WBEZ Presents

Listen to the first episode of this new collaboration between WBEZ and The University of Chicago's Becker Friedman Institute. Economists are always talking about The Pie - how it grows and shrinks, how it’s sliced, and who gets the biggest shares. Join hosts Eduardo Porter and Tess Vigeland as they talk with leading economists from the University of Chicago and other experts about the most pressing matters of today. Hear how the economic pie is at the heart of issues like COVID-19 vaccine development, gender dynamics in the workplace, energy policy, jobs, and more.

One hundred years ago, all across this country, racial tensions were exploding into violence so brutal that it would become known as the Red Summer. Chicago saw some of the worst violence in deadly attacks between blacks and whites. In City on Fire, we take you back to that time and its lessons. It’s a co-production of WBEZ and the production company Make-Believe Association.

C.W. McCall had a surprise No. 1 hit in 1976. But he was actually an ad executive playing the character of a country singer. Sound Opinions producer Evan Chung tells the strange story of how “Convoy” became a cultural phenomenon. He speaks with the songwriters behind “Convoy” – ad executive-turned-lyricist/vocalist Bill Fries and composer Chip Davis (later of Mannheim Steamroller fame) – who reveal the origins of C.W. McCall in a series of Nebraska bread commercials. Like the song “Convoy” itself, it’s an odd, rollicking tale that takes many surprising turns.

Upon discovering a pattern of students skipping swim class in the CPS system, WBEZ’s Linda Lutton attempts to follows the trail of sick notes and track down their progenitor: one elusive and enigmatic Dr. Fong. This episode of WBEZ Presents is a special rebroadcast of a December 2015 story.

Last summer, WBEZ reporter Dan Weissmann traveled to West Frankfort, a small town in southern Illinois that briefly played host to a small battle in the so-called “war on coal.” With coal at the center of the climate change battle, some people from around West Frankfort pulled together an army of sorts to take up their part in that fight. Weissmann attended one of their rallies last June. With coal back in the news — in March President Trump issued an executive order to "end the war on coal" — WBEZ Presents revisits Weissmann’s 2016 report from coal country.

After more than two years as WBEZ’s vice president of content and programming, Ben Calhoun is returning to the staff at This American Life. WBEZ’s Shannon Heffernan sat down with Calhoun on his last day to discuss his career, the WBEZ stories he loved the most and what’s next for him. Click ‘play’ to hear their conversation.

ESPN reporter Baxter Holmes tracked the popularity of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich in the NBA. We speak with Holmes – and WBEZ employees – about the famous sandwich.

Chicago-based Chess Records helped make stars of Muddy Waters, Etta James and a force of nature named Chuck Berry, who died March 18, 2017, at his home outside St. Louis. He was 90. In 2010, WBEZ’s Sound Opinions visited the home of Chess Records, which released most of Berry’s best-known songs. In this special rebroadcast by WBEZ Presents, Sound Opinions hosts Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kot dive into the history and the legacy of Chess, a Chicago record label that changed rock n’ roll.

Buying a house is a complicated and high-risk move, but it’s even more so if you’re black because all kinds of things are rigged against you.

Thirty miles southwest of downtown Chicago, in a village where suburban sprawl and farmland coexist, sits a scaled-down version of Jerusalem’s iconic Dome of the Rock. The men who built The Prayer Center of Orland Park a decade ago set out to create what they called a “model mosque” -- a blueprint for what an American Muslim house of worship could be. Along the way they encountered resistance from local residents, a shooting, turnover in leadership and a renewed distrust in Muslim Americans. The congregation knows some people distrust Muslims; Donald Trump’s election seemed to be a reminder of that. But when Orland Park became one of the few areas to vote for Trump in Democratic Cook County, this congregation again found themselves on uncertain ground in an America that can often feel hostile to their faith.

Reporter Linda Lutton spent a year at Penn Elementary on Chicago’s West Side exploring one big idea: Can schools make the American dream real for poor kids?