Charlie Meyerson interviews

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 luxury of a little bit of time, they should look for a job first in the place where they want to live. And to follow their hearts. And, for me, that was really staying close to family and friends. You probably both got this same advice when you were coming up: You wanna make it in Chicago? You’r

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.

Chicago Reader columnist Ben Joravsky was kind enough to invite me on his show this week—we talked Wednesday, the podcast was published Saturday—to answer questions about how and why I do what I do for Chicago Public Square.I was honored along the way to express my admiration for columnists Neil Steinberg and Robert Feder, Reader critic Jack Helbig, The Onion, WXRT-FM News pioneers C.D. Jaco and Linda Brill, Square reader Angela Mullins, radio DJs Bob Stroud and Marty Lennartz, my college radio station WPGU … … and to deliver an ill-advised musical tribute to my alma mater, Carl Sandburg High School, whose fight song I was—for reasons that elude me now—moved to butcher.You’ve been warned. Here it is. If you like this, check out 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.