848 & Worldview go best-of for the holidays

848 & Worldview go best-of for the holidays
848 & Worldview go best-of for the holidays

848 & Worldview go best-of for the holidays

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Here’s a picture taken early this morning of the WBEZ City Room:

Thank goodness for Al Keefe.

This is a good week for you to catch up on WBEZ talk shows. Why? Eight Forty-Eight and Worldview each have produced a series of special encore/best-of editions for the holidays, which showcase some of the better material during the past year.

A story: This weekend story was kind of hilarious. So Catholic bishops met with Governor Quinn to essentially tell him to stop telling people he’s Catholic if he doesn’t actually follow their strict guidelines. I’ve never noticed it, but Governor Quinn calls it out a lot. When he has to make a hard decision, he references his faith. And a lot of those hard decisions lean left and liberal, especially when it comes to women’s issues.

So a reporter asked Quinn how the meeting went and Quinn responded by saying it went well, they really didn’t talk much about their differences and instead talked about how everyone could help the poor. Standard pol-speak. But then the bishops caught wind of Quinn’s remarks and later put out a statement that said, uh, no. No way. We didn’t talk about the poor. Dude, we talked about how we don’t want you to use our name anymore when referencing your politics. Are you listening??? That’s all we talked about. Awesome.

B story: Everyone knows someone who once owned a Saab.

C story: WBEZ’s Venture has a good story on the fate of the newsstand as the newspaper goes away. And in 30 years, we’ll do a story on the fate of the news website when it is figured out how to beam news to an implanted chip in your ear. I’ll tell you where the newsstand went wrong: shrink-wrapping porn. What’s the point of hanging around a newsstand now?

D story: Jimmy Fallon hosted SNL this weekend. It was a great show. One of the best parts surrounded a Chicago news story, skewered by Weekend Update. It was the story of the Admiral Theater (strip club) giving away lap dances for toys (holiday gimmick). The Admiral is now a SNL trivia question.


E story: I was watching Chelsea Lately last night (don’t judge) and Common was the guest. He said he doesn’t write down any of his lyrics before he records. He says he hasn’t since 1995. That’s unreal. And exactly when Common took off. He raps like I write. I don’t put too much forethought into it, I write like a beat poet. One love.

Weather: Wait, did I hear it’s going to snow tomorrow?

Sports: Forget the Bears. Can the Chicago media talk about the Bears like Boston talked about the Red Sox? What happened there? GM and coach, gone. If the Bears lose out, everyone should be gone. That would be a six game losing streak to end the season. And it probably will happen that way.

Let’s talk about the Bulls. Here’s how cocky I am: Will the Bulls even lose a game against a Central division foe? And hey hey, don’t look now but the Chicago Blackhawks are the #1 team in the West. Quietly, the Hawks are getting back to the same form they were in when they won the Stanley Cup. It’s still way too early, but the Hawks look really good.

Also, I saw one of my favorite sports radio guys, Laurence Holmes, doing sports on NBC-5 this weekend. When did that start? I thought the Score was part of the CBS family?

Kicker: I want to know more about this WGN-News promo. I thought it was an extended Bank of America spot when I watched it after the Bulls game Friday night. But it was a promo for the newscast. It was several different shots of Chicago, but on closer look, it seemed like a small model town. Is it a model? Or just trick photography? Either way, maybe the best local news promo I’ve ever seen. And I can’t find it online. Do you know about it? If anybody from WGN has a Google alert, let me know. Again, I want to get an online version of the WGN-News at Nine promo that looks like a model. That’s all I want for Christmas, folks.