Before retiring, Bill Cohen had a long career as a respected broadcast journalist. This page highlights selected interviews, features, and media appearances from that period.

In this conversation with Fred Anderle, Bill Cohen looks back on his decades-long career as a news journalist in Columbus. He shares key moments, interviews, and reflections on his time as a Statehouse reporter and Ohio Public Radio bureau chief.

Staff Writer, Akron Beacon Journal | May 7, 2013 | Columbus Dispatch

Columbus: Among the denizens who dwell by day within the limestone walls of the Statehouse, the absence of one in particular will be noticed and lamented this week. Bill Cohen, a true man of the people, will be gone (but not forgotten) for the first time in 37 years. The curly-haired and twinkle-eyed Ohio Public Radio Statehouse bureau chief has retired, silencing a trusted voice that brought the news to thousands of Ohioans and countless more over National Public Radio during a 42-year radio career.

“They sent me my Medicare card in early March and that confirmed for me that my decision to retire is a good one,” said Cohen, who turned 65 on March 24 but looks nary a day older than the green but eager Northwestern University journalism grad who in 1970 jumped at WOSU’s offer of a part-time job to edit wire copy.

Five years later, WOSU assigned Cohen to the Capitol, and in 1980 he started the still-thriving Statehouse bureau to serve all of Ohio’s public radio stations. Cohen has become a legend in the realm of Ohio journalism, as evident by the video tributes to him by Ohio’s last five governors — all of whom he covered — at a retirement party on Wednesday in the Statehouse Atrium, where the press corps dean was honored by dozens of admirers.

“He is, in all the good ways, a fixture at the Statehouse,” said Curt Steiner, who got to know Cohen while working at WOUB in Athens, only later to be covered by Cohen during stints as chief of staff to former Gov. George V. Voinovich and to Speaker Jo Ann Davidson.

“It is almost impossible to imagine the Statehouse without Bill. He has been incredibly professional, incredibly fair and very thorough for a very long time. People around the state have relied on his news coverage for decades and in some cases, it’s the only coverage they get from the Statehouse.”

Raised with a brother and sister in Bexley by a dad who was a radiologist and mom who was a homemaker, Cohen had little interest in government and politics, but began down a path of social awareness when he picked up a guitar at age 14 and soon was crooning the music of Simon & Garfunkel, Bob Dylan and Peter, Paul and Mary.

Over the years, Cohen developed a must-see solo show that pays tribute to the 1960s civil-rights and anti-war era, performing it at schools, synagogues and churches, while always on the prowl to sing and strum at festivals.

Given that background, one might assume that Cohen is a liberal, but if that is true, it was never evident in his reporting.

“He’s a folk singer and probably a grown-up hippy, but none of us really knows what his politics are,” said Steiner.

That’s because Cohen was unfailingly fair and objective in his reporting. And he was hands-down the best questioner at press conferences, always cutting to the chase in a respectful manner.

“I think the job of a reporter is to ask tough questions of officials, let news consumers hear all sides of the arguments and to stay clear of becoming an advocate for any party, cause or bill,” Cohen said.

Cohen said he relished “covering strong, passionate debates over public policy,” and he lamented that “the partisan political bickering has gotten more bitter and more ideologically charged” in recent times. “I especially love when just average citizens come down to the Statehouse and give legislators a piece of their minds.”

He covered an endless parade of colorful politicians and most appreciated those who, so to speak, could talk in quotes, such as former Democratic Sen. Harry Meshel of Youngstown.

“I always remember when he said we taxed everything but flatulence and indigestion. When you’re a radio reporter, you know that’s good stuff to put on the air.”

For Cohen, the time has come to leave the Statehouse and its characters behind and attend to his passions — Clippers baseball games, yard sales, traveling and camping with his wife, Randi, and their daughter, Hannah, writing and singing songs.

Bill Cohen has signed off on the radio and signed on to retirement. Good for him, bad for us.

— Joe Hallett, Senior Editor, Columbus Dispatch

WCBE News reflects on Bill Cohen's decades of statehouse reporting and his distinguished career as a broadcast journalist at NPR affiliate WCBE.

WCBE News

A WCBE radio interview in which Bill Cohen discusses the Bob Dylan biopic "A Complete Unknown," drawing on his lifelong love of folk music and the 1960s era.

WCBE