Media Talks. Justin, what did you want to be when you grew up? And how did that lead you into Chicago radio? Kaufmann 1:14 You know, it’s funny. My dad always reminds me that I was really into DePaul Blue Demon basketball when I was a kid and I would write up stories like sports stories of the games that they would show on Channel 9 at the time, like when DePaul would pay like Creighton, or Georgetown. And I would write—he showed me when I was older—like, these write-ups. So I think I wanted to be a sports writer in some form. But to be honest, I really wanted to be in radio. I love the idea I had my own— I did the announcements in high school and a lot of things to end up where I ended up to be a talk show host. So I think that that’s what I wanted to be. Meyerson 1:53 High school announcements: You and I have that in common. Monica, what did you want to be when you grew up? And how has that shaped your career? Eng 2:01 I had no idea. But by the time I was 15, and my mom was dating Roger Ebert, he said, “Hey, so do one of your kids need a job this summer?” I said, “Well, I’m not going to be doing anything but watching TV. So maybe I’ll go try this thing called being a copy clerk at the Chicago Sun-Times.” And from the first day I started working in the features department at the Chicago Sun-Times in 1985, I fell in love with it, and that’s all I ever wanted to do—be a newspaper woman or a newswoman. I did not envision I would be an emailer, thanks for calling me that. Meyerson 2:35 It’s an honorable profession. It’s honorable. Eng 2:37 There was no email at the time, which was why I had a job. You know, putting the mail in the slots at the Chicago Sun-Times. Meyerson 2:45 How and when did you two first meet? Kaufmann 2:48 Ooh. Eng 2:49 Ooh. Kaufmann 2:49 That’s a good question. Monica was world-renowned, you know, in Chicago media. And I think I booked her a couple times on talk shows on WBEZ. And then, you know, when Monica was looking to make a career change, she came over to WBEZ. So we worked together at WBEZ for a couple of years, working on talk shows and reporting. Eng 3:12 Yeah, well, yeah, I remember I remember. I used to hear you on the radio. And I was always a huge fan of WBEZ, and then you know, you, you’d say, “Hey, can you come on and talk about your Tribune stories?” And I thought, “Oh, this is fun.” So when you said, “Hey, there might be a spot here,” like, “You know what? I’m gettin’ a little sick of the Tribune, maybe I’ll think about that.” But as you recall, hiring at public radio sometimes takes a little time. So I think we were doing that dance for a couple of years. Kaufmann 3:39 Yeah, we had a lot of lunches at Fox & Obel, which is that high-end grocery store over on … Eng 3:44 … between Tribune Tower and WBEZ. Meyerson 3:47 How did you come to be a team on the Axios Chicago newsletter? Eng 3:51 Justin had already been working with the Axios daily podcast. So he kind of knew about that world. And we both had worked with Niala Boodhoo at WBEZ. And she was already there. She was quite an evangelist for the place. And I thought, “Whatever, I’ve never really even heard of this thing.” And so when she told us both about it, I think we’re like, “Well, let’s take a look at this.” I don’t think either of us were like super-sure we wanted to do a newsletter because obviously we had different skills. We didn’t like who has newsletter skills? Do people like graduate college knowing how to do this? Kaufmann 4:25 Yeah, I will say, Charlie, that the one thing that grabbed our attention, I think, was looking at what Axios was doing with newsletters—not just in the local markets, but what they were doing with Mike Allen and others who do the national newsletters—is they really did feel like a written talk show. And if you look at Mike’s Axios AM, that’s what it is. Mike is hosting a talk show—he’s doing articles instead of segments—but it really had this vibe, this energy to it. He’s connecting to his readers. He’s engaging, he’s going back and forth. It reminded me a lot of what I was doing at WGN Radio when I was doing a WBEZ with Reset. So it was an easy opportunity when they said they wanted to do it for Chicago, you know, it was a, it was a no-brainer to say, “OK, well, you know, could you do a talk show in an email format?” And that’s what we’ve been, that’s really our ethos, our mission statement, our philosophy, Monica and I, that this is a talk show in an email format, and it seems to be working. Eng 5:19 In fact, when we are when we’re over length on these newsletters, Justin’s like, “Oh, we gotta cut it for time.” I’m like, “Justin, we’re not doing radio.” Kaufmann 5:28 It’s hard to lose the little radio things like “cut for time.” “Listeners,” I always— Our readers are listeners, I always say that. Meyerson 5:37 It’s easy to get those mixed up. You know, sharing some of that same professional DNA with you guys, I know that one of the hardest things I find in creating an email newsletter is deciding what not to put in. Because, as Monica has said, there’s no time restriction, there’s no length restriction, and deciding what doesn’t go in is harder than deciding what does go in. How do you wrestle with that? Eng 6:00 Well, we do have a length: Nothing over 950 words. But that does make it harder. I mean, Chicago is full of, you know, a million stories in the naked city. And so how do you choose, you know, four or five a day? It’s a terrible Sophie’s choice to make. Kaufmann 6:16 That has been an issue where I think a lot of the editors and everyone were like, “You know, you’re gonna have to do this every day, you’re gonna watch out— Finding content will be an issue.” For Monica and I—because we’ve covered the city for years, and you know, this, Charlie; I read your newsletters and same idea—you could do 50 stories, you could do 100 stories. I mean, there’s— time is nothing, so you’re just like, yeah, every night at 10 o’clock, after we put the thing to bed, I’m like, “Darn it, we didn’t talk about this, or we didn’t do this.” And that reminds me of when I worked at ’BEZ and ’GN as well, where you would be down on yourself because you missed the topic that you think Chicago wanted to talk about. Meyerson 6:52 As we record this August 22, 2022, you’ve been with Axios just a bit more than a year. What’s been a high point of that year or so with Axios? Kaufmann 7:00 I think, to me, the highlight has been just connecting with Chicago readers. I would have never thought this would be this successful. I mean, at the time we tape this, we’re over 80,000 people who are signed up for it. The open rate is way above the average. And people are engaging and sending us emails on a daily basis on every story we do. It’s way more than I ever had at WGN or WBEZ. I think that that has much to do with the format—I mean, people at their computers are like I can easily respond to this. But that has been the high point to me is watching that sort of evolved engagement from some of the other things that were— I mean, you know, Charlie, talk radio is all about engaged. So by getting people on the phone, like, that’s where it’s supposed— you think that’s ingrained in the secret sauce of an AM talk radio station like WGN, but this supersized it. We’re talking hundreds and hundreds of emails and people who want to engage. Eng 7:56 They can be overwhelming at times—because, yeah, it’s li

The most enduring memory of a restaurant reviewer through the pandemic: “Crying so much … over so many meals with gratitude and relief.”Joining this edition of the Chicago Public Square / Rivet360 podcast, Chicago Media Talks: Chef, journalist, adventurer and Chicago Tribune critic Louisa Chu—who takes us from her time as a 4-year-old worker at her family’s Chicago restaurant through her stint as a judge on Food Network’s Iron Chef America to what she’s working on next. Listen on Spotify, Pandora, YouTube, Amazon’s Alexa-powered speakers or Apple Podcasts. ■ Enjoying these podcasts? Help keep them coming by joining The Legion of Chicago Public Squarians. ■ And consider subscribing—free—to the daily Chicago Public Square email newsletter.

Joining this edition of the Chicago Public Square / Rivet360 podcast, Chicago Media Talks: A couple of media figures whose work is increasingly shaping Chicago’s news and political landscape. Meet A.D. Quig, a rising Chicago Tribune reporter who sees local government facing “a time of big change”; and Girl, I Guess Progressive Voter Guide author Stephanie Skora—someone unafraid to call a candidate, in her words, “a slimy fuckface—because there’s no reason not to.” Listen in your favorite podcast player, via Spotify, YouTube and Pandora, on Amazon’s Alexa-powered speakers or on Apple Podcasts. ■ Enjoying these podcasts? Help keep them coming by joining The Legion of Chicago Public Squarians. ■ And consider subscribing—free—to the daily Chicago Public Square email newsletter. (Photos, counter-clockwise from right: Quig, Skora, hosts Charlie Meyerson and Sheila Solomon.)

Their groundbreaking alliance netted them and their news organizations a 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting. But that doesn’t mean they always worked together seamlessly. In this edition of the Chicago Public Square / Rivet360 podcast, Chicago Media Talks, meet Madison Hopkins and Cecilia Reyes, praised by Pulitzer judges for “a piercing examination of the city’s long history of failed building- and fire-safety code enforcement, which let scofflaw landlords commit serious violations that resulted in dozens of unnecessary deaths.” (Recorded June 13, 2022.) Listen in your favorite podcast player, via Spotify, YouTube and Pandora, on Amazon’s Alexa-powered speakers or on Apple Podcasts. ■ Enjoying these podcasts? Keep them coming by joining The Legion of Chicago Public Squarians. ■ And consider subscribing—free—to the daily Chicago Public Square email newsletter. (Photos, counter-clockwise from right: Reyes, Hopkins, hosts Charlie Meyerson and Sheila Solomon.)