By Rick Kaempfer
ACCOUNTABILITY JOURNALISM
W
hen Brad Edwards was asked to be
the co-anchor of the 5, 6, and 10 pm
newscasts on CBS-2 Chicago in
March of 2019, he was a little taken aback.
Edwards had been a big part of the award-
winning CBS investigative team since 2012,
and "anchor" was a whole different ballgame.
He knew what he wanted to do and what he
didn’t want to do.
“Right out of the gate when I got the offer,
I asked the boss two questions. First and fore-
most, I’m still an investigative reporter, right?
I’m not going to go to banquets and emcee and
shake hands with soon-to-be-indicted public
officials, and handle the cocktail circuit, right?
He agreed with me.”
If you’ve stumbled onto the newscast with
would be much easier to do that ‘here’s what
happened today’ show. Press conferences.
Press releases. Billboards. Previews. We don’t
do that. It is really hard, but it’s really good TV
when you do it right. So now, we’re not doing
what the others are doing, so let’s see how it
pans out.”
If Edwards’ trophy case is any indication
(he has won over 80 awards for television writ-
ing and reporting), he will bring a slightly dif-
ferent approach to the job. “Anchor is the gig I
happen to be doing – although I must say I
really like it. I feel like I’m the viewer anchor-
ing. But honestly, that’s the last thing I think
about every day. I first and foremost think of
myself as the guy holding the microphone,
and the microphone is the apparatus of
Brad Edwards
Edwards at the helm, you’ve probably noticed
that he isn’t a conventional anchor out of cen-
tral casting. Ron Burgundy wouldn’t recognize
his old job, and there’s a good reason for that.
“I don’t see myself as an anchor,” he says.
“I see myself as an investigative reporter,
anchoring. Everything is through that scope.
During the newscast, I’m watching the stories,
thinking of follow-ups, and [considering] dif-
ferent angles. I’m engaged with the reporters
throughout the show. It’s a remarkable thing
we’re trying to do at CBS-2. We are actually
doing some accountability journalism.”
In fact, doing that kind of journalism is the rea-
son why Edwards agreed to take a stab at this
star-crossed position.
“Most anchors who came here probably
thought they were the answer,” he admits.
“The first thing I did was to buy a bottle of
scotch to celebrate—didn’t open it—and I
updated my LinkedIn profile realizing that
well, you know, this thing has a good chance of
not working. Am I really the change needed?
The chance I have with this, though, is that this
really isn’t just an anchor change. You can’t
trick people like that. They are too smart and
too savvy to be fooled. But if you do an anchor
change with an actual dynamic mission
change at the same time—maybe you have a
shot. It’s going to take some time to change a
generation of viewing habits, in combination
with a dwindling market share for local news
in general.”
And don’t ask him to analyze why things
haven’t worked at CBS-2 Chicago for the past
twenty years. “If I knew, we would fix it. The
one thing we needed NOT to do was to do the
same thing that everyone else was doing. We
did that for decades. When you’re not win-
ning, you can’t just try to replicate the winner
and think that things are going to change. It
16 illinoisentertainer.com january 2020
accountability. I want to reconcile inequities
and call out corruption. That’s where you start.
But if you can’t tell the story in a compelling
way, it doesn’t do any good to have that data.
You must humanize the story. You need char-
acters. You need compelling storytelling.
That’s where my writing background comes
in.”
And Edwards feels that CBS-2 might be the
perfect place for that if you delve back into the
station’s history. “Channel 2 was the home of
this approach back in the day. Bill Kurtis
showed that with the Richard Speck tape.
People thought Walter Jacobsen was a joke, but
that was novel, original groundbreaking
reporting. News shouldn’t be political, but it
should take sides. I take sides. I’m on the right
side, meaning just, meaning the opposite of
wrong.”
He couldn’t believe what he found in
Chicago city government when he first arrived
in town. “I said, let me get this straight. You’re
telling me that Ed Burke is the finance guy and
his job is to get as much money in taxes from
the people as possible, but at the same time his
side hustle is getting giant business clients so
they can get breaks from taxes, and he’s
allowed to do that? And people were like,
that’s just how it is. I said, um, shouldn’t we be
taking a stance on that? I’m glad to see Chicago
is beginning to do that. Look at the last elec-
tion, when "the machine" was beaten by this
diminutive lesbian from Ohio. Chicago is
ready for a change.”
But are they ready for a change in the tra-
ditional news anchor? “Part of me is holding
on to the fact that no matter what happens, we
still have the greatest investigative unit—Pam
Zekman, Dave Savini, et al. If it doesn’t work
out for me as an anchor, maybe I can slide back
into that unit. I’d be perfectly happy there.”