Veteran anchorman Bill Kurtis has one of broadcasting’s most identifiable voices, familiar to viewers in Chicago, where he anchored newscasts at CBS owned-and-operated station WBBM-TV for decades alongside Walter Jacobson. Today, he can be heard on true crime shows like American Justice, Cold Case Files and American Justice. He was also the narrator of the film Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. If you don’t watch movies or television, you can catch Kurtis as the announcer and scorekeeper of NPR’s Wait, Wait… Don’t Tell Me.

Now Kurtis is adding a podcast to his credits, hosting We Interrupt This Broadcast alongside MSNBC’s Brian Williams. Each episode focuses on a major news event—the 9/11 attacks, the shooting of President Ronald Reagan, the death of Princess Diana—as seen through the voices of the reporters, anchors, producers and crew who covered the stories in real time.

“It show us how chasing the truth is hard—finding it is even harder,” Kurtis told me. “It gives us a whole new perspective on the story.”

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In Episode 14 of the podcast, I talked to Bill Kurtis’ podcast partner Brian Williams, the anchor of MSNBC’s The 11th Hour and a confessed geek about the history of broadcast news. We talked about We Interrupt This Broadcast and some of what Williams hopes to cover when the podcast returns for its second season.

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