Mike Flannery is bowing out after 50 years of covering the wild and wacky world of politics

Mike Flannery walked into the newsroom of the Chicago Sun-Times on June 18, 1973, a fresh-faced, hopelessly curious and wildly energetic 22-year-old and now he is calling it quits, leaving the political scene where he earned the admiration of colleagues, rivals and viewers. Esteemed journalist Carol Marin puts it succinctly: “Mike is a walking, talking encyclopedia of politics.”

His final report will come on June 30 on WFLD-Ch. 32. That is where he has been political editor for 13 years, as well as host of the weekly “Flannery Fired Up” interview program. He previously spent 30 years in a similar role at WBBM-Ch. 2, which came after his seven years at the Sun-Times.

So, what will his final story be?

“Who knows?” Flannery said. “That has always been one of the great joys of being a reporter in this town, the constant unpredictability of it all, the ways in which a story will grow and alter, even over the course of one day. In that way, this business has been perfectly suited for my personality.”

That personality was formed in his native Washington D.C., as the son of a man who fought in World War II and paid a heavy price, spending two years in hospital care for injuries from serving in the Pacific. He would die when Flannery was still in high school. Scholarships enabled Flannery to graduate and then enroll in Georgetown University.

There, majoring in political science and communications, he encountered “Boss,” columnist Mike Royko’s bestselling 1971 book about Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley. It so beguiled and inspired him that he set his sights on Chicago.

He found a still rough-and-tumble business. There were four daily newspapers then and the press rooms at City Hall and police headquarters were filled with cigarette and cigar smoke, liquor bottles in drawers, rough talk and racial invective in the air, and such colorful characters as the Daily News’ Jay McMullen (soon to become Jane Byrne’s husband) and Harry Golden Jr. of the Sun-Times.

I met Flannery when I worked for the Daily News and Sun-Times in the late 1970s, when part of my duties included the enviable task of covering the nightclub and tavern scenes. One night out with Flannery, he helped create the name of my alter ego, Dr. Night Life, a weak homage to Royko’s Slats Grobnik.

“One of my proudest moments in journalism,” says Flannery, with a laugh.

He is smart and inexhaustible, impressing such people as TV’s Peter Nolan, who recalled, “I didn’t brush elbows with Flannery very much over the years. But I do remember him as a young reporter covering the legislature in Springfield. He was a real stalwart and seemed to be everywhere. He could run up the stairs while older, out-of-shape guys like me had to wait for an elevator.”

He wrote about many topics, such as labor, but his focus was on politics. In 1980, WBBM lured him to television. He made a quick impression. As Bill Kurtis recalled: “When Harold Washington was inaugurated in 1983, I was anchoring the ‘CBS Morning News’ in New York so they sent me back to my hometown to cover it. Needing a ‘quick read’ on what I’d missed for the last year, I happened upon a piece by Flannery. I was stunned by the quality and content. In three minutes he told the whole story better than any network reporter. I thought then and continue to this day believing that no one knows more about Chicago politics. It’s like his head is so full of history and personalities that it’s likely to burst with stories at any moment.”

This was a time when local stations were ravenously poaching print journalists, and Flannery was part of a crowd that also included Andy Shaw, Gene Siskel, Roger Ebert and Tim Weigel.

There was also Pam Zekman, gone from her longtime WBBM investigative reporter position in 2020 after nearly four decades at the station. She told me, “It was Mike’s success on television that helped me to decide to make the jump from print to TV and I will always be grateful for that. His knowledge of political figures, including historical details (good and bad) about their careers, was amazing. Having him live on the anchor desk on election nights rescued countless shows having to kill time waiting for election results to dribble in. And Mike was always happy to help any reporters, writers or producers who needed a quick background on a politician or government-related event, sharing names of some sources and how to reach them.”

The Tribune’s chief political reporter and frequent radio and TV presence Rick Pearson echoes that, saying, “Mike had been a dogged fixture of the state and city’s political coverage, asking the questions that the public wants answers to and not the questions the politicians want asked. He has never had time for politicians’ filibustering.”

Fifty years is a long time to do anything. The Tribune’s Clarence Page marked his own half-century milestone in Sunday’s paper and says he will keep writing his column.

Flannery has no such plan. He lives now in Evanston, having moved there in 2021 after selling the lovely seven-bedroom home atop a Longwood Drive hill in Beverly. That was the place where he and his first wife raised their three now adult children.

He and his second wife Marcia, who will soon close her successful career in health care, recently celebrated their 10th anniversary and are making plans to travel.

“There are some people who love me who worry about what I will do without my work, without politics,” Mike Flannery says. “It is hard to leave but it is also exciting. I am confident that I will be fine.”

He has always been a great storyteller and you can’t help but wonder if he will do more than simply remember. He says he has no plans to write a memoir. He doesn’t bemoan the changes that have bruised and battered the nation’s TV and newspaper landscapes. He’s had it good and he knows it. He has covered 10 Chicago mayors and eight Illinois governors and in so doing has seen enough scandals and trials, heard enough bombast, and closely observed enough tragedies and joys for more than one lifetime.

So, you wish him well and he says, “Thanks. I can think of, almost see, my young self, sitting at home watching on TV the Democratic Convention in 1968 and then in 1996 there I was covering the next convention here, running around like crazy. And now, the convention is coming back next year and …” He goes silent for a moment and you realize you might be able to take this man out of politics but it might be impossible to take politics out of this man.

rkogan@chicagotribune.com