Bill Kurtis was a mainstay of Chicago\u2019s television news landscape for decades, appearing at the anchor desk alongside Walter Jacobson on WBBM and nationally with Diane Sawyer on CBS Morning News.<\/p>\n
As a broadcast journalist, he covered some of the 20th century\u2019s most gruesome murder cases, from Charles Manson to Richard Speck<\/u><\/a>, and broke landmark reporting on the use of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. More recently, he has lent his signature deep voice to both Will Ferrell\u2019s \u201cAnchorman\u201d and NPR\u2019s weekly quiz show \u201cWait Wait…Don\u2019t Tell Me!<\/u><\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n In recent years, Kurtis (left) has used his signature deep voice in the role of judge and scorekeeper on NPR\u2019s weekly quiz show, \u201c\u201cWait Wait… Don\u2019t Tell Me.\u201d Here he appears with host Peter Sagal.<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n But his broadcast career almost didn\u2019t happen at all. Kurtis, who turns 85 this month, recounts it all in his aptly titled memoir \u201cWhirlwind<\/u><\/a>,\u201d which is out Tuesday from University Press of Kansas.<\/p>\n It all began the night Kurtis was on air during a tornado in his native Kansas. The young 20-something was still deciding between being a newsman or putting his law degree to work, having already accepted a job at a firm.<\/p>\n But that night, with a tornado on the horizon, Kurtis looked into the camera and said, with a bit of drama: \u201cFor God\u2019s sake, take cover.\u201d Just three months later, he was headed for a TV gig in Chicago, with his law career permanently in the rearview.<\/p>\n Now, as Kurtis takes stock of his personal history, he says the journalism industry is at a crossroads. The parent company that owns his former professional home, CBS News, settled a $16 million lawsuit<\/u><\/a> with President Donald Trump over the editing of a \u201c60 Minutes\u201d interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris during the 2024 presidential election. And in July, the network said it will cancel Stephen Colbert\u2019s<\/u><\/a> late night show next spring.<\/p>\n It\u2019s all got Kurtis, a storied newsman, worried about where we go from here, he recently told WBEZ\u2019s Courtney Kueppers. Below is a transcript of that conversation, which has been lightly edited for length and clarity.<\/p>\n I understand the title \u201cWhirlwind\u201d has a bit of a double meaning \u2014 not only your whirlwind career but also a pivotal moment that launched you into broadcasting. Can you tell me about that moment in Topeka that inspired the book\u2019s title?<\/b><\/p>\n When I graduated from law school, I was 26 years old, and because I had a deep voice, I had worked at a series of part-time [broadcasting] jobs, even doing Little League baseball and experience with a classical music station. So, I had worked out my mic fright.<\/p>\n A friend of mine happened to be a news director in Topeka and asked, \u201cCan you fill in for me doing the 6 o\u2019clock news?\u201d I left a tax review class and was happy to do that. I did the 6 o\u2019clock and the general manager came down and said, \u201cStick around. We have a cold front coming in from Manhattan [Kansas] and have reports of some high winds.\u201d<\/p>\n At 7 o\u2019clock, I\u2019m on camera waiting to go on to give the all clear, because it\u2019s always an all clear, there\u2019s never a tornado, when all of a sudden, I heard a two-way radio from one of our cameramen on the western edge of the city and [it] said, \u201cI\u2019ve got a tornado on the ground. It\u2019s huge.\u201d<\/p>\n He said it\u2019s wiped out [an] apartment complex. For me, that was truth zero. It\u2019s time to go. The camera goes on. And a lot happened in the flash of time before I said those words, because I knew the next words that I would say would mean life or death for people, but I had to make it serious enough to convince them to go to the shelter, go to the basement. And so I said, \u201cFor God\u2019s sake, take cover.\u201d Five words would mean life and death to a lot of people, and it would mean the beginning of a 60-year career in broadcasting.<\/p>\n Kurtis was a mainstay of Chicago\u2019s television news landscape for decades, appearing at the anchor desk alongside Walter Jacobson on WBBM and nationally with Diane Sawyer on the CBS Morning News.<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n I heard you say, I think referring to that evening, that \u201ctelevision done the right way could be a force for good.\u201d Do you still feel that way? <\/b><\/p>\n I do. I believe that it is. Journalists are individual and independent people who are dedicated to the search for truth. We\u2019re professionals, like doctors and lawyers. We were written into the First Amendment, when they were writing the Constitution \u2014 they didn\u2019t put doctors or lawyers in there, because they knew we were very important.<\/p>\n You did landmark reporting on the use of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. You have said that that was the biggest story of your career. What are you most proud of in terms of that reporting?<\/b><\/p>\n Well, with that reporting [for WBBM], it was really investigative reporting in which I was able to use my law degree. I was writing a story for the 10 o\u2019clock news, and it was 12 names of veterans who were dealing with symptoms that couldn\u2019t really be explained, and they were brushed off by [Veterans Affairs] and sent home. I started to interview them, and I knew at the time, in a flash, if this is true and if it really was caused by our own chemical and biological warfare, it would be a national, international story.<\/p>\n But there were 40 years of research that it was not harmful to human beings. Well, it may not have been harmful if you used it according to instructions, that\u2019s always the out, so I had to prove that it was dangerous to human beings.<\/p>\n I was interviewing a guy who had served in Pleiku [a city in central Vietnam] with Special Forces who said, \u201cYes, I was exposed. It was a white mist that came over the trees, and then we could see it dripping off the leaves. So, I was definitely exposed.\u201d He was sitting in a living room, and his 5-year-old child came in and was standing with Daddy and put his hand on his knee, and it exposed a little tip of a finger that was hanging by the skin. And it was a congenital problem \u2014 a birth defect, exactly what we were trying to prove. It was that picture that was so powerful. It really told this story.<\/p>\n Today \u2014 and this was a fight to get through \u2014 presumptive evidence applies to 20 to 50 types of cancer in which a veteran doesn\u2019t even have to show that they were exposed. All they have to do is say \u201cWe served in Vietnam\u201d and they are automatically in this line to be treated in the VA.<\/p>\n The guys come to me all the time and say, \u201cThank you. I\u2019ve got prostate cancer, but you know, the VA helped me.\u201d That\u2019s why I say it was the high point in my career, because it combined law, investigative reporting and carrying it through, staying with it, as I believe journalism should do.<\/p>\n As someone who spent your career in television broadcasting, are you concerned about the rise of misinformation in this fractured media landscape?<\/b><\/p>\n Oh God, yes. We\u2019re at the pivot point where the government is taking down our system of government, everything we know, piece by piece.<\/p>\n I can\u2019t speak for \u201c60 Minutes,\u201d but according to what I have heard, they settled the lawsuits so that CBS could sell itself, and what we have heard is that they wanted a bias monitor<\/u><\/a>. So, for the first time that I have been aware in my whole career, a person from the government would review the stories that you are covering.<\/p>\n That kind of thing sends shivers up. We\u2019ve been searching for the truth independently all these years. We\u2019re not bad people, we\u2019re professionals. So, I am scared.<\/p>\n![\"25.](\"https:\/\/cst.brightspotcdn.com\/dims4\/default\/30db87b\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/3298x2556+0+0\/resize\/840x651!\/quality\/90\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fchorus-production-cst-web.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com%2Fbrightspot%2Fab%2F7b%2F376c66d742c9ab49f47544da93c6%2F25-cbs-morning-news-1.jpg\")
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