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Chicago Public Square Podcasts

by Charlie Meyerson

Interviews with people who merit a place on Chicago's new front page.

Episodes

How tech-savvy author Cory Doctorow got scammed

0s · Published 12 Mar 05:01
The American Dialect Society’s 2023 word of the year? Enshittification. And our guest on this edition of Chicago Public Square Podcasts, Cory Doctorow, is the guy who coined it.
Hear him define it—and his harrowing explanation of how he, one of the world’s most tech-savvy authors and journalists, got scammed out of $8,000 before he could figure out what was going on. Also: The one “ironclad” rule you should follow to avoid a similar fate.
And then, in this—our first conversation since this podcast from 2019—you’ll learn, among many other things, why he thinks Amazon embodies enshittification and why so many major publishers refused to consider one of his books.
Listen here, or on Spotify, Pandora, YouTube, Amazon’s Alexa-powered speakers or Apple Podcasts.
Or if you prefer to read your podcasts, check out the transcript below. And if you’re a completist, here’s the original, mostly unedited, behind-the-scenes raw audio and video from the recording of this podcast via Zoom on YouTube. Enjoying these podcasts? Help keep them coming by joining The Legion of Chicago Public Squarians. And consider subscribing—free—to the daily Chicago Public Square email newsletter.
Now, here’s a roughly edited transcript of the interview, recorded March 7, 2024:

[00:00:00] Charlie Meyerson: The American Dialect Society’s 2023 Word of the Year? Enshittification. And our guest is the guy who coined it:

[00:00:10] Cory Doctorow: What I think is going on is that this bad idea, right?—“Let’s make things worse for our customers and our suppliers and better for ourselves”—is omnipresent in every firm.

[00:00:21] CM: Cory Doctorow’s a science fiction author, activist, and oh, I’d say a very active journalist with an email newsletter he publishes daily. His new book is The Bezzle, a high-tech thriller whose protagonist is … an accountant. More on that to come. I’m Charlie Meyerson with ChicagoPublicSquare.com, which, yes, is also an email newsletter. And this is a Chicago Public Square Podcast. Cory, it’s great to see you again. What’s new since the last time you and I recorded a podcast—almost exactly five years ago this month, back in 2019?

[00:00:55] CD: Well, there was a pandemic, and you know, lucky for me the way that I cope with anxiety and stress is by writing. And so I wrote nine books, which are all coming out in a string, which has left me pretty busy—but in a good way. My friend Joey Dilla says, when life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla. So that’s definitely where I’m at now.

[00:01:18] CM: You have a daily email newsletter, you have a podcast, and you’re on this nationwide book tour now, although you’re home now in California. When do you rest, huh?

[00:01:27] CD: Well, when I rest, I think about how terrible everything is, and so I try to do as little of that as possible. I mean, my family and I go off and do things from time to time. But, yeah, I have always written as a way of processing the world, and the world needs a lot of processing, so I’m doing a lot of writing.

[00:01:48] CM: Did your, uh, restlessness contribute to an unfortunate happening that I think shocked a lot of readers on February 5, 2024, when it was the most-tapped item in Chicago Public Square? And I’m gonna quote you here, “I was robbed $8,000-plus worth of fraud before I figured out what happened, and then he tried to do it again a week later.” What happened?

[00:02:11] CD: Yeah, that was while I was taking a rest as it happened. So for Christmas break, my wife and I, and then my daughter and my parents joined us, went to one of my favorite places in the world, New Orleans. So, we landed and needed cash. So I went to an ATM in the French Quarter, was like a, a chase ATM, and the whole transaction ran and then it threw an error and said, we can’t give you your money. I was like, Ugh, what a pain. And later on, we were walking through town and we passed a credit union’s ATM branch.

I bank with a one-branch credit union. And most credit unions don’t charge fees to each other. So I was like, oh, we’ll just use this one. So I got some money up. A couple of days go by, it’s time to leave, my folks have already gone, my wife and daughter are at the hotel, and I’ve gone out to get my very favorite sandwich just before we go. And my phone rings and it’s the caller ID for my bank.

And they say, “Mr. Doctorow, this is your bank calling. Uh, did you just try and spend a thousand dollars, uh, at an Apple store in New York?” And I was like, Ugh. One of those ATMs turned out to be dodgy. Either was the one that threw that error. And the reason was that it had, like, a skimmer mounted on it and they captured my card number.

Or maybe it was that cheap Chinese ATM that the one-branch credit union I went to was using one or the other. I was definitely skimmed. So, you know, I make my peace with it and I start talking with this guy and you know, when you bank with a little one-branch credit union, they don’t have their own after-hours fraud unit. They just contract out. And so these guys, you know, they’re a little clumsy. They’re a little amateurish. They ask you a bunch of questions your bank should know the answer to because they’re not really your bank, they’re their fraud center partner.

I’m just going through this whole thing and it’s going on and on, and I can see the store that sells my sandwich, and I can see the time ticking down.

And finally, I said like, “Look, fella, you’ve already frozen the card, you’ve gotten most of the recent transaction data. I’m gonna go. When I get to the airport after I clear security, I’ll call the bank’s after-hours number,” and he got really surety and I was like, you’re just gonna have to suck it up.

This is how it goes. You know, whatever losses you’re experiencing have nothing compared to the losses of me missing my flight with my wife and daughter. So go back and go to the, go to the airport and on the way I look at my phone and I find out that DC-737 Max Boeing Aircraft has just lost its door plug and all the 737 Maxes in the U.S., they’ve just been grounded. And we get to the airport and it’s a zoo. Everyone’s trying to rebook. By the time we get to the gate, we’ve got five minutes. ’Cause there’s just the lines, you know. Massive.

So I call the bank’s after-hours number and they say, “Sorry, sir, you pressed the wrong button. This is lost cards. Fraud’s a different number, but it sounds like you told the guy to freeze your cards. So it should be fine. Just come in on Monday and get your new card.”

So, uh, Monday morning I print out the list of all the fraudulent transactions, about $8,000 worth, and I go into the bank. And the cool thing about the one-branch credit union is that the person who helped me out was a vice president there and she was pissed about this $8,000 fraud. ’Cause if Visa wouldn’t cover it, then we’d have to eat it. You know—not me, but the credit union and, and so she’s pissed. I’m pissed. And I say, “Look, you know, some of this has to do with that crummy after-hours fraud center you guys use. ’Cause I told them to freeze my card on Saturday and all this fraud took place on Sunday.”

And she said, “Ugh, that’s no good. I’m gonna call them up now and find out what’s going on.”

She comes back five minutes later and says, “They never called you on Saturday. That was the fraudster.”

My card hadn’t been skimmed at all. So it turns out that guy—I’m like thinking about all the information I gave him: “Well, I gave him my name, but that’s in my Wikipedia entry. Gave him my date of birth; that’s in my Wikipedia entry. I gave him where I live; that’s in my Wikipedia entry. I gave him the last four digits of my credit card, and that’s not an—and then I was like, “Wait a second. He didn’t ask for the last four digits. He asked for the last seven digits”

And I said to the vice president of the bank, “You guys only have a single VISA prefix, right? The first nine digits are the same for every card you issue?”

She’s like, yep.

And I’m like, “OK. So I gave him the last seven digits and that was enough. Then he had the whole card number. And that’s how they robbed me.”

And he did it again the following Friday just before MLK weekend. And he called at 5:30 just before the bank’s closed for a three-day weekend or just after the bank’s closed for a three-day weekend, which is like the fraud golden hour.

And, you know, I recognized who it was and, and he said, “You know, your car’s been compromised. It’s so and so.” And I’m like, “No, it hasn’t. Card’s still in my wallet. Hasn’t left my wallet since I picked it up on

Axios Chicago’s Monica Eng and Justin Kaufmann: ‘This is a talk show in an email format’

0s · Published 11 Sep 15:28
She’s worked for Chicago’s biggest newspapers and he’s worked for Chicago’s most successful radio stations. And now … they do email.

Joining Charlie Meyerson for this edition of
the Chicago Public Square / Rivet360 podcast, Chicago Media Talks: Axios Chicago newsletter authors Justin Kaufmann and Monica Eng.

Listen in your favorite podcast player, via Spotify and Pandora, on Amazon’s Alexa-powered speakers or on Apple Podcasts.

Or if you prefer to read your podcasts, check out the transcript below.

And if you’re a completist, check out the behind-the-scenes raw audio and video from the recording of this podcast via Zoom on YouTube—including deleted segments like Eng and Kaufmann’s answers (at 34:50) to the question, “How did Charlie most annoy you?”

Enjoying these podcasts? Help keep them coming by joining The Legion of Chicago Public Squarians.
And consider subscribing—free—to the daily Chicago Public Square email newsletter.
_____

Now, here’s a roughly edited transcript of the interview with Eng and Kaufmann. Corrections? Email [email protected].


Charlie Meyerson 0:00
She’s worked for Chicago’s biggest newspapers, and he’s worked for Chicago’s most successful radio stations. And now, they do email.

Monica Eng 0:08
At WBEZ they kept saying, “Would you like to write our newsletter?” And I’m like, “Are you kidding me? I’m a reporter! Stop with the insulting questions.” And now, like, I love it.

Meyerson 0:20
Monica Eng is a longtime Chicago reporter who’s covered food, culture, health and the environment for the Chicago Sun-Times, the Chicago Tribune and, yes, also at a radio station, WBEZ. Justin Kaufmann’s a former talk show host and producer in Chicago at WBEZ and WGN Radio. They’ve teamed up to create the Axios Chicago newsletter, rounding up the day’s biggest Chicago news plus coverage of their passions, including food and sports.

Justin Kaufmann 0:44
Chicago is a different place. It is going to be a different newsletter than Denver. It should be a different newsletter than San Francisco.

Food critic Louisa Chu’s vivid pandemic moment: ‘Crying so much’

0s · Published 24 Aug 09:30
The most enduring memory of a restaurant reviewer through the pandemic: “Crying so much … over so many meals with gratitude and relief.”

Joining this edition of
the Chicago Public Square / Rivet360 podcast, Chicago Media Talks: Chef, journalist, adventurer and Chicago Tribune critic Louisa Chu—who takes us from her time as a 4-year-old worker at her family’s Chicago restaurant through her stint as a judge on Food Network’s Iron Chef America to what she’s working on next.

Listen in your favorite podcast player, via Spotify and Pandora, on Amazon’s Alexa-powered speakers or on Apple Podcasts.

Enjoying these podcasts? Help keep them coming by joining The Legion of Chicago Public Squarians.
And consider subscribing—free—to the daily Chicago Public Square email newsletter.

Stephanie Skora and A.D. Quig: Reshaping Chicago’s news and political scene

0s · Published 12 Aug 19:36
Joining this edition of the Chicago Public Square / Rivet360 podcast, Chicago Media Talks: A couple of media figures whose work is increasingly shaping Chicago’s news and political landscape.

Meet A.D. Quig, a rising Chicago Tribune reporter who sees local government facing “a time of big change”; and Girl, I Guess Progressive Voter Guide author Stephanie Skora—someone unafraid to call a candidate, in her words, “a slimy fuckface—because there’s no reason not to.”

Listen in your favorite podcast player, via Spotify and Pandora, on Amazon’s Alexa-powered speakers or on Apple Podcasts.

Enjoying these podcasts? Help keep them coming by joining The Legion of Chicago Public Squarians.
And consider subscribing—free—to the daily Chicago Public Square email newsletter.

(Photos, counter-clockwise from right: Quig, Skora, hosts Charlie Meyerson and Sheila Solomon.)

Pulitzer winners Hopkins and Reyes: Teamwork ‘wasn’t always easy’

0s · Published 03 Aug 16:34

Their groundbreaking alliance netted them and their news organizations a 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting. But that doesn’t mean they always worked together seamlessly.

In this edition of the Chicago Public Square / Rivet360 podcast, Chicago Media Talks, meet Madison Hopkins and Cecilia Reyes, praised by Pulitzer judges for “a piercing examination of the city’s long history of failed building- and fire-safety code enforcement, which let scofflaw landlords commit serious violations that resulted in dozens of unnecessary deaths.” (Recorded June 13, 2022.)

Listen in your favorite podcast player, via Spotify and Pandora, on Amazon’s Alexa-powered speakers or on Apple Podcasts.

Enjoying these podcasts? Keep them coming by joining The Legion of Chicago Public Squarians.
And consider subscribing—free—to the daily Chicago Public Square email newsletter.

(Photos, counter-clockwise from right: Reyes, Hopkins, hosts Charlie Meyerson and Sheila Solomon.)

Meet the Sun-Times’ new executive editor, Jennifer Kho

0s · Published 20 Jul 02:24
She’s the first woman—and the first woman of color—ever to serve as Chicago Sun-Times executive editor. She’s facing challenges like none before her, as the paper comes under the control of an organization primarily in the radio business.

In another edition of the Chicago Public Square / Rivet360 podcast, Chicago Media Talks, meet Jennifer Kho, who joins the Sun-Times at a critical point in the evolution of the news business. (Recorded July 11, 2022.)

Listen in your favorite podcast player, via Spotify and Pandora, on Amazon’s Alexa-powered speakers or on Apple Podcasts.

Enjoying these podcasts? Keep them coming by joining The Legion of Chicago Public Squarians.
And consider subscribing—free—to the daily Chicago Public Square email newsletter.

(Photos, counterclockwise from right: Kho, with hosts Sheila Solomon and Charlie Meyerson.)

WTTW’s new stars navigate changing news landscape

0s · Published 10 Aug 21:01
Odds are good you didn’t know their names a decade ago, when one of them was just breaking into Chicago radio news and another was barely removed from an internship at Chicago’s public TV station. And now they’re two of the city’s most influential journalists.

In another edition of the Chicago Public Square / Rivet360 podcast, Chicago Media Talks, WTTW News’ multiple award-winning reporters and Chicago Tonight co-anchors, Brandis Friedman and Paris Schutz, talk about their careers, the challenges facing local news and recent turbulent times at Channel 11.



Listen in your favorite podcast player, via Spotify and Pandora, on Amazon’s Alexa-powered speakers or on Apple Podcasts (say “Hey, Siri! Play Chicago Public Square Podcasts”).

Enjoying these podcasts? Keep them coming by joining The Legion of Chicago Public Squarians.
And consider subscribing—free—to the daily Chicago Public Square email newsletter.
And now, courtesy of Eric Zorn and Otter.ai, here’s an extremely rough transcript of the show:


Charlie Meyerson 00:00

Odds are good you didn’t know their names a decade ago when one of them was just breaking into Chicago radio news and another was barely removed from an internship at Chicago’s public TV station. And now they’re two of the city’s most influential journalists.


Brandis Friedman 00:14

The truth is I never would have chosen Chicago for myself until I did.


Paris Schutz 00:18

I thought, “At some point, my internship is going to end, and they’re going to hire me and pay me.”


Charlie Meyerson 00:23

Brandis Friedman and Paris Shutz are multiple award-winning reporters and co-anchors for WTTW television’s signature broadcast Chicago Tonight. I’m Charlie Meyerson with Rivet 360 and ChicagoPublicSquare.com. And this is Chicago Media Talks, a show in which people in Chicago media talk about Chicago media. Here’s my co-host, my friend and my Rivet 360 colleague, journalism strategist Sheila Solomon.


Sheila Solomon 00:51

How is Chicago Tonight different from other local news shows in Chicago?


Brandis Friedman 00:57

We e get this question a lot, and Paris can address this as well, I think we try to spend more time on our subject matter. And, no disrespect to our colleagues at the commercial TV stations, you know, there’s a place for each of us in this market. But what’s different is, we spend more time on our subjects. So a report or package, maybe 3, 4, 5 minutes versus the minute, minute-and-a-half that you’d probably get at other stations. So that we can let it breathe, and provide a b

Block Club Chicago’s origin story

0s · Published 27 Jul 02:11
When a billionaire yanked the plug on a pioneering Chicago digital news site, putting a large team of local reporters out of work, some of them banded together to start another digital news site—for themselves, and for the people of the city.

Block Club Chicago editor-in-chief Shamus Toomey joins hosts Sheila Solomon and Charlie Meyerson for another edition of the Chicago Public Square / Rivet360 podcast, Chicago Media Talks.



Listen in your favorite podcast player, via Spotify and Pandora, on Amazon’s Alexa-powered speakers or on iTunes (say “Hey, Siri! Play Chicago Public Square Podcasts”).

Enjoying these podcasts? Keep them coming by joining The Legion of Chicago Public Squarians.
And consider subscribing—free—to the daily Chicago Public Square email newsletter.

Music journalist Jim DeRogatis: ‘Every system in this city failed … to protect these young black girls’

0s · Published 21 Jul 01:27
You could trace the evolution of the news business through Jim DeRogatis’ career arc over the last 35 years—as he’s moved from print to broadcast to online and podcasting, and from employer-supported to audience-funded journalism. And along the way, he broke one of the biggest stories in music history.

He joins hosts Sheila Solomon and Charlie Meyerson for the Chicago Public Square / Rivet360 podcast, Chicago Media Talks—to discuss his life, how he broke the R. Kelly scandal, and the state of the media in the 21st century.

Also, he recounts the times he was dissed by a couple of famous Billys.


Listen here, or in your favorite podcast player, via Spotify and Pandora, on Amazon’s Alexa-powered speakers or on iTunes (say “Hey, Siri! Play Chicago Public Square Podcasts”).

Enjoying these podcasts? Keep them coming by joining The Legion of Chicago Public Squarians.
And consider subscribing—free—to the daily Chicago Public Square email newsletter.

After a lifetime at the Chicago Tribune, Eric Zorn and Steve Johnson are leaving. What’s next?

0s · Published 29 Jun 00:04
Columnist Eric Zorn started at the Tribune in 1980; cultural critic Steve Johnson started six years later. Now, they’re among the more than three dozen editorial staffers who’ve left—taking buyouts offered under the Trib’s new ownership.

They join hosts Sheila Solomon and Charlie Meyerson for another edition of the Chicago Public Square / Rivet360 podcast, Chicago Media Talks.



Listen here, or in your favorite podcast player, via Spotify and Pandora, on Amazon’s Alexa-powered speakers or on iTunes (say “Hey, Siri! Play Chicago Public Square Podcasts”).

 Enjoying these podcasts? Keep them coming by joining The Legion of Chicago Public Squarians.
 And consider subscribing—free—to the daily Chicago Public Square email newsletter.

Chicago Public Square Podcasts has 20 episodes in total of non- explicit content. Total playtime is 0:00. The language of the podcast is English. This podcast has been added on November 22nd 2022. It might contain more episodes than the ones shown here. It was last updated on April 23rd, 2024 06:10.

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