Following in the old man’s footsteps is a time-honored career path, whether you’re George W. Bush or just a guy taking over the family plumbing business.
The script is also now playing out nightly on TV sets across Chicago, where it seems as if you can hardly visit a crime scene without bumping into someone who’s related to someone from another station.
“It’s sort of a running joke on the street,” says WLS-Ch. 7’s Dan Ponce, whose dad (Phil) and brother (Anthony) are also in the news business in Chicago. “Whenever I see Aaron Baskerville or Lauren Jiggetts or Karen Jordan, we sort of instinctively ask about each other’s parents.”
Chicago’s family connections may be unique in the world of television. There have been isolated cases elsewhere — Mike and Chris Wallace, the Carays, etc. — but nothing, ever, like what we see here.
“We write about a lot of markets,” said P.J. Bednarski, executive editor of the industry publication Broadcasting & Cable and a TV critic, media business reporter and entertainment editor at the Sun-Times from 1983 to 1990. “We do a market per week. Invariably in that market there is a husband-and-wife team that anchors together, there is a daughter and father who work at the same station. But I’ve never heard [of] so many in one place.”
This being Chicago, the idea of nepotism comes to mind, but facts indicate otherwise. All of the younger generation of reporters grew up here, their families are still here, and Chicago is a career destination for journalists, no matter their last name. And they all started in small markets elsewhere and climbed the ladder back to their hometown.
“They’re not working their way back to Topeka,” Bednarski pointed out. “They’re coming to a great city with TV stations that … when I see them they still are a step ahead of most markets.”
“Chicago is kind of like a gathering point almost for [journalists] trying to get here,” agreed Comcast SportsNet’s Dan Jiggetts, whose latest gig is “Monsters in the Morning,” a daily sports talk show. “We happen to be here as parents, and kids try to work their way back here on their way to wherever they want to go.”
Jiggetts’ older daughter, Lauren, works as a reporter for WMAQ-Ch. 5, and younger daughter Kristan is an associate producer for the syndicated “Judge Jeanine Pirro,” which is produced here. Both women made other stops around the country before entering the Chicago market.
Then there’s the Ponce Dynasty. Dad Phil is host of WTTW-Ch. 11’s “Chicago Tonight,” Dan is a reporter at WLS-Ch. 7, and Anthony is a reporter at WMAQ-Ch. 5. Phil says that having one’s offspring join the family business may just be an unintended result of parenting:
“Why are so many doctors sons and daughters of doctors? Why are so many lawyers sons and daughters of lawyers? I think unintentionally you can imprint on kids, and I think it’s a lot more powerful what you do than what you say.”
“I think it’s unusual, though I don’t think it’s that unusual for kids to take their parent’s profession,” said Donna Leff, a professor at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. “What’s really unusual is the high profile on the air. I think that’s fun. And it’s particularly entertaining because they’re not on the same stations.”
As for the nepotism …
“All these kids, all the families, they were hard workers,” says WBBM-Ch. 2 meteorologist Steve Baskerville, whose son, Aaron, is an anchor and reporter for CLTV. “All of these kids, they haven’t taken any shortcuts.”
Dan Jiggetts finds it amusing when people ask if he helped Lauren get her job.
“I say, well, I don’t think so. I can’t get that sort of situation for myself. She got it on her own abilities.”
In the end, Leff says, the family connections aren’t a factor.
“As long as they’re talented, it makes no difference,” she says. “In a way it’s good for journalism, a ray of optimism in a professional that doesn’t have many.”
Here’s a rundown of those who have made Chicago television a family business.
Phil, Dan and Anthony Ponce
Phil Ponce started in the Chicago market in 1982, when Dan (32) and Anthony (30) were just kids.
“When they were young I was with Channel 2, and they’d frequently come to the newsroom,” Phil said. “They got a sense of the vibe. For so many people coming up, television and newspapers and radio, they’re kind of a mystery. When you have offspring whose parents are in the business it’s demystified and comes into the realm of the possible for them.”
Dan and Anthony graduated from Indiana University and got master’s degrees from Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism. Dan, who gave up a music career to go back to school at NU (a music career that has since reignited; see sidebar), came to WLS-Ch. 7 in 2006 after a stop in Lansing, Mich. Anthony worked in Ft. Wayne, Ind., and Indianapolis before being hired by WMAQ-Ch. 5 in 2007.
As reporters, their paths sometimes cross on the job.
“Occasionally they’re assigned to the same story,” Phil said, “and in the newsrooms I’m told it’s called ‘dueling Ponces,’ which they think is pretty funny. But they are competitive on the street.”
“It’s interesting and it is kind of fun,” Anthony said of working the same story as Dan. “[We’ll] exchange a funny look or two. Because he’s your brother you want to help him out, but at the same time, you don’t. I’ve gotten things, interviews, he hasn’t, and he’s burned me. And we always laugh after the fact.”
“I think we’re about tied [in beating the other to a story],” Dan said. “But I think he still has a chip on his shoulder for all the times I beat him in cross-country at New Trier.”
Dan, Lauren and Kristan Jiggetts
Dan Jiggetts should have known where his girls were headed.
“When we were kids I’d hold the video camera and videotape Lauren as she read my dad’s scripts,” Kristan said. “So from an early age that’s been the role.”
Dan Jiggetts captained Harvard’s football team and in 1976 was drafted by the Bears, for whom he played until 1982. After his playing career, he went into banking and boradcasting, and has worked for CBS and ESPN.
“When Lauren was born it was my second to last year with the Bears,” he said. “Really, they grew up with me in banking or in the television business.”
Lauren — who like her dad went to Harvard — started her career in Los Angeles at Channel One News, which produces news for middle and high schools.
But her ultimate goal was to get back to Chicago, and to do that she knew she needed some experience in local news. So she took a job as a general assignment reporter and fill-in anchor in Boston. She came to WMAQ in 2007.
Kristan, a year younger at 26, went to grad school at Loyola Marymount in Los Angeles and got a master’s of fine arts degree in television production. While in school she worked on “Entertainment Tonight” and “Dr. Phil.” After graduation she landed the “Judge Pirro” gig.
What does she believe is the draw of Chicago?
“It seems kids here definitely are interested in the news because the news seems to be big here. Compared to other cities I’ve lived in, people here really seem to love the news.”
Steve and Aaron Baskerville
The first day of Steve Baskerville’s first paying TV gig — a kids show in his hometown of Philadelphia — was the same day Aaron was born.
In his 21 years on the air in Chicago, Steve has made a name for himself that works both for and against Aaron, 32, who has been at CLTV for just over a year.
“It’s an obvious advantage because my dad has been here for so long,” said Aaron, who was a production assistant at ESPN and a reporter in Lansing and Buffalo after getting a master’s degree at Medill. “He’s well-respected. …
“But it’s a disadvantage, too, for the same reason. I have to live up to the family name, to what my dad has built here over a long time.”
Robert and Karen Jordan
Karen, a reporter and weekend anchor with WLS-Ch. 7, had considered a career in education. But after graduating from Spellman College in Atlanta, she enrolled at Medill. After she got a master’s degree, her career path included stops in Rockford, Dayton, Ohio, and Philadelphia before returning in 2003 to the city she grew up in.
Karen, 36, says not much is said about the family connections around Chicago’s newsrooms.
“It hasn’t really come up in a blatant sense. Maybe in passing or in a joke. … I just say, ‘Hey, my father gave me the tools and the rest was up to me.'”
The Jordans have a third component to the equation: Karen’s husband, Christian Farr, a correspondent on “Chicago Tonight.”
“We’ll sit around, since all three of us are in the business, and discuss television and journalism and things of that nature,” says Bob, who has been in Chicago since 1973. “And my wife is sort of our sounding board, being the only one who’s not in the business. We use her as the average viewer to see what her reaction is to this, that and the other.”
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In Chicago, love is in the airwaves
Married couples have, on occasion, worked in the Chicago market. Among the first were Johnny and Jeannie Morris, who covered sports for WBBM-Ch. 2 and WMAQ-Ch. 5 and were dubbed the city’s No. 1 media couple in the late 1970s. (The couple divorced in 1985.) The tradition continues today with several married couples working in Chicago’s television community, in front of and behind the cameras. Here are some of them:
Karen Jordan (WLS-Ch. 7 anchor) and Christian Farr (WTTW-Ch. 11 correspondent for “Chicago Tonight”)
Dina Bair (WGN-Ch. 9 reporter/backup anchor) and Lou Kleinberg (WBBM-Ch. 2 cameraman)
Candace Rogers (WMAQ-Ch. 5 producer) and Phil Rogers (WMAQ-Ch. 5 reporter)
Micah Materre (WGN-Ch. 9 anchor) and Kelvin Jackson (WGN-Ch. 9 cameraman)
Dana Kozlov (WBBM-Ch. 2 reporter) and Bill Kissinger (WGN-Ch. 9 writer)
Jennifer Ward (WGN-Ch. 9 producer) and Jim Ward (WGN-Ch. 9 cameraman)
Krissy Miller (WGN-Ch. 9 assignment editor) and Joel Liberatore (WGN-Ch. 9 producer)
— William Hageman
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bhageman@tribune.com
