Tuesday night, John Williams and the cast of The Mincing Rascals including Eric Zorn, Jon Hansen, Austin Berg and Brandon Pope recorded their weekly podcast live from The Second City. The audience was treated to a lively, snappy and smart discussion about top news stories,
New episodes of The Mincing Rascals are released Wednesdays. Listen at wgnradio.com, the WGN Radio app or wherever you find podcasts.
Backstage photo of The Mincing Rascals cast: John Williams, Eric Zorn, Austin Berg, Jon Hansen, Brandon Pope (M. Wells/ WGN Radio) 
John Williams and Kelly Leonard, The Second City vice president, creative strategy, innovation and business development (M. Wells/WGN Radio) 
John Williams and Kelly Leonard (M. Wells/WGN Radio) 
The Rascals on-stage (M. Wells/WGN Radio) 
The Mincing Rascals live at The Second City (M. Wells/WGN Radio) 
The Mincing Rascals mince on the top news of the day and week (M. Wells/ WGN Radio) 
The Mincing Rascals (M. Wells/WGN Radio) 
Jon Hansen and Brandon Pope (M. Wells/ WGN Radio) 
View from the audience (M. Wells/WGN Radio) 
The Rascals (M. Wells/ WGN Radio) 
Cast of The Mincing Rascals on stage (M. Wells/ WGN Radio) 
L to R: Jon Hansen, Brandon Pope, Austin Berg, Eric Zorn (M. Wells/WGN Radio) 
John Williams, Jon Hansen, Brandon Pope, Austin Berg, Eric Zorn (M. Wells/ WGN Radio) 
Executive producer Pete Zimmerman takes questions from the audience (M. Wells/WGN Radio) 
Peeking out onto the show from backstage (A. Bihun/WGN Radio) 
The cast of The Mincing Rascals (A. Bihun/WGN Radio)
About the Rascals cast:
John Williams is heard weekdays on WGN Radio from 10am to 2pm, including the Wintrust Business Lunch at noon. His “Mincing Rascals” podcast, featuring John and a roundtable of Chicago journalists discussing the big news stories of the day, is available at wgnradio.com, wherever podcasts are found and also airs most Saturday nights from 8-9pm.
Eric Zorn was long-time op-ed columnist for the Chicago Tribune who specialized in local news and politics, but also wrote widely about sports, arts and culture. After 41 years at the paper, he left in June 2021 and now writes The Picayune Sentinel, a Substack with nearly 12,000 subscribers. He and his wife, audio news and documentary editor Johanna Zorn, live on the city’s northwest side and have three adult children. On the side, he’s an old-time dance fiddler.
Jon Hansen is an Emmy-winning TV, radio and podcast host for WCIU-TV, WGN Radio and Block Club Chicago. He is also the in-arena host for the Chicago Blackhawks at the United Center.
Austin Berg is the vice president of marketing at the Illinois Policy Institute and co-founder of Iron Light, an agency helping purpose-driven brands change the world. He is the co-author of the book The New Chicago Way: Lessons from Other Big Cities and host of the podcast ‘America’s Talking’.
Brandon Pope is an award-winning and Emmy-nominated journalist, host, podcaster, media critic and columnist, with experience covering a range of topics from politics to sports. Brandon is currently the host of ‘On The Block: Powered by Block Club Chicago’ on CW26, and the MAKING podcast series from WBEZ and NPR. He is president of the Chicago chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists, where he focuses on shepherding the next generation of of journalists and raising money for scholarships. Brandon is also an adjunct professor at Columbia College Chicago.
