‘Walter’s Perspective’ returns to Channel 2
Chicago television news icon Walter Jacobson, whose feisty commentaries were a staple of WBBM-Channel 2’s 10 p.m. newscast for 20 years, is bringing them back to the CBS-owned station. He debuted Thursday with a piece about negative campaign commercials by candidates in last Tuesday’s Democratic gubernatorial primary. (Here’s the link.)
“I sure am glad to be back to give it a try,” said Jacobson, who’ll deliver his trademark “Perspective” pieces every Tuesday and Thursday night on a trial basis for the next month or so. He’s expected to tape his commentaries earlier in the evening for airing on the 10 p.m. news. Each will run about 75 seconds, which is roughly half the length of his old ones.
Skippy’s reemergence comes days after Channel 2 replaced its traditional morning newscast with “Monsters and Money in the Morning,” a news-deficient two-hour talk show, and opted out of extended coverage of the Illinois primary. The moves are part of a strategy by Channel 2 general manager Bruno Cohen and news director Jeff Kiernan to differentiate the station from its competitors while dealing with dwindling revenues and resources. Channel 2’s 10 p.m. newscast has been running second in overall household ratings lately (behind ABC-owned WLS-Channel 7), thanks largely to diminished lead-ins for WMAQ-Channel 5 from NBC’s lame duck “Jay Leno Show.”
Jacobson, 72, made headlines in November when he and longtime anchor partner Bill Kurtis returned to Channel 2 for one night only to substitute for solo anchor Rob Johnson. The stunt brought a ton of favorable publicity to the station and delivered substantially higher ratings than usual. At the time, management insisted there were no plans to redeploy the duo, who first teamed up in 1973.
On that night’s newscast, Jacobson reprised his commentary segment while dressed in his customary shirtsleeves and suspenders. Proving ornery as ever, he took Rich Daley to task for doing “dumb things” and predicted the mayor’s departure from City Hall sooner rather than later. The piece drew a strong rebuke the next day from Daley, who told reporters: “Listen, I’m still here and he’s been out of Channel 2 for a long time. Like anything else, he needs publicity and Channel 2 needs help. I don’t know if he’s helping them.”
Jacobson, who jumped to Fox-owned WFLD-Channel 32 in 1993, retired in 2006. For a while served as a weekly commentator and news analyst for “Eight Forty-Eight” on Chicago Public Radio WBEZ-FM (91.5). He recently completed his memoirs, titled Walter’s Perspective, to be published later this year by Southern Illinois University Press.
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02 2010
blogs.vocalo.org
This is a great move, will now put Ch2 on DVR so I can watch this after the Daily Show/Colbert. Perhaps though they need to lower the wattage a little on those lights, everyone is looking pretty tired on Ch2 as of late…but North’s face is better than coffee for quick wake-up.
And Rob….are you going to start posting radio ratings again. I miss that from the old days.
Better idea, have MSNBC toss Keith Olbermann aside and put Walter Jacobson there every night. He would give FOX News a run for it without the total idiocy of Olbermann..
Yummy!
OK, Uncle Walter… Skippy Rides Again!
BTW, Q: Why doesn’t Keith Olbermann wear a hat? A: They don’t make ‘em that size! Have you ever seen a cranium that huge? Maybe on other mammals. Keith’s next job? NATGEO.
Just make sure his chair makes him look taller than the tallest anchorperson.
Now you have the right idea. Next Kurtis, Sirott, Kogan, Roeper, Drummond.
How about Joan Esposito for a change ?
You need a feisty woman to handle those overgrown cowboys !
When is Mike North leaving ?
Something i said when Bill and Walter did the reunion. That is some of the BEST news i’ve heard for Chicago TV in ages! More! More! More! Welcome back home, Walter!!!
Can Skippy really torch anyone in just 75 seconds?
Welcome home Walter,,,
How about bringing back Jane Byrne. Have Skippy interview her. Now that’s a segment I would pay to watch!
Will Mr. Jacobson bring back a pulse of legitimacy to the television news business?
We can only hope so.
Television news is suffering from “FOX”ificiation…Loudmouth propagandists reading talking points and shouting down adversaries.
This is great, great news (seriously). I wonder what kind of coin Channel 2 will be giving Jake.
Any chance that Michael Harvey and Jim “Jake Hartford” Edwards will be helping him out with his research on these “Perspective” pieces? Or Phil Hayes, for that matter? Or Michael Radutzky?
What about Len O’Connor?
I love that a 72-year-old guy is named Skippy, which makes me think of peanut butter, which is indeed Yummy.
I like being directly under Bruce Wolf.
Bruce, what happened? You’re so succinct today. The good thing about Len O’Connor is that he was able to remember his name until the very end thanks to a lot of practice. Hopefully Walter will be extra cranky tonight on his return. It could be worse, he could have been on Chicago Sports Webio with Boom-Boom Mancini broadcasting to four chipmunks and Doug Buffone’s hair stylist.
Don’t forget Jorie Lueloff, Susan Anderson, Peter Nolan, Carrie Cochrann and the heavy set fellow “Bob,” whose last name I can never recall. He did the human interest stuff at Channel 2 for 105 years. Hooded eyes, ham & spinach face. They’d send him out to broken down chocolate factories, to put on a paper hat and eat for the camera. Frank Mathie pretty much does the same job at Channel 7. They should bring back Bob Whoozits. He seemed like a jolly sort.
…and, Mary Laney, too!
BTW, Bob Wallace was the Channel 2 features reporter mentioned above, but not directly under Bruce Wolf.
I watched it & the idiots played the theme music over the last 10 seconds of Skippy talking.
He went after the pols for all the negative ads & was happy the Super Bowl was here because there wouldn’t be any negative ads that day.
Don’t forget about Fahey Flynn!
Yes, good to see him back….I agree about Len O’Connor. He told it like it was, too. I’d like Bruce Wolf back on, too. I always liked Harry Volkman for weather.
Oh BTW, saw about 30 sec of Monsters in the Morning a little while ago:
Mary Kay Kleist: And, we’re expecting up to 2 inches of the white stuff.
Susan Carlson: That’s about 2 inches more than I can stand.
Mike North: Ho-HO, yukyukyuk!
Idiocy, sheer IDIOCY!
More Sam Zell ! Let’s here from the straight talkers.
Keep North muzzled when an important person is talking.
Joe’s right! His name was (is?) Bob Wallace. Why can’t WBBM bring that guy back? He was enjoyable. Jovial. Didn’t take himself too seriously, if memory serves. Had a sense of humor about himself and the idiotic assignments they’d send him out on. They could do worse than to bring him back.
What about being over a guy using a woman’s name?
Has the feel of a child prostitution police sting.
I’ve got a feeling that Walter, former Cubs batboy, can’t carry Jay Levine’s Louisville Slugger when it comes to class-envy commentary. (By the way, I understand that Jay has taken the Ping square groove wedge that he used to hold up his picket sign in New Trier Township and will be melting it down to help the relief effort in Haiti. Well, the club is useless anyway because it violates the spirit of the new golf rules.)
I don’t normally rely on the comments from this post for the facts, but assuming arguendo that what Garry says is true, then Walter was dead wrong: the Super Bowl will, in fact, be airing a very negative ad. Negative, that is, in the eyes of pro-choice proponents.
But I didn’t actually see Walter’s commentary, so I will withhold judgment. I don’t really watch TV news (because I’m not on it). But I do like to read the posts and comments from people who watch TV news. In this regard, I am sure I am like cynical station managers, who can’t stand their own products.
Words cannot describe the pleasure of being under Bruce Wolf twice on the same fling, uh, page.
This reminds me of the climax of “Some Like It Hot,” when Jack Lemmon rips off his wig and yells “I’m a man,” to which Joe E. Brown responds, “Well, nobody’s perfect.”
It is more pleasurable to watch a day long PBS beg-a-thon than CBS2.
Put Walter on in the morning with the ‘monsters’. It wouldn’t be long before Walter is jumping across the table and pummeling another host into a bloody pulp–now that would be good tv.
Walter was great the night he was on with Bill….And I am Len O’Connor
CBS2 has brought on some smart marketing folks recently so I’m not surprised that it’s carrying over into programming. Morning show gonna make it? Who knows but history isn’t on their side. Walter’s perspectives are always welcome to this viewer simply because so much TV “news” is pablum. Now there’s a word you don’t hear much anymore unless you have little kids in the house. Like CBS2, the Trib and Times are both repositioning themselves in the marketplace and we, the viewers/readers are better off for it. We need more voices taking on the social and political systems that have run off the track in Illinois. Hey, as I’ve said before, at least they’re trying something different – in this case “old/new”.
Raise your hand if you read Bruce Wolf’s post faster than you usually read? I for one find myself reading Bruce’s post with a flair of Chet Chitchat. I’m trying to slow down – but I can’t seem to control myself.
Pssst!! hey walter, what is the upshot that mell(33rd)&maldonato(26th) PUBLICLY back’d Scott L. Cohen on home websites?$?$ Oh swami give it to us straight$$$$ feder and walter back,are others lurking nearby the Tower?
My dad used to tell me stories about “Skippy” but I never had the chance to see him until now. YIPPEE!! Skippy’s back and now I’ve got something to talk about with my dad. Thanks CBS!! I’ll be watching for Skippy’s commentaries every week. YA-HOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Bruce: Congrats!
You learned how to use the shift key!
And yes, Skippy said he was happy to see the end of the negative ads, I guess he hadn’t heard of the controversy over
the Tebow ad which many say is an outright lie.
re: Bob Wallace (I believe he’s the son of CBS’ Mike, BTW). I don’t know what he does for a living, but Bob is the talent on a 10 minute training video for the Chicago Board of Elections. With help from Board staffers, he explains to newbie election judges how to set up the polling places, record votes and close the polls. Sounds pedestrian and far removed from Peabody-quality reporting, but he’s excellent at this assignment. He plays the bagpipes in marching bands, too.
For those of you that are seriously interested in the status of Bob Wallace, there is a new technology called “search” on the web. Try it and you will come across this:
http://www.bobwallace.com/bwvidprod.htm
And he is not related to Mike Wallace. Geez, why not just say that he’s related to George Wallace given that the above simply blurts out that Bob is related to Mike Wallace without any background checks.
To DAN MILLER #34
Bob Wallace is NOT the son of Mike “60 Minutes” Wallace. His son is Chris Wallace who is the host of Fox’s Sunday Morning political show on channel 32. I know because I watch every Sunday for their round table comments & analysis in the 2nd half of the show after all the politicians are finished lying during their interviews.
However, you’re right about Bob. He’s an excellent reporter & I’m hoping they’ll bring him back for some good reporting as well.
Welcome back Skippy & Bob Kurtis!!!!
Skippy Da Man!
It’s about time the programming execs pulled their collective heads out of their collective proctol orifices and put real pros in front of the cameras!
Smart move! Hats off to Bruno & Jeff for moving the needle which hasn’t moved in many years. Cheers!
my skippy story……………many many years ago, i was watching the 5pm news with WJ as the solo anchor, gene siskel had just finished reviewing a movie about a south american big city street urchin, i can’t remember the one word title, but as gene was tossing it back to WJ, WJ was pestering gene about what was the english translation of the movies title, finally gene, wanting to end the conversation, said to WJ, in a tone that said he was done discussing it said, “it’s a word, i don’t know what it means, what does skippy mean”?
There’s little chance of bringing Bob Wallace back.
He spent many years as a flack for the city & once you flack, you can’t come back!
The move makes me wonder what would happen if some station brought back a number of past Chicago reporters/anchors. Mary Anne Childers, Joan Esposito, Linda Maclennan, Mary Laney, etc. Make it a station with names every Chicagoan who has live here 10 years+ could name. What do you think? Have to think it would fare better than the just promoted from Des Moines crew or the my daddy is a reporter at another station crew.
The old/new worked well for Channel 7 for many years when they brought back Floyd Kalber and Harry Porterfield. I think Mary Ann Childers was the BEST news reader that Channel 2 had. And Harry Volkman with his flowers. A 10 pm news show with Mary Ann and Walter as the leads and Mike Parker as the chief reporter with REAL NEWS would bring me back to them from Comedy Central ASAP.
Wasn’t Jim Williams a flack?
Ron Hunter, that the guy’s name. The one with the lamb chop sideburns who worked at Channel 5 in the ’70’s. What is he up to now?
Geez, a ‘ham & spinach’ face with ‘pork chop sideburns’. Who’s hungry?!
Three comments by Bruce today? At his age, I didnt think he could do it so often in one day. I know I cannot.
I tuned in for Skippy buy got my kicks with Mike Flannery who has apparently been set free by management. Since when is “Dude?” the kind of incisive question asked by your political reporter? Scott Lee Cohen and his ex wife seemed to be the only ones bearing the burden of dignity. What does Jay Levine think of all this?
To Apres Ski, I ask the following:
How did you know Bob Wallace was not Mike Wallace’s son by watching Chris Wallace on Fox? You state that you know this by watching Fox Sunday Morning. Did Chris say that he was not Bob’s brother?
Are you so clever that you can disregard the 1st half of the Fox Sunday Morning show but still put into context what the pundits are talking about on the round table? How do you know the politicians are lying? Did you ask your dad about it, oops sorry that relationship is so deep that you had to wait until Skippy and Kurtis were back together to find something to talk about (YIPPEE!! Skippy’s back and now I’ve got something to talk about with my dad.)
Of course, we all fondly recall the days of Walter Jacobson and Bob Kurtis.
You recall Bob Kurtis, right?
Folks let’s not lose our focus. This blog entry is not about any of the Wallaces—Chris, Mike, Rusty, George, Bob or Zach.
This is about Walter Jacobson.
Skippy Wallace? Walter Wallace? Wallace Wallace? Careful now, Bill Wallace Kurtis might feel snubbed.
Thursday was the first time I watched CBS News in years, besides the Bill and Walter reunion. If Walter is back, I am back. He was a hero to me in my younger days. Wish we had more journos like him today (Scott Lee Cohen, anyone?).
I was reading above and agree. Don’t they get it on the news management teams? Chicago is a different kind of market. These talking heads from Tulsa or Tampa won’t cut it here. Give me a chubby Linda McClennan who earned her stripes, a Mary Ann Childers (her pairing with John Drury only second to Bill and Walter) who is a class act and smarter than the three management teams put together, or even Joan Espo. We like OUR people. People who know the names of neighborhoods and don’t call Pilsen the Heart of the City, for example.
TO TONY SMITH #48
Mike Wallace mentioned it in an interview who his son was because it was interesting that Mike seems so liberal and yet Chris is the host of Fox News Sunday. No, I’ve never heard that Chris even mentioned Bob because he does not know who Bob is.
I watch the introduction of the show so I’ll know who’s on. I listen to the beginning of the show enough to know the topic and the guests. By the time Chris has finished grilling the Liars about the intentions, I can tell when their lying. You know people are lying because you’re watching their body language. They’re taught to lie and lie well, but their facial expressions give them away. When you get the chance, watch repeats of Lie To Me on Fox. It’s a TV show about how people lie in everyday situations, under stress or just to get away from another person.
I didn’t have to wait until Skippy was back on the air. My dad & I talk about stuff all the time. Well now my dad can tell me even more stories about Skippy & Bill Kurtis. Of course, we all fondly recall the days of Walter Jacobson and Bob Kurtis. And Kurtis is back doing commercials. I do lots of homework thanks to the internet. It’s always good to have a human reference when it comes to history.
TO TONY SMITH #48
http://www.fox.com/lietome/
This is a good show because if you didn’t know when or how to catch someone in a lie, watch this show and you’ll learn how your family, friends and coworkers have been lying to you for years and years and you’ve just been going along.
I like it because now my Christmas & birthday lists have gotten much shorter and the quality of gifts a whole lot better!! ROTFLOL!!!
More biting Mike Flannery – even when he describes Hoffman and his big stick.
He cooly refused to acknowledge Mike North or let him hijack his facetime.
Just jettison the casual sweater look. Wear blue shirts and shiny ties.
Everyone, I’m not sure if the “James Edwards” is posting is the same one as the “Jim Edwards” who once worked for Walter Jacobson (and who took his radio name, Jake Hartford, in part from Walter and in part from his dog (?)), but James is of course correct.
This discussion here is about Walter, and not about various broadcast and political Wallaces (be they nonagenarian CBS legends or onetime Channel 2 reporters who toss a crumpled-up paper in the wastebasket in the infamous 1970s promo video at the 0:33 mark: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MORXHtW2P14).
Who here is up for watching Walter’s *next* “Perspective,” next Tuesday night? I’ll be there, whether or not John Rooney or Joseph Novak or Roe Conn or Jim Edwards is the producer helping him out on his commentary!
I think it’s obvious, don’t you? We all want Bob Wallace to come back and chat up elderly African American men, with long white beards, who make hand carved walking sticks and festoon them with used bottle caps. Also the fellow who used to make chrome sculptures from junk car bumpers. Then let’s have Bob track down Petros King-of-the-Oopah from the old Diana’s restaurant in Greektown. This could be fun.
Jim Williams was a “flack” for a little while. So was Phil Ponce, if memory serves. But not for very long. I remember when Williams got back into the business at Channel 9. Their make-up people did a horrible job with the dark circles under his eyes. Either that or it was the lighting in the studio. They made him look like Frankenstein. Channel 2 does a much better job with him. As for Ron Hunter…I believe he’s dead?
Ron Hunter died June 25, 2008, Las Vegas. He retired from broadcasting in 1998.
Speaking of Ron Magers, when I lived in LA a few years ago I saw was watching the NBC affiliate (KNBC) and who is still going strong?…Ron Mager’s old sidekick, Chuck Henry. The man with the perfect hair. In fact, he sort of looks like a clone of John Edwards. He was made for the Hollywood gossip scene. He never fit in here.
And how about a moment of silence for another TV guy from the 70’s, Pat Summerall’s old sidekick, Tom Brookshier who passed away the other day. He was a little goofy, those two were quite a team on CBS.
Sorry..I meant to say that Chuck Henry Ron Hunter’s old sidekick, not Magers. Too many Ron’s.
As long as Walter doesn’t dress up like a homeless guy and sticks to his “perspective,” all should be well.
We LOVE Walter!!