How do you cover violence in a thoughtful way? Megan Crepeau (@crepeau) had plenty of time to chew that question over working the overnight beat at The Chicago Tribune, trawling the city with police scanners and looking for news. Now she brings that perspective to covering Chicago’s main criminal court, one of the busiest in the United States.

Megan talks about how the coronavirus outbreak is upending business as usual at the court and the associated jail (5:50), growing up in small town Idaho (11:45), Northwestern journalism school and early struggles with confidence (18:00), getting her foot in the door with The Chicago Tribune editorial board (24:36), writing a personal finance column for the Trib’s free commuter daily RedEye (29:08), covering violence thoughtfully on the overnight breaking news shift (35:05), the crazy story of a man representing his brother in a murder trial (48:00), how the court system failed to view mental health in a nuanced way in the case of a cop killing (52:46), her role helping the Tribune to unionize (1:01:16) and finally the lightning round (1:07:35)

Here are links to some of the things we talked about:

Megan's story on man representing himself - https://bit.ly/3bpVsvs

Her story on the man's conviction - https://bit.ly/2LiKvBp

The Chicago Reader - https://bit.ly/2LgOEFN

Bon Appetit Youtube channel - https://bit.ly/3boXeNv

NYT’s Red Dawn coronavirus exposé - https://nyti.ms/2LkFyIk

Tony Briscoe (ex-Tribune Great Lakes reporter) on Twitter - https://bit.ly/2yLoFDX

Martha Gellhorn wiki - https://bit.ly/3cnZGVT

His Girl Friday on IMDb - https://imdb.to/2WZxwtZ

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Music: LoveChances (makaihbeats.net) by Makaih Beats

From: freemusicarchive.org

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