Generations of Chicagoans have known Bill Kurtis in many different ways — as a television journalist, documentary filmmaker, public radio voice, or even through his unexpected association with a hit comedy film. Now they are discovering him in yet another role: author. The longtime Mettawa resident has released a new memoir, Whirlwind: My Life Reporting the News, a reflection on crucial moments of his reporting career that shaped his life.
Kurtis became an iconic figure in Chicago during his three separate stints as news anchor at WBBM-TV and through decades of reporting that took him around the world. More recently, he has been recognizable to many through his hosting and scorekeeping duties on NPR’s Wait, Wait… Don’t Tell Me! and his narration in the Anchorman films. But he felt those high-profile entertainment roles risked eclipsing the work he considers most meaningful, and while he had written other books in the past, he decided it was time for an updated autobiography.
“The truth is I had kind of wandered off into the entertainment world with Anchorman and Wait, Wait… Don’t Tell Me!,” he said after a recent discussion and book signing at Chicago’s Museum of Broadcast Communications. “I genuinely didn’t want my reputation to hang on those two events because nobody else knew what I did before them.”
Across more than 300 pages, Kurtis, 85, revisits many of the major national and international stories he covered — notorious crimes, political unrest, natural disasters, and the continuing toll of the Vietnam War — in what he calls “the amazing order in my life.”
The title Whirlwind is no metaphor, beginning with his first major assignment: coverage of the June 1966 tornado that struck Topeka, Kansas. Then a part-time broadcaster attending law school, Kurtis was unexpectedly placed in the anchor chair as the storm approached. Fearing for viewers’ safety, he delivered the line that would define the moment: “For God’s sake, take cover.”
“I happened to be in a position to save lives and change my life’s direction,” he recalled.
Inspired, he sent videotapes of his reporting to stations around the country. Within months, he was hired at WBBM-TV. He had visited Chicago only once before but remembers being immediately intrigued.
“I walked down State Street and thought it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen,” he said.
Kurtis completed his degree from Washburn Law School, and that legal training was crucial as he was assigned to cover some of the era’s biggest courtroom dramas: the Richard Speck murder trial, the Chicago Seven case following unrest at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, and later the Charles Manson trial after joining CBS on the West Coast in the early 1970s.
His memoir also recounts reporting from Chicago during the riots following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., the upheaval at the Democratic National Convention later that year, and his journey to the Chernobyl nuclear reactor inside the Soviet Union roughly two years after the 1986 explosion. He also describes a memorable 1980s interview with Muhammad Ali as concerns about the heavyweight champion’s health were emerging.
Kurtis devotes three chapters to his Vietnam reporting: his 1975 trip shortly before the fall of Saigon, his 1980 return to report on Vietnamese women raising children fathered by American soldiers, and his groundbreaking investigation into the dangers of Agent Orange.
He describes the Agent Orange story — sparked by a tip at WBBM that 12 Vietnam veterans were suffering similar health problems after exposure to a U.S. military chemical — as the most consequential of his career.
“I knew immediately this was national and international news if true,” he said.
WBBM ultimately aired an hour-long documentary that was shown before Congress, highlighting the veterans’ health issues and the birth defects affecting many of their children.
“It was like an atomic bomb because the veterans were waiting for something like this,” he said. “They were suffering and being blamed for the war. They all suffered from PTSD, and suddenly, along comes the possibility of Agent Orange being behind their illness.”
Kurtis believes at least 50 forms of cancer are connected to the defoliant. “It has been a fight for 50 years to get the government to recognize the extent of the Agent Orange poisoning,” he said.
While he dedicates one chapter to his celebrated co-anchoring years with Walter Jacobson beginning in 1973 — an era of Chicago television news that remains widely admired — most of the memoir focuses on his work outside the studio.
“Anchoring came very easy, as you read,” he said. “To me, journalism is finding stories, covering the story, writing the story, and presenting the story. That’s where I concentrated my career.”
Still, he acknowledges the power of an anchorman’s presence, especially in previous eras when viewers had far fewer options. As he signed books, many people told him how they watched him on a nightly basis.
“When they were young as teenagers or pre-teenagers, they were able to watch television,” he said. “If they would sit still alongside their parents, they could watch the news. That was their life.”
What readers will not find are negative portrayals of colleagues or many expressions of disappointment — even when writing about his short-lived move to New York in 1982 to anchor the CBS Morning News, a stint that ended in 1985 when ratings failed to improve.
“I was so interested in what I was doing in reporting and journalism,” Kurtis said. “That is what I want to do. I honestly didn’t have time for revenge. I kept the focus ahead and on stories like Agent Orange.”
Kurtis continues to live in Mettawa, where he has made his home for more than 30 years, and remains active with his production company and on Wait, Wait… Don’t Tell Me!.
“Whirlwind is a very good title because it means that from the tornado to today, I am being sent in the direction of what I want to do,” he said. “Which is journalism.”
Daniel I. Dorfman is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.