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Jim Williams steps back from anchor desk at CBS Chicago after 22 years

Hats off to Jim Williams as he steps back from anchor desk at CBS Chicago
Hats off to Jim Williams as he steps back from anchor desk at CBS Chicago 03:38

CHICAGO (CBS) — After 22 years with the station, and 47 years after he first walked into a newsroom, Thursday marks Jim Williams' last day as a full-time employee with CBS Chicago.

Williams will still do occasional pieces for CBS News Chicago, but he will no longer be seen on the anchor desk every day.

A Chicago native and a graduate of Kenwood High School and Columbia College Chicago, Williams said he had hoped to be a filmmaker as a teenager — which first brought him to the building at 2501 W. Bradley Pl. that at the time housed WGN Radio as well as WGN-TV.

"William Friedkin had directed 'The French Connection.' He's from Chicago and had worked at WGN. So when I had an opportunity to be the film librarian for the newsroom at WGN in 1977, I jumped at it. I thought, maybe this will lead me to the movies," Williams said. "Turned out it was journalism that captured me."

Williams said he was surrounded by people who taught him to write news at WGN, and soon afterward, he took a test and became a news writer for WGN Radio — which at the time shared not only a building, but a newsroom, with WGN-TV Channel 9. He became an overnight radio news writer in 1979.

As a radio news writer, Williams wrote for such household names as Wally Phillips on the morning drive and Bob Collins in the afternoon. He also wrote newscasts for WGN-TV staff announcer Bob Bell — better known to generations of Chicagoans as the first and most famous local Bozo the Clown.

Williams soon became one of the weekend producers of the 9 p.m. news at WGN-TV, and also worked as weekend sports producer while writing news three days a week.

"I did a lot of different jobs at WGN, and I owe them so much, because they brought me into this business, they taught me how to do it, they gave me opportunities that I couldn't have dreamed of," Williams said. "You know, this is my hometown. It's a large market. And I was able to start my reporting career here in Chicago, thanks to WGN."

Williams soon moved to an on-air role on the political beat at WGN-TV, covering both city and state politics.

Williams began in the on-air role when Harold Washington was mayor and covered preparations for Washington's funeral when the mayor died suddenly and tragically in November 1987. Williams also covered the mayoral race for the 1989 special election that Mayor Richard M. Daley eventually won, and joined Daley on a trip to London and Ireland later that same year.

Williams also covered Illinois state government, making regular trips to Springfield, and went up with the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds for a story in 1990.

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Jim Williams talks with Mayor Richard M. Daley for CBS Chicago, 2011. CBS

In 1992, Williams received a surprise call. Mayor Daley's press secretary, Avis LaVelle, had left for a position with Bill Clinton's presidential campaign, and the Mayor's office had Williams in mind to succeed LaVelle.

"They called me out of the blue – the Daley administration – Frank Kruesi was one of his top aides, and he called me, and he said, 'You're on a short list of people we'd like to talk to about replacing Avis as Mayor Daley's press secretary. I said, 'Me? You're kidding?'" Williams said.

At first, Williams didn't think he should take the job.

"I had just been a reporter a few years, and I wasn't really ready to give that up. And I also knew that was a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week job, with a big management component – because the press secretary at that time for the mayor of Chicago supervised all media relations throughout city government," Williams said. "So I had a long meeting with the mayor, had a long meeting with his people close to him, and after a lot of consideration, I turned the job down. And so Frank Kruesi says: 'Why don't you give it a little extra time? This is a rare opportunity for you to see how things really work on the inside.'"

Williams concluded that the reason he had initially decided to turn the job down was because he was afraid of it, and that the intimidation was actually a reason to go ahead with it.

"It turned out to be a life-changing experience," Williams said.

Williams served as Mayor Daley's press secretary for five years. He worked with news organizations from around the world as Chicago hosted a succession of banner events, including World Cup soccer tournament games in 1994 and the Democratic National Convention in 1996.

"I met all sorts of people. I worked with a young woman at City Hall named Michelle Robinson – the year she married Barack Obama. And I worked with Valerie Jarrett and David Axelrod, and people who ended up with prominent positions in the White House. I met Barack Obama before he was a state senator," Williams said. "And the mayor was good to me. I had a lot of access. And I learned it was great from a journalistic standpoint, because I saw a wide variety of reporters and how they went about their jobs."

The next phase of Williams' career led him to a position as a network correspondent with ABC News. He reported around the country for "World News Tonight with Peter Jennings" and "Good Morning America," and covered China's crackdown on the spiritual group Falun Gong for "Nightline."

"I did that for four years, and that was like getting a Ph.D. in broadcast journalism," he said. "I worked with some incredibly talented people, and it made me a whole lot better."

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Jim Williams in the old CBS 2 Chicago newsroom at 630 N. McClurg Ct., 2008. Supplied to CBS

It was December 2002 when Williams arrived at WBBM-TV, CBS Chicago. But he pointed out that he had admired Channel 2 going back many years before that.

"The Channel 2 in my mind was the Channel 2 that I first saw when I was 16 years old in 1973, when the station paired Bill Kurtis and Walter Jacobson. They had the set in the newsroom, and Walter would walk from one desk to another desk and talk to a reporter about the story they were covering, and I said, 'Man, that was cool. You know, that's cool. This is a real news operation,'" Williams said, "and so Channel 2 was always my favorite."

While the on-air set had moved down the hallway to a studio by 2002, Williams reported for duty in that very same newsroom at CBS Chicago's old broadcast center at 630 N. McClurg Ct. Initially, Williams reported from the field on all manner of stories and anchored the station's weekend morning newscasts alongside Alita Guillen.

Williams later became the station's weekend co-anchor, alongside Guillen and later Mai Martinez, and also served a couple of stints co-anchoring weekday mornings.

In 2018, Williams also began hosting the CBS Chicago documentary series "Stories 2 Tell" — with a look at such things as at the teenage squad of the Andy Frain ushers, of which Williams himself was a part in the 1970s, and at the decline of the Chicago Outfit, once the most powerful crime organization in the country. Williams' documentary feature on Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer John H. White won an Emmy Award in 2023.

In 2021, Williams became the anchor of CBS Chicago's 4 p.m. weekday newscast alongside Marie Saavedra. They have also served for the past few years as anchors of the station's 11 a.m. weekday newscast.

Williams has won numerous awards, also including an Emmy for investigative reporting. He was inducted into the National Television Academy of Arts & Sciences' Silver Circle in 2018 for his lifetime of work in Chicago television.

After 22 years at CBS Chicago — the longest of his assignments — Williams is quick to point out just how much he has enjoyed the experience.

"I've always loved this station. I've loved working here. I've loved my colleagues," he said. "It's been the privilege of a lifetime to learn here."

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(l-r) Matt Zahn, Joe Donlon, Jim Williams, Marie Saavedra, Irika Sargent, and Albert Ramon as Williams is honored for his last weekday newscast, Thursday, Jan. 16, 2025.   CBS

Williams also expressed "just how much I appreciate the audience, and I appreciate the opportunities that I've had, and I'm here at this point in my life because so many people were good to me. There were mentors, they encouraged me, they taught me how to do journalism, and I just can't thank them enough."

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