Radio's great power: Live, local content

My nana’s Phlco radio
(Click to hear “Media Creatures.”)

In September 1998—as a “newsman without portfolio,” the month after my release by WNUA-FM and a couple of months before signing on with the Chicago Tribune—I joined Kathy Voltmer and Rick Kogan to fill in for their then-cohost Richard Roeper on their WMVP-AM 1000 radio show, “Media Creatures.”

“Speaking as a person—which is all I really am now, since I don’t have a job,” I weighed in on the challenges I foresaw for radio, even before the rise of the iPod and smartphones:

“The great power of radio and its best defense against the onslaught of other media—whether it’s internet-based radio, digital radio, satellite radio, even these hundred-CD jukebox players that people have in their homes and offices—is live, local content.”

The issues we discussed then remain relevant, as you’ll hear in this excerpt from Sept. 12, 1998.



HEAR ALSO: Over the years, Rick’s been kind enough to invite me to join him on a number of occasions. Like this one, almost 15 years later.