PODCAST · news
Charlie Meyerson interviews
by Charlie Meyerson
Murrow Award-winning broadcast journalist Charlie Meyerson shares historic interviews from decades of reporting—and new encounters, too.
Episodes
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Ms. Magazine editor Robin Morgan in 1992: ‘There are no issues that are not women’s issues’
[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...
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Edward R. Murrow 2016 Award-winner: Our glass desk exploded. Yours could, too.
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...
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Pulitzer winner Tracy Kidder in 1993
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...
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‘Podcasting has become this explosive medium’
… 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…
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Who could resist an invitation to join a podcast called ‘Misfits Among Us’?
I certainly couldn’t. So when Joey Marcus said he wanted to talk, I said yes. And then here’s what happened.
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How the worst day of my young adult life … turned out great
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...
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‘ I’ve really only had one idea through my whole career.’
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...
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How best to open a podcast
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...
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Science fiction writer Greg Bear in 1994: The Internet’s future
[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…
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Why I should never sing in public
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...
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1995: Peter David, Chris Claremont and Gary Colabuono discuss the comic book industry’s flirtation with disaster
[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...
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Ex-Chicago Tribune editor James Squires warned in 1993 about the corporate takeover of America’s newspapers
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…
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Email pioneer Aaron Barnhart interviewed in 1996
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…
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Chicago 7 lawyer William Kunstler in 1994: That trial ‘changed me totally’
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...
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Charlie Meyerson interviewed … about Charlie Meyerson
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…
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Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry in 1974 and 1976
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…
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1988: Chaos in the Chicago City Council
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...
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Journalists Lois Wille and Linda Lutton discuss Chicago's urban development in 1997
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,...
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We were warned in 1997 of ‘underground prejudice’
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...
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Leon Lederman, science education hacker, in 1997
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.…
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Anna Quindlen, talking out loud in 1993
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...
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Trump’s precursor? An interview with Pat Buchanan in 1998
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...
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From 1998: The man who REALLY saved Apple
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 book On the Firing Line: My 500 Days at Apple. As you’ll hear—and as Engadget noted in 2014—Amelio proved remarkably “accurate …...
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National Lampoon's origins, recalled by founding publisher Matty Simmons in 1987
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…
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In 1998, a look to the future of working women
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...
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How the Fantastic Four radio series disappointed Stan Lee in 1975
1975: I was just beginning my radio career at college station WPGU-FM, hosting an investigative mini-documentary radio series, Probe. What would be more natural to “investigate” than my passion for comic books—with what became the first of several interviews over my career with Marvel Comics...
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The time I interviewed ‘Chickenman’ creator Dick Orkin in 1976
Radio production, comedy and advertising visionary Dick Orkin’s death Sunday sent me back into the archives—waaaay back in the archives—to my days learning radio at my college station, WPGU. (Image: 2016 Radio Ink cover.) Aired Feb. 2, 1976, here’s my journalist-in-training report from the time I...
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David Simon—before The Wire in 1997
Twenty years ago, journalist David Simon, author of the book that inspired the TV show Homicide—and later the creator of HBO’s acclaimed The Wire, among many others—joined me for a discussion of the then-new book he’d co-authored, The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood....
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If your school kills your student newspaper—or you’re laid off—you can keep going. Cheap.
[Headline revised July 15, 2020, to include “or you’re laid off.” Because, well, you know.] If you were asked to lecture 600 high school journalists and their teachers on the state of journalism, what would you tell them? When the Northern Illinois Scholastic Press Association (NISPA) invited me…
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Charlie Meyerson interviews currently has 29 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
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Murrow Award-winning broadcast journalist Charlie Meyerson shares historic interviews from decades of reporting—and new encounters, too.
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Charlie Meyerson interviews has 29 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
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Charlie Meyerson interviews is created and hosted by Charlie Meyerson.
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