WLS Newsroom Staff
About Pat Cassidy
Pat Cassidy has been waking up Chicagoans with their morning news and a smile for more than 35 years. He credits his longevity and 5 a.m. signature slogan "by the dawn's early light", to caffeine and daily preparation. "Thanks to the Internet and my daily planner, I walk in the newsroom each morning with a very good sense of what's happening now and what will happen the day ahead" says Pat. "I love what I do and get a huge buzz from breaking news, even traffic jams and bad weather!"Pat's love of journalism surfaced during his very first job as a newspaper delivery boy, when he was almost fired! "I would squint, reading the papers on my doorstep at daybreak, and was often late on my paper route. I did very poorly with Christmas tips and quickly learned that the customer comes first." He decided he would become a newsman and then "lucked" into radio.
"In college, the radio station student manager, who lived in my dorm, heard me talking and said my voice was perfect for radio. He said I could play rock and roll records and girls would call me on the phone. I said 'where do I sign up?'"
Pat began his professional career in 1969 at WEXI (now WKIE) in Arlington Heights where he delivered the morning news and became Program Director. By 1972, he was morning news anchor and news director at WGLD/WBMX (WVAZ). He then moved to NBC's WNIS-FM All-News as morning drive anchor before moving across the hall to NBC's WMAQ as morning anchor and assistant news director. After 25 years with NBC and Westinghouse, WMAQ changed format in 2000 to all-sports (which he loves) and Pat moved to WBBM-AM.
Pat has won dozens of local and national news awards, but is most proud of his 1984 Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award because "it placed scores of kids with behavior problems in the proper school classes… and I had dinner at the Virginia mansion of Ethel Kennedy and her clan." Pat also won the National Press Club and National Headline Club Awards for an investigative report into a shady Chicago travel club which resulted in, at the time, the largest fine in the history of the Illinois Consumer Fraud Act. He's won two Peter Lisagor Awards as well as many Associated Press and United Press International Awards including several for "Best Newscast".
He also works with several charities including the Chicago Anti-Hunger Federation and was chairman of their first annual 2005 golf outing. Now Pat Cassidy resides at Chicago's Talk Station 890AM, WLS.
