Christopher Lydon

Christopher Lydon is the host of Radio Open Source, a conversation on arts, ideas and politics from Brown University's Watson Institute. Proto-blogger Dave Winer calls Chris Lydon "the original podcaster."

In the background now are too many years in straight journalism, covering city and state politics for the Boston Globe and presidential campaigns (McGovern, Humphrey, Reagan, Carter et al.) for the New York Times, anchoring "The Ten O'Clock News" at WGBH-TV in Boston, and founding "The Connection" on public radio with producer Mary McGrath. Chris Lydon had run for mayor of Boston in 1993 -- a spur-of-the-moment stab at making a difference, or perhaps just surprising himself. In 1994, it turned out, the surprise that made the difference was radio. In the new millenium, the onset of blogging, podcasting, and the myriad extensions of the internet expanded all Chris Lydon's horizons and the resonance of Emerson's essay "Circles," a Lydon standby: "Life is a series of surprises. We do not guess today the mood, the pleasure, the power of tomorrow, when we are building up our being.... Now for the first time seem I to know any thing rightly. The simplest words, -- we do not know what they mean except when we love and aspire."