{"id":9660,"date":"2015-12-10T11:00:33","date_gmt":"2015-12-10T17:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.robertfeder.com\/?p=9660"},"modified":"2015-12-11T09:53:53","modified_gmt":"2015-12-11T15:53:53","slug":"robservations-serial-returns-with-bergdahl-saga","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/2015\/12\/10\/robservations-serial-returns-with-bergdahl-saga\/","title":{"rendered":"Robservations: \u2018Serial\u2019 returns with Bergdahl saga"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Sarah<\/a>

<\/a> Sarah Koenig<\/p><\/div>\n

Robservations on the media beat:<\/p>\n

Even if you\u2019re still wondering about The Nisha Call from the first season, now there\u2019s a new mystery to ponder on \u201cSerial.\u201d<\/a> Produced by \u201cThis American Life\u201d and Chicago Public Media WBEZ FM 91.5, <\/a>the most popular podcast series of all time returned Thursday with Sarah Koenig<\/strong> delving into the story of Bowe Bergdahl,<\/strong> the U.S. soldier who was released in 2014 after being a prisoner of the Taliban for nearly five years. The debut, featuring an interview with Bergdahl, is accessible at serialpodcast.org<\/a> and on iTunes and Pandora. Koenig\u2019s first season of \u201cSerial,\u201d which examined the murder of a high school student in a Baltimore suburb, was downloaded more than 100 million times and won a Peabody Award.<\/p>\n

\"Brandon<\/a>

Brandon Smith<\/p><\/div>\n

Brandon Smith,<\/strong> the independent journalist who sued for release of the Laquan McDonald<\/strong> video, this week identified 10 news organizations that tried to obtain the video through Freedom of Information Act requests. (CBS 2; WBBM Newsradio; MSNBC; Evelyn Wang<\/strong> of the independent news organization The Youth Project;\u00a0Chicago Tribune; NBC 5; WGN and CLTV; Associated Press; The Guardian; The Wall Street Journal.) All were rejected. None followed up with lawsuits. It took Smith acting alone to win his case in court. The Tribune belatedly joined<\/a> in Smith\u2019s suit December 3. Now the Freedom of the Press Foundation has announced a crowd-sourced fundraising campaign <\/a>to advance Smith\u2019s vital and diligent work. More power to him.<\/p>\n

\"Gerri<\/a>

Gerri Wells<\/p><\/div>\n

This year\u2019s holiday extravaganza at Tribune Media news\/talk WGN AM 720<\/a> will be \u201cMiracle on Gerri Wells Street,\u201d a takeoff on the classic 1947 film \u201cMiracle on 34th Street.\u201d The title is a tribute to Gerri Wells,<\/strong> who\u2019s stepping down<\/a> as assistant to Jimmy deCastro,<\/strong> the station\u2019s president and general manager. Performed before a audience in Campbell Hall at Tribune Tower, it will air live from 10 a.m. to noon December 18 (with repeats on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.) Previous year\u2019s productions included \u201cIt\u2019s a Wonderful Leff\u201d (a nod to WGN host Bill Leff<\/strong>) and \u201cA Christmas Carol Hankner\u201d<\/a> (in tribute to 50-year employee Carol Hankner<\/strong>).<\/p>\n

\"Tom<\/a>

Tom Couch<\/p><\/div>\n

Tom Couch,<\/strong> longtime creative director at classic hits WDRV FM 97.1, <\/a>is odd man out in a consolidation of staff at Hubbard Radio stations. \u201cWell, it was a good, almost 15-year run, but my time at WDRV in Chicago is up,\u201d he wrote on Facebook. <\/a>\u201cBudget issues necessitated staff cutbacks, and I was one who was cut. . . . It was a great ride. Onward and Upward.\u201d Couch, who previously worked at CBS Radio adult album alternative WXRT FM 93.1 <\/a>and sports talk WSCR AM 670,<\/a> was one of three off-air employees whose jobs were cut this week at Hubbard Radio Chicago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Robservations on the media beat: Even if you\u2019re still wondering about The Nisha Call from the first season, now there\u2019s a new mystery to ponder on \u201cSerial.\u201d Produced by \u201cThis American Life\u201d and Chicago Public Media WBEZ FM 91.5, the most popular podcast series of all time returned Thursday with Sarah Koenig delving into the... Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9660"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9660"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9660\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9692,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9660\/revisions\/9692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}