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Charlie Meyerson interviews

Charlie Meyerson interviews

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Veteran radio news guy Charlie Meyerson talks to interesting people. (Some episodes consist of historic raw audio.) Contact: Meyerson@gmail.com Arte Historia y Crítica Literaria Política y Gobierno
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  • How the worst day of my young adult life … turned out great

    How the worst day of my young adult life … turned out great
    Feb 10 2025
    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 ...
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  • ‘ I’ve really only had one idea through my whole career.’

    ‘ I’ve really only had one idea through my whole career.’
    Jan 28 2025
    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 ...
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  • How best to open a podcast

    How best to open a podcast
    Jun 12 2023
    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.)
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