THE VOICE OF CHICAGO'S GAY, LESBIAN, BI, TRANS AND QUEER COMMUNITY SINCE 1985

Zwecker has amassed an amazing list of accomplishments, including countless awards. He is a two-time recipient of Chicago journalism's highest award, the Peter Lisagor Award. He was also named "Man of Vision 2000" by the Midwest Eye Banks for his numerous civic and charitable contributions. Zwecker has contributed to many national news/entertainment programs, including The Today Show, Entertainment Tonight, A & E's Biography, Larry King Live, Access Hollywood, and The NBC Nightly News.

Zwecker found a career with WMAQ ( NBC ) Chicago from 1993-2000 serving as the station's entertainment reporter and film critic. Bill was also a regularly featured contributor on The Joan Rivers Show from 1990-'94. Zwecker's scoops have covered some of the world's most famous people, including Oprah Winfrey, Richard Gere, Hillary Clinton, Kevin Spacey, Whoopi Goldberg, Jennifer Aniston, Britney Spears, Ricky Martin and many others. Today excerpts from Bill's movie reviews on Fox television are frequently quoted nationally. No stranger to freelance writing, Zwecker's stories on travel, lifestyles, fashion and social commentary have appeared in such publications as Crain's Chicago Business, Holiday, Town & Country, Chicago Magazine and Today's Chicago Woman.

WCT: Bill, I'm really delighted to have you as part of this series, "Eye on the Media," because there are so many of us out there who read your columns on a daily basis and also see you on TV.

BZ: I'm happy to do it. We're happy things are going well at Fox, we just are getting good numbers. And it's been a nice increase for the morning show ( at Fox ) . I'm on the morning show at Fox and of course the noon show. But the morning show is sort of the one that's had a lot of attention, so it's nice to see that the numbers are up substantially.

WCT: Did you start out working for the Lerner newspapers?

BZ: I did. I did indeed, yeah.

WCT: When was this?

BZ: I was there from the mid '80s on and was there for actually about five years. That really was my first kind of full-time, regular 'real newspaper' job. I had been freelancing for many years doing stories on everything from travel to fashion to lifestyles. But it had never been anything more than just a hobby. My mother was a journalist; I grew up in a journalism family. Peg Zwecker is my mother. She's still alive and close to 91. She was the Fashion Editor, Woman's Editor of the old Chicago Daily News and actually also was Fashion Editor both in the '40s for the Chicago Sun-Times, The Times and then the Sun-Times and technically retired from the Sun-Times because the News had folded a few months before she retired in 1978. So I grew up in a newspaper family. I worked on school newspapers, and then I would do fun freelance stuff. And then I made a decision when I was in my mid-30s that you know; this is what I like to do. And I quit my job intending to go into full-time freelancing and a few months after I did that Ann Gerber left the Lerner papers ironically to come to the Sun-Times and I replaced her at Skyline and the other Lerner newspapers, and was there for five years. I wrote my weekly column for Skyline, which also ran in some of the other papers and I was an editor at the Lerner papers for both Skyline and The Booster. I did that until I came to the Sun-Times. While I was there ( at Lerner ) , I started doing some television as well. But to this day, the column ( and my writing ) is the font from which everything else flows. I really believe that. Don't get me wrong, I love doing television. It now is really a full-time job for me. I really have two full-time jobs and one part-time job. I work daily at Fox Television, I work daily at the Sun-Times and weekly I'm on the radio station The Mix. I'm on Eric and Kathy's show every Friday morning with an entertainment report and other things as they come up.

WCT: So Bill, was working for the Sun-Times a goal of yours or would you attribute it to fate?

BZ: I don't know it was fate. Once I decided to go into journalism full time, I realized that I had to pay my dues. I had to learn the business. It's one thing to write, it's another to know how a newspaper is put together. And at that point I was focusing on my print responsibilities. The good thing about working at the Lerner newspapers is that it was a very hands-on situation. You do everything. I didn't edit my own copy, of course, but I edited other things, laid out the paper. Literally going down to the plant every Wednesday to lay out Skyline. Working with the printers as they were laying the print down. It was that kind of hands-on experience. It was great for me. I had a lot of interaction as an editor with the advertising people. Today everything is computerized like it is everywhere else. It all goes into the Great System and that's it. It's a different role. I must say, if I did all the things I did in those ( the old ) days I wouldn't be able to do the other jobs that I've been able to pick up since I've come here. I wouldn't be able to do television and all the other things. So I wouldn't say it was fate. I certainly was very lucky to get the job at Lerner and then after I was there for a couple of years obviously I realized that there was an opportunity for me. I knew I wanted to stay in Chicago. I knew that the celebrity thing was really my niche. I've always been interested in people and their lives. Now I'm in a position to be able to share that news with the world. And so it's fun! But once I got to a certain position I knew I wanted to be on one of the dailies. It just so happened that the Sun-Times was the best fit. I think that for what I do, it is the place to be, and it has certainly proven to be that. I've now been here for close to a decade.

WCT: Many people label you as a gossip columnist. Would you agree with that classification, Bill?

BZ: You know, I don't mind it. It's one of those terms that as I jokingly have said in speeches, people call it that anyway, so you might as well go with the flow. Gossip has changed. Gossip is now very mainstream. There's gossip in The New York Times; there's gossip on the evening news with Tom Brokaw and Dan Rather. Yes, I do report on tidbits of gossip. I try to clearly label things where they are more ethereal than solid. The trick with being a good gossip columnist is to treat gossip and to treat the celebrity entertainment news the same way as if I would treat a robbery, reporting on a murder, reporting on political events, and I've done all of those things. I know what it's like to go out on a hard news story and cover that. You treat gossip like hard news. You check out sources. We're only as good as our sources are. That's what gives you credibility. I understand why they call it gossip. I think of myself more as an entertainment celebrity columnist. But I do think of myself as a journalist.

WCT: Is sexual preference an issue in getting into this business, Bill?

BZ: It's not an issue. Actually, I think it's the way it should be. In our environment today I think ( and I know for a fact a few years ago that was not the case ) certainly today in Chicago everywhere that I've seen people's sexual preference just like the reality of their racial makeup is not an issue nor should it be. And I think that while we certainly could always have more diversity, every place that I've worked and where I currently work, are actively working to improve the level of diversity. Whether it's sexual orientation, or what race they're part of, the only way we're ever going to solve the problems in our culture and our society and our city is to be a hopefully gender, sexual orientation and race blind community.

WCT: Is there a place for tabloid journalism in our society, Bill?

BZ: Oh, well first of all I think there is a niche. There's a niche because I'm a great believer in freedom of the press and speech. And as long as people want anything, when they want this kind of journalism, it's going to be provided. If 30 million people weekly did not buy The National Enquirer they would not be in business, they wouldn't exist. It has had a tremendous impact on our entire field of journalism; there's no question about that. By the same token, even though the headlines are as sensational as they were 20 years ago in The Enquirer and The Star and the rest of them, they actually have become a lot more accurate and a lot more on target.

And a good part of that is because of our legal system. People have sued them and won. Major cases. The Carol Burnett case is one, Shirley Jones, Tom Cruise, Barbra Streisand. You know, you lose a few $10 million lawsuits and that's going to change things. Today The Enquirer, because they have such enormous resources, and The Star, which are owned by the same company, have the money to pay for sources, to pay for stories and more importantly, to pay people to work for them. That doesn't mean they don't make mistakes. They certainly exaggerate everything. They'll take a story and blow it up, just in the way they present it, the way the headline reads. They sensationalize everything. Have they gone too far? Oh, every week! They're constantly going too far. Do we really need to see a pathetic photo of Elizabeth Taylor being wheeled out of a hospital after having major surgery? Those things just sort of turn my stomach. Yes, they have gone too far, but I will defend their right to go too far.

WCT: From your perspective as a people watcher, Bill, did Elton John make a huge public relations mistake in singing that duet with gay-bashing rapper Eminem?

BZ: No. And I'll tell you why he did it. The interesting thing is, he did it for public relations reasons. Elton John, for the first time in 30 years, did not have a top-40 hit last year. This was a very calculated move. If you have a little drop in popularity and you're Elton John, you're thinking, "Hey, I've got to get a little hipper here. I've got to get with the cutting edge." Did Elton make a mistake? I don't think so because I think that anything that raises the level of conversation and makes people talk about this is a good thing. Think about the opportunities in the last few weeks for people both from the gay community, gay-rights organizations to be on national television and in national print press and put their point of view out there. I mean, it has ironically given them a forum to raise the issue to discuss gay bashing, prejudice, you know, bring up Matthew Shepard and all those kinds of things. ... If nothing else, maybe it will make Eminem think about things.

WCT: Can you share any revelations with my readers regarding the Ellen De Generes/Anne Heche split? Has Anne gone straight?

BZ: Well! ( Bill laughs heartily ) That's a good question. From what I understand, I don't think Anne has gone straight in as much as Ellen was an aberration of her own sexual experiences. There are many people who feel that Anne did it for shock value, publicity, etc. I can tell you for a fact that that's not the case. Anybody who is a PR executive will tell you that declaring yourself to be openly a lesbian when you are trying to be a leading lady actress ain't the way to go to improve your career and hers did kind of fall off. I argue that part of the reason her career started to tank a little was because of some of the mainstream heterosexual roles she chose that were not in particularly good movies. They fell in love, OK? That can happen, it was just a situation. And for whatever reason they felt strong enough to go into it. I think that after several years there were business pressures ( and they did some film projects together ) and I think like a lot of celebrity couples, the pressure of work and being constantly in the public eye, and I think the fact that Anne's career was beginning to have some problems. And also Ellen. I mean, things were not going so well for her either. And I also think the fact that Anne had basically been involved with men exclusively up until she met Ellen for all that we know, and now she's back supposedly very seriously involved with a photographer named Coley Laffoon that she's still with, and apparently appears to be very much in love with. They met because he was the cinematographer on a documentary that Anne was directing and producing about Ellen being on the road. I also understand the issue of having a child was a major part of it ( the breakup ) too. ... It was fun to be around them when they were together. ( The split ) came as a big shock to all of us.

WCT: Could you name three people who are actually out of the closet but have never publicly said so?

BZ: New York Magazine [ recently did ] an all-gay issue about prominent gay New Yorkers and I know that Nathan Lane is featured in there. I don't think he's ever said that he's openly gay. [ Actually, he came out in The Advocate couple of years ago. ] . Richard Simmons is another one and he's never said that he's openly gay and I know that for a fact. Female? The playwright Wendy Wasserstein and a better example, Rosie O' Donnell. I mean, Rosie. Every time she goes out she's with women, she's seen with women girlfriends.

WCT: Would the people that you've written stories about say that the finished product was accurate, fair and truthful, with little or no bias?

BZ: Oh I hope so. Yes. I don't really have an agenda when it comes to stars. Certainly there are stars I like better than others. But when it comes to my writing, when it comes to the presentation of my column, the stories that I write, what I report on television, I really don't have an agenda. And I think my most important obligation to my readers and my viewers is to not have an agenda. This is the blank slate. When I write stories I use a lot of quotes. I can't even think of a time when someone has come back to me who I've done an in-depth profile on where they have objected to anything more than maybe a slight detail here or there.

WCT: Is the practice of outing celebrities and politicians ethical in your way of thinking, Bill? Is it immoral?

BZ: I certainly think it's unethical. I think it's wrong. It's wrong unless that celebrity or that politician has made it an issue either for himself or herself that is such a gross hypocrisy that not to point it out would be wrong. For example, there was a right-wing republican congressman who I believe came down with AIDS and that's what finally actually outed him. But the point is, I think that if you have somebody who has waxed poetic about how awful "these people" are and then they're gay themselves, then they're just asking for it. And they deserve to be outed. Because that is hypocritical. But I think that anybody who tries to force an admission just for the sake of titillation, that's pretty scurrilous.

WCT: Kevin Spacey. Ricky Martin. We've all heard the rumors.

BZ: ( Bill smiles at me ) Rumors? You've heard those rumors?

WCT: Are they unfounded rumors, Bill?

BZ: Oh, I don't think they're unfounded. First of all, there's generally a reason for any rumor. Now, the question of ( sexuality ) —unless you're in the bedroom with them, you don't really know what people are doing. But certainly, I would just say that you can pretty much take those rumors at face value. Ricky Martin has been a little more relaxed about the rumors ( that he's gay ) , and laughs it off and doesn't get into it which I think is a smarter approach. Kevin Spacey is really uptight about this whole situation. He really was sandbagged by Esquire magazine in that story they did on him a couple of years ago. He kind of let his guard down and it all came down on him. It's really changed the way he deals with press, which is really too bad. He is a tremendous talent and actually a very nice guy; I have a great relationship with him and his people. But talk about guarded and uptight. If I even raised the issue of sexuality, the interview would end.

When you hear these rumors, and you hear more than rumors ... I've talked to a lot of people in the business. And when you're around them and you see who's around them, part of their group ... come on, I'm not stupid.

-----

"Bill Zwecker's People" column can be found in the Sun-Times Monday through Friday and is syndicated throughout the U.S. Zwecker also is featured Fridays on "The Eric and Kathy Show" on The Mix ( WTMX-FM ) . The broadcast version of "Bill Zwecker's People" is a three times daily feature on Fox television.