Christopher Lydon (born 1940 in Boston, Massachusetts) is an American media personality and author. He was the original host of '' The Connection'', produced by

WBUR WBUR-FM (90.9 FM) is a public radio station located in Boston, Massachusetts, owned by Boston University. It is the largest of three NPR member stations in Boston, along with WGBH and WUMB-FM and produces several nationally distributed program ...

and syndicated to other

NPR National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...

stations, and created ''

Open Source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

'', a weekly radio program on

Education

Lydon is a graduate of Boston's

Roxbury Latin School The Roxbury Latin School is a private boys' day school that was founded in 1645 in the town of Roxbury (now a neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts) by the Rev. John Eliot under a charter received from King Charles I of England. It bills ...

and

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

Journalistic history

Lydon is a former journalist with

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

, and anchored '' The Ten-O'Clock News'' on

WGBH WGBH may refer to: * WGBH Educational Foundation, based in Boston, Massachusetts, United States ** WGBH (FM), a public radio station at Boston, Massachusetts on 89.7 MHz owned by the WGBH Educational Foundation ** WGBH-TV WGBH-TV (channel 2), ...

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut assachusett writing systems, məhswatʃəwiːsət'' English: , ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous U.S. state, state in the New England ...

. After WGBH cancelled its nightly news program, he moved to

, where in 1994 he became host of ''The Connection''. In 2001, he and his longtime producer Mary McGrath were fired after a high-profile contract dispute with WBUR. McGrath's and Lydon's claim, rejected by the station, was that they, not WBUR, were the true creators of ''The Connection'' - moving it far beyond the initial WBUR template to become the successful, widely syndicated program. During his tenure on ''The Connection'', Lydon frequently discussed Internet topics, and his ''Radio Open Source''

blog A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order ...

became a launchpad for international broadcasts and other activities. While a fellow at

Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (Harvard Law or HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States. Each class ...

Berkman Center for Internet & Society The Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society is a research center at Harvard University that focuses on the study of cyberspace. Founded at Harvard Law School, the center traditionally focused on internet-related legal issues. On May 15, 2008, ...

in 2003, Lydon began recording in-depth interviews focused on blogging and politics, posting the downloadable audio files as part of his blog.

Dave Winer Dave Winer (born May 2, 1955, in Queens, New York City) is an American software developer, entrepreneur, and writer who resides in New York City. Winer is noted for his contributions to outliners, scripting, content management, and web servic ...

, also a Berkman Fellow, created an

RSS RSS ( RDF Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication) is a web feed that allows users and applications to access updates to websites in a standardized, computer-readable format. Subscribing to RSS feeds can allow a user to keep track of many di ...

enclosure feed for Lydon's MP3 interview files, an event credited with sparking the growth of

podcast A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosing ...

ing. Lydon is credited with creating the first podcast ever recorded in July 2003. He also launched the political site ''Bopnews'' (for "Blogging of the President") during the 2004 U.S. presidential campaign. On May 30, 2005, Lydon returned to the air on

University of Massachusetts Lowell The University of Massachusetts Lowell (UMass Lowell and UML) is a public research university in Lowell, Massachusetts, with a satellite campus in Haverhill, Massachusetts. It is the northernmost member of the University of Massachusetts public u ...

's radio station WUML and Boston's

with a new show called ''Open Source'', syndicated through

Public Radio International Public Radio International (PRI) was an American public radio organization. Headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, PRI provided programming to over 850 public radio stations in the United States. PRI was one of the main providers of programm ...

. Including a blog and podcast, the program promised to "use blogs to be a show about the world." On October 16, 2006, the Lowell, Massachusetts newspaper '' The Sun'' announced that "Radio personality Christopher Lydon's lucrative and controversial contract with

UMass Lowell The University of Massachusetts Lowell (UMass Lowell and UML) is a public research university in Lowell, Massachusetts, with a satellite campus in Haverhill, Massachusetts. It is the northernmost member of the University of Massachusetts public ...

to broadcast an hourlong radio show will not be renewed when it expires in December." Upon notice of the UMass Lowell discontinuance, Lydon began actively seeking new funders for the program. In November 2007, Lydon partnered with Brown University's

Watson Institute for International Studies The Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs is an interdisciplinary research center at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Its mission is to promote a just and peaceful world through research, teaching, and public engagement ...

to continue producing Radio Open Source. In 2013, Lydon was often a guest commentator on Thursdays on WGBH Radio's "Boston Public Radio" show. In 2014, Lydon returned to WBUR with a weekly radio program, ''Open Source''.

Politics

Lydon was a candidate for mayor of Boston in

1993 File:1993 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Oslo I Accord is signed in an attempt to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict; The Russian White House is shelled during the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis; Czechoslovakia is peace ...

. He finished sixth out of eight candidates in the nonpartisan primary.

References

External links

Radio Open Source

Christopher Lydon Interviews...
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Lydon, Christopher 1940 births Yale University alumni Living people American bloggers American talk radio hosts Berkman Fellows People from Boston Roxbury Latin School alumni