City News Bureau of Chicago
The film Call Northside 777, in which James Stewart plays a reporter whose articles free an innocent man from prison, was based on a story that originated at the City News Bureau.
One momentous non-local event originated on a quiet Sunday in 1941, when a reporter at the Damen Avenue police station on the city's near-northwest side was slowly twisting a dial on the desk sergeant's short wave radio when he heard toe static-punctuated voice of an amateur radio operator telling another "ham" that "bombs are falling all over Honolulu."
He phoned what he had heard to his city editor, who immediately sent bulletins to the CNB's four major newspapers and the member of the Associated Press.
[12] Other well-known alumni: syndicated columnist and Politico editor Roger Simon, reclusive media mogul Fred Eychaner, environmental journalist William Allen, investigative reporter Seymour Hersh,[13] The New York Times columnist David Brooks (author of Bobos in Paradise), pop artist Claes Oldenburg, public-television personality John Callaway, editor Russell Freeburg, consumer advocate David Horowitz, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Mike Royko, Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist Herbert Lawrence Block (commonly known as Herblock), and Jack Star, later to become senior editor of Look (American magazine) and perennial freelance writer for Chicago Magazine.
[14] Clarence John Boettiger, son-in-law of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, became a Chicago Tribune police reporter after working for the City News Bureau to begin his career.
Tom Quinn, who worked for City News in 1964 while a student at Northwestern, later managed Jerry Brown's first campaign for governor of California, became chairman of California's Air Resources Board and the state's Environmental Secretary, and served as chairman for two of Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley's campaigns.
Other mainstays of City News Bureau's staff included Arnold Dornfeld, Melvyn Douglas, Susan Kuczka, Paul Zimbrakos, Milton Golin, Bernard Judge.
The City News Bureau had three teletype wires, one for the Chicago dailies, one for radio and television stations, and one for press releases.
The office kept a speaker system tuned live 24 hours to the coded Chicago police radio dispatcher frequency, announcing addresses to which City News Bureau reporters were sent.
As Chicago went down to only two daily newspapers, the City News Bureau slowly faded and was reduced to a minor operation.
(After Black was indicted in 2005 on charges of looting Hollinger, some speculated his desire to squeeze cash out of the company's properties helped hasten the demise of the original City News.)
Paul Zimbrakos was the Managing Editor of the bureau for a number of years before it closed its doors and tutored many of the best journalists in the country.
