Joel Weisman: The conversation-starter

On a Thursday night in a conference room at the WTTW-TV Channel 11 studio, Joel D. Weisman is at his second job.

For 36 years, the contract and media law attorney has also hosted the weekly show, “Chicago Tonight: The Week In Review,” in which he trades commentary and conversation with a varying panel of four journalists.

Each guest is selected for his or her expertise in a subject area pertinent to that week’s show. That means Weisman must be an expert in each of their subject areas, too.

He is certainly an expert in their business.

He began his journalism career in the 1960s, then got into the business side of the media in the 1980s when his law career veered into talent representation.

Today, handling contract negotiations for news media figures comprises 90 percent of his law practice. His firm, the Law Offices of Joel Weisman P.C., represents more than 100 TV personalities across the country, including WGN-TV weatherman Tom Skilling, WLS-TV sports anchor Mark Giangreco and WMAQ-TV anchor Allison Rosati.

“Joel has been wonderful,” said Skilling, who has been represented by Weisman since the 1980s. “I wouldn’t be where I am today if it weren’t for Joel.”

An ardent follower of local news, particularly politics, Weisman’s show truly begins in that conference room near the “Chicago Tonight” set. His guests this night are Mary Ann Ahern and Christian Farr from WMAQ Channel 5, Kate Grossman from the Chicago Sun-Times and David Kaplan of WGWG-FM 87.7 and Comcast SportsNet.

When the journalists arrive, Weisman’s assistant leads them to this room where Weisman chats them up.

These sessions help establish a rapport with each guest and a rapport between the guests while also prepping each for the night’s topics. The taped show airs the following night on Friday.

Weisman’s technique is to blend humor with straightforward questions — he revs up the group in conversation, then turns his attention to an individual.

“How was it covering the crash?” he says to Farr, a general assignment reporter at NBC, referring to the CTA Blue Line crash at O’Hare International Airport from four days prior. “Since this woman fell asleep once before, why was she still working? I don’t get it.”

The conversation in the room is now one-on-one between Weisman and Farr, who brings him up to date on the latest from the site. Weisman has a page of topics in front of him, and he takes notes as Farr talks.

Having absorbed those details, he makes a discussion-closing transition statement similar to one he’d make on air, then turns to his left and looks at Kaplan.

“So David, what’s going on with you?” he says, beginning to pick Kaplan’s brain about the upcoming seasons for the Cubs and White Sox as well as the Blackhawks’ playoff push.

The conversation flows easily as if it’s happening at a bar or in a long elevator ride.

The show is merely a formalized version of these off-camera discussions. There is, say people who know him, no difference between Weisman the TV host, Weisman the conversationalist and Weisman the media law agent.

“Joel is Joel,” said Skilling, who met Weisman when he came to WGN in 1978. “Joel is probing. He’ll ask questions. If he’s got something on his mind, he’ll ask you about it plainly. And I find he does that on his program. I don’t see a lot of difference. When I see him on the air, I see very much the Joel that I know.”

The more certain path

Born in Chicago in 1942, Weisman’s journalism career began as a popularity contest.

“When I was in grammar school, we founded a paper called The Social News,” Weisman said. “We used to list popularity ratings every week of the boys and the girls. Everybody would come to us and want to make sure they got on the list.”

Weisman and his co-creator were on the list, too — but in the middle, so no one thought they made it to boost their own reputations.

As for Weisman, The Social News gave him the attention he was looking for.

“It came from insecurity,” he said. “I wanted to make sure I was popular. A lot of people in the media, I think, are basically insecure. I think that’s why they go into it. It’s a way to draw attention to themselves.”

Weisman’s interest in the law also dates back to his childhood, first in Albany Park and then in Rogers Park. Judges were among his neighbors in both locations — he admired them for the prestige of their position and the respect they commanded.

“I used to argue a fair amount with people, and I understood that judges would settle arguments,” he said. “I was interested in history always as a kid, which led to my interest in politics and the law.”

He also noticed the lifestyles of men he knew.

“I had an uncle who was a lawyer, and he drove a fancy car,” he said. “My father was a rug cleaner — he did not drive a fancy car.”

When he shared his observation with his mother, she explained how people in some professions earn more money than others.

That was an enticing proposition then, he said, as it was years later when he had to choose between journalism and the law.

Though he earned his J.D. at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law in 1969, the early part of his professional career was spent in journalism. He wrote for the Daily Illini during his time at the University of Illinois, then made six stops after graduation that took him from stringing at United Press International in 1963 to the Washington Post as Midwest bureau chief in 1975.

His time at the Post coincided with his first broadcast gig. WTTW-TV had started a nightly news show, “The Public News Center.” It hired Weisman as their political editor; he delivered a few commentaries each week.

“I’d been asked to be on television (before) and turned down the job,” he said. “In those days, newspaper people thought television people were just blow-dried idiots. They weren’t real reporters. The newspaper people were real reporters. These other people were just showmen.”

He took the position anyway and kept practicing law on the side, as he had throughout the early part of his journalism career.

When a friend asked if he wanted to join forces on a law firm, he agreed. He later received a full-time offer from his TV station that he accepted on a part-time basis.

“I thought it would be a more certain living than journalism,” he said. “It’s quite possible that I could have made more money in journalism had my career blossomed. But I’ve never given it a chance to blossom. It’s like ‘On the Waterfront.’ I could have been a contender. But this is the more certain path.”

Business, not personal

As producers struggled to finalize a time slot for “The Public News Center,” the show struggled. Still, they liked the idea of a nightly news show, and in 1977 revamped what had become known as “Chicago Tonight” with a Friday program called “Chicago Tonight: The Week in Review.”

At first, they asked Weisman to be a “permanent main guest,” with a local radio man as the host.

That lasted one week.

“I suggested that I’d rather be the host,” Weisman said. “They weren’t that satisfied with the person they tried out as host, so they gave me the host job.”

Weisman’s two careers dovetailed in the 1980s when friends, colleagues and competitors began asking him to negotiate their TV contracts. He’d thought about that avenue during his early journalism days but was reticent to follow through at the time.

“I didn’t want to get involved with them as their lawyers because I was their competitor gathering news,” he said. “But I was about ready to consider doing that.”

What these media members rightly assumed was that Weisman’s knowledge of their business would help in negotiations.

WLS-TV investigative reporter Chuck Goudie, Weisman’s client since the early 1980s, described his appeal with networks as an offshoot of the old Chicago political aphorism, “We don’t want nobody nobody sent.”

WFLD-TV political editor Mike Flannery, a Weisman client for about as long as Goudie, agrees.

“He knows the news business, and he has done what I do,” Flannery said. “He understands where I fit in the market. I know some of my colleagues deal with these guys in New York or California. They feel the person representing them doesn’t understand a market or their situation. Joel implicitly gets it all when it comes to my situation.”

Flannery was happy moving from WBBM-TV Channel 2 to WFLD in 2010 in part, he said, because Weisman’s negotiating style allowed Flannery to change networks with no hard feelings.

Other clients, including Skilling, say the same.

“There are some agents who are tough, but they rub people the wrong way,” Skilling said. “Joel isn’t that way. … I think he’s seen as a tough negotiator but a fair negotiator.”

That was apparent in 2000 when WFLD tried to hire Skilling. Then-Tribune Co. executive Dennis FitzSimons stepped into negotiations to keep Skilling at WGN.

“Joel’s ability is to present the facts without damaging a relationship,” FitzSimons said. “This did not get personal. Although if you’re going to get the best deal for your client, you need to go to the edge. And I think Joel was willing to do that, even though he had a positive history with WGN” — Weisman had previously done political commentaries there — “but he put the interest of his client first.”

Weisman’s negotiating method was simple, FitzSimons said. He kept saying no.

“He knew when he had a strong hand,” FitzSimons said. “And I’m not discounting Joel’s negotiating skills, but he had a very strong hand (with Skilling). He knew it, and he played it well.”

FitzSimons and WGN thought they were playing it well also. Despite coming to the table with what they considered a fair offer, Weisman stood his ground.

“When Joel kept saying no to what we thought were very significant offers, there was a level of trust that there must have been an even more significant offer coming from a competitor,” FitzSimons said. “Without telling me exactly what the number was, I knew that we needed to come up with a compensation and structure that was much greater than anything we’d done before.”

In the end, FitzSimons said, WGN paid more than what it initially thought it could afford.

“But it was well worth it,” FitzSimons said.

‘Getting justice’

Weisman’s understanding of Skilling’s desires was essential. So was understanding WGN’s.

“I think it’s really important as a negotiator to put yourself in the shoes of the person you’re negotiating against and understand what their vital interests are,” Weisman said.

“If you understand what it is, you can better relate to them and know what buttons to push and have a feel for where they can have more give and where they have less operating room.”

It’s a theme that comes up again and again from his clients.

“I think he’s a likable person, and I think that’s why the news directors like dealing with him,” said client Dina Bair, a WGN-TV anchor. “He doesn’t play games. He puts his cards on the table. And he’s been in this market, so he knows Chicago television, and he knows Chicago talent.”

He also knows value. He negotiates based on a few key elements, other than hard offers from competitors: ratings, exclusive stories and impact on a newsroom. He loves journalism because he loves journalists — their personalities, sense of humor, brashness and inquisitiveness, he said.

It makes representing them all the more special.

“It sounds trite, but I feel like I’m getting justice,” he said. “I feel like one of the most blessed people in the world that I can have all of this. I can be in for all of these years and still do these other things. And even to the extent that I’m out, I’m still in.”

His plan to stay in both positions is, he says, pretty simple: “As long as I’m breathing.”