PODCAST

Charlie Meyerson interviews

Veteran radio news guy Charlie Meyerson talks to interesting people. (Some episodes consist of historic raw audio.) Contact: Meyerson@gmail.com

news & politics literature

All Episodes

How the worst day of my young adult life … turned out...

Charlie Meyerson interviews ·

2025/02/10

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

en-us

‘ I’ve really only had one idea through my whole...

Charlie Meyerson interviews ·

2025/01/28

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

en-us

How best to open a podcast

Charlie Meyerson interviews ·

2023/06/12

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

en-us

Science fiction writer Greg Bear in 1994: The...

Charlie Meyerson interviews ·

2022/11/20

[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

en-us

Why I should never sing in public

Charlie Meyerson interviews ·

2022/06/11

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

en-us

1995: Peter David, Chris Claremont and Gary Colabuono...

Charlie Meyerson interviews ·

2022/06/01

[It’s been a while since we dove into the archives. But now that hour’s come round at last—again.]In 1995, the comic book industry was approaching what later became known as “the Great Comics Crash of 1996”—triggered in part by Marvel Comics’ 1994 purchase of the business’ third-largest distributor, converting it to distribute Marvel’s stuff exclusively.So that was a significant topic June 30, 1995, when I sat down at WNUA-FM in Chicago—just ahead of the 20th annual Chicago Comicon*—with acclaimed

en-us

Ex-Chicago Tribune editor James Squires warned in...

Charlie Meyerson interviews ·

2021/08/25

Back in 1993, a former editor of the Chicago Tribune sounded an alarm about the growing conflict between the drive for corporate profits and traditional journalism’s social-reform agenda.That was close to six years before I joined the Trib and close to two decades before that trend inexorably led to a gutting of the paper’s staff.As the paper welcomes a new editor, now seems like a good time to revisit the words of Jim Squires, talking about his book Read All About It! The Corporate Takeover of

en-us

Email pioneer Aaron Barnhart interviewed in 1996

Charlie Meyerson interviews ·

2021/02/08

Of all the interviews I’ve conducted, none have influenced my career more than this 1996 sit-down with Aaron Barnhart, whose Late Show News newsletter pioneered the email news biz.Listen to us discuss his model for how, in my words, “a lot of us in this profession will… do our work in the future” and you’ll hear the siren call that two years later would draw me from radio to the internet—and, not much later, to lead the Chicago Tribune’s email program.Decades later, Barnhart’s work inspired the

en-us

Chicago 7 lawyer William Kunstler in 1994: That trial...

Charlie Meyerson interviews ·

2020/10/16

Prepping to watch The Trial of the Chicago 7 on Netflix, I revisited my Sept. 16, 1994, interview with The 7’s defense lawyer, William Kunstler, who told me then that the trial “changed me totally.… “I never knew what it was to really fight until I watched Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Dave Dellinger, Hayden and so on fight in a courtroom—do things that would make the jury understand that they were being persecuted: Bringing in a birthday cake for Bobby Seale, a Viet Cong flag on their table, standing

en-us

Charlie Meyerson interviewed … about Charlie Meyerson

Charlie Meyerson interviews ·

2020/09/06

This hasn’t happened much in my career, most of which I’ve devoted to profiling people far more interesting than I am. But, twice in less than two weeks, I was honored to be interviewed about journalism, politics, radio, the origins of Chicago Public Square and my personal journey: On Friday, I was a guest on Chicago Reader columnist Ben Joravsky’s podcast—and that was just seven days after Matt Baron had grilled me for the Common Ground Oak Park podcast. So here, in the Charlie Meyerson

en-us

Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry in 1974 and 1976

Charlie Meyerson interviews ·

2019/11/07

You’d think if you’d met the creator of Star Trek, Gene Roddenberry, in the flesh you’d remember it. Especially if he told you the real reason he made Mr. Spock look a little… devilish (about 32:17 in). Well, I did meet him, and he told me that—and I confess that I forgot all about it. Only when a longtime friend and neighbor lent me a vintage reel-to-reel tape player and I opened a long-filed-away box labeled “Gene Roddenberry” did I recall that I was actually in a studio with Roddenberry at

en-us

1988: Chaos in the Chicago City Council

Charlie Meyerson interviews ·

2019/09/05

This week’s transformative Chicago City Council development—the historic livestream video presentation of a committee meeting—brings to mind a time when the council was maddeningly tough to follow. In 1988, I was a newbie City Hall reporter for WXRT-FM. It was an assignment I relished not—partly because the council’s procedures were bewilderingly opaque and byzantine. But I channeled my journalistic frustration into creation of a series that won a nationwide United Press International award for

en-us

Journalists Lois Wille and Linda Lutton discuss...

Charlie Meyerson interviews ·

2019/07/23

The death Tuesday of Pulitzer Prize-winning Chicago journalist Lois Wille—a veteran of the Tribune, the Sun-Times and the Daily News—brings to mind a memorable 1997 interview with her and journalist Linda Lutton. You can hear them debate urban housing trends that were remaking Chicago then and, more than two decades later, are shaping it still. Here’s how it sounded—as aired June 22, 1997, on WNUA-FM, Chicago. More conversations with thought-leaders through the years on this website, in

en-us

We were warned in 1997 of 'underground prejudice'

Charlie Meyerson interviews ·

2018/11/18

In his 1997 book A Country of Strangers: Blacks and Whites in America, Pulitzer Prize winner David K. Shipler documented a major split among Americans: "The divide between those who see racism and those who do not." And he sounded an alarm about what many then might not have perceived: "How much prejudice has gone underground since the civil rights movement." Here's my 1997 interview with Shipler, aired 19 years ago today. Sadly, it doesn't sound dated. Related listening: A panel discussion I

en-us

Leon Lederman, science education hacker, in 1997

Charlie Meyerson interviews ·

2018/10/05

The death of Nobel Prize winner Leon Lederman took me back to March 19, 1997, when I interviewed the professor about his then- (and still-) revolutionary ideas on how to overhaul science education. Hear him talk about that—and much more—here … … or on iTunes or via your favorite podcast player. And while you’re at it, check out my other interviews with thought-leaders through the years here and here. (1988 photo: Energy.gov.)

en-us

Anna Quindlen, talking out loud in 1993

Charlie Meyerson interviews ·

2018/05/05

Approaching Mother’s Day 1993, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Anna Quindlen—who shaped a generation’s approach to parenthood—stopped by the WNUA-FM studios in Chicago to promote her then-new book, Thinking Out Loud. Check out this audio—recorded May 5, 1993—to learn why she objected to the name of a Chicago Tribune newspaper section. Listen to my interview with Anna Quindlen—on the web, iTunes or your favorite podcast player. (Book jacket cover photo: Joyce Ravid,)

en-us

Trump’s precursor? An interview with Pat Buchanan in...

Charlie Meyerson interviews ·

2018/05/03

In many ways, two-time presidential candidate Patrick Buchanan—former adviser to three Republican presidents (Nixon, Ford and Reagan)—set the stage for Donald Trump’s ascendance. When Buchanan made 2016’s “Politico 50,” the magazine pronounced Trump “Pat Buchanan with better timing.” How similar are they? Here’s the unheard-since-broadcast audio of my interview with Buchanan, aired on this date in 1998. What similarities—and differences—do you hear? Listen on the web,iTunes or your favorite

en-us

From 1998: The man who REALLY saved Apple

Charlie Meyerson interviews ·

2018/04/27

In 1998, Apple’s now-widely-forgotten CEO, Gil Amelio, sat down with me to discuss his relatively brief time atop what was then a struggling company—the subject of his bookOn the Firing Line: My 500 Days at Apple. As you’ll hear—and as Engadget noted in 2014—Amelio proved remarkably “accurate … regarding how Apple could get its groove back.” In at least one way—his decision to bring Apple founder Steve Jobs back to the company—Amelio may truly be the man who saved Apple. Twenty years to the

en-us

National Lampoon's origins, recalled by founding...

Charlie Meyerson interviews ·

2018/01/28

Netflix’s comedic biography of National Lampoon co-founder Douglas Kenney, A Futile and Stupid Gesture, sent me back to my conversation decades ago with one of the story’s key figures, who shared his recollection of developments that made their way into the movie. If you enjoyed A Futile and Stupid Gesture, you’ll get a kick out of this unedited April 30, 1987, interview with the Lampoon’s founding publisher, Matty Simmons. Enjoy this? Get more on iTunes or via RSS feed.

en-us

In 1998, a look to the future of working women

Charlie Meyerson interviews ·

2018/01/25

From the perspective of the Women’s March and #MeToo era of 2018, a 20-year-old book that set out to examine “working women and the transformation of American life” offers insight into trends decades in the making. Here’s my 1998 interview with author Sally Helgesen, who, over the course of three years, put a microscope to women in the Chicago suburb of Naperville—and found dramatic changes, which she documented in her book Everyday Revolutionaries. One excerpt, as she discussed two-career

en-us

27 results

Charlie Meyerson interviews

All Episodes

Similar Podcasts

Boletines RNE

RNE

BBC News

BBC World Service

برامج

مونت كارلو الدولية / MCD

Journal Afrique

RFI

要闻解说

RFI - 法国国际广播电台