Roeper Revisited
“He kind of writes like he’s 12,” a reporter told us. Someone else said, “His columns are all, totally, ‘I – I – I.’ Sort of like a teenage Bob Greene.” “I don’t see where he’s got any substance” was a third opinion.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
So Royko merely stated the conventional wisdom about Richard Roeper. What’s significant is that this wisdom was becoming dated as he spoke. Roeper managed to shrug off the slap. He tells us now, “I was kind of flattered that I was mentioned with other columnists who’d been around 10 or 20 years. I thought it was kind of neat. As far as ‘The kid can’t do it’–people thought I should have been devastated. But my response was, ‘What did Mike Tyson always say about the next challenger?’”
Today Roeper seems to be the guy.
Roeper tells us he sensed a sea change in late 1989, when he shifted from a city-side reporter also writing two columns a week to a full-time columnist writing four. The city suddenly noticed him. “That was the point when I started getting calls from radio stations–‘Hey! Who are you? Where did you come from?’ I started hearing my column mentioned on the air.”
“A part of me says ‘Yeah, why don’t we?’” Roeper went on. “That’ll take the onus off me.”
Have Attitude, Will Travel
