Making

About Making

WBEZ's critically-acclaimed bio-podcast series explores how icons, industries and newsmakers rose to the top.

Publisher

WBEZ Chicago

Category

society & culture

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

3 Nov 2016

Latest episode

23 Dec 2025

Latest episodes

10 of 56 episodes have a transcript.

1. 

   23 Dec 2025TRANSCRIPT

   Becoming Bovino

   Who is Gregory Bovino? For months, the Border Patrol Commander-at-Large led agents through Chicago on an aggressive immigration enforcement campaign, while making sure his noticeably uncovered face was in front of as many cameras as possible. But there’s very little information online about Bovino’s background, his experience, or his rise to overnight prominence. So our team went digging – to his hometown in North Carolina, and to California where his Border Patrol career got started. In “Becoming Bovino,” Sun-Times investigative reporter Lauren FitzPatrick and WBEZ investigative reporter Dan Mihalopoulos sit down with WBEZ’s Patrick Smith to share what they found about Gregory Bovino – from his upbringing, to his efforts to keep himself in the limelight.

2. 

   10 Jun 2025TRANSCRIPT

   You May Also Like… Final Thoughts: Jerry Springer

   Leon Neyfakh explores Jerry Springer's unexpected transformation from a respected politician to the host of a controversial talk show, examining ambition and compromise in this interview.

3. 

   20 May 2025TRANSCRIPT

   A new era for daytime soaps operas: Beyond the Gates

   A Chicago woman, Irna Phillips, birthed the daytime serial — and a Chicago woman, Michele Val Jean, is ushering in new interest in the genre. Val Jean has written for several shows, including Generations, Santa Barbara, General Hospital and The Bold and the Beautiful. Now, she’s the creative force driving Beyond the Gates, the newest American soap, which debuted on CBS in February. The drama features a core Black family, the Duprees, who live outside Washington, D.C. It’s full of delicious soapy drama, with slaps, villains, cliffhangers and fabulous clothes. Val Jean talks about her career, from writing the infamous catfight scene on Generations and revisiting the Luke and Laura rape on General Hospital to the joy she feels watching the reception of Beyond the Gates.

Inside a recent episode

Becoming Bovino

Published 23 Dec 2025 · Transcript excerpt

[…] I spoke with somebody that joined around the same time as a former agent named Jen Bud. She worked in the San Diego sector, so El Centro is a little bit east of there. The Border Patrol is like a cult, and we say we bleed green, and we always protect each other. She found that it's really a pretty toxic culture where they are not too picky about who they take, that they don't really vet them properly, and they end up having agents with a lot of problems, and they back them up instead of holding them accountable or drumming them out. To her, she finds, you know, you say a toxic culture, how did she think that affected the way they treated the migrants or the people that they were going after specifically? […]

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

YouTube views

3,930,388

Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025

Apple Podcasts (US)

4.6 / 5

3,546 ratings

Spotify

4.8 / 5

66 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 54 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

36

Social presence

0

YouTube

86

Engagement

94

Contact Making

Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.

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