A lasting 'Chronicle'

For 25 years, WCVB-TV's "Chronicle" has brought to local television unexpected stories about beekeepers in Vermont, dishwashers at Tufts University, and everyday people on the streets in China. Tonight, the Channel 5 show -- the oldest locally produced daily newsmagazine show in the country -- celebrates its 25th anniversary with a one-hour retrospective special at 8. Here is a road map of its long journey.

SUZANNE C. RYAN

January 1982
"Chronicle" debuts with anchors Chet Curtis, Jeanne Blake, and Donna Downes. The ratings sink because the show's stories are too random.
"The programming people wanted to compete with WBZ-TV's 'Evening Magazine,' " said Curtis. "But the show had no definition. It floundered for a long time." It soon switched to a single-theme format.

April 1982
Mike Barnicle becomes a contributor.

September 1982
Peter Mehegan joins as a cohost.
"My first show was a huge in-studio Jerry Springer type of confrontation between Israeli sympathizers and Palestinian sympathizers. It was a wild show and I had to referee this thing. I knew I was onto something new and different."

July 1983
"Main Streets & Back Roads" series is launched. It explores New England.

October 1984
Mary Richardson joins as a cohost.
"I was anchoring the weekend news and came to 'Chronicle' as a fill-in. I can't believe what I used to wear on air: big shoulder pads, shiny outfits, hair past my shoulders."

April 1985
Richardson goes to China with producer Stan Leven, who became her husband four years later.
"We got on each other's nerves and argued our way through China," said Richardson. "I thought he was overshooting. We took separate taxis to the same event."

January 1987
Mehegan launches his "On the Road" series, driving his '69 Chevy Impala around Maine. "The standout people I remember are Joel White, E.B. White's son, an acclaimed boat builder in Maine, and [the late] John Gould, the Christian Science Monitor columnist who straightened me out about the stereotype of the cold Mainer."

February 1987
Mehegan goes to Ethiopia to cover the famine. "You can't imagine being in the lap of luxury at the Hilton one day and the next day seeing children dying of hunger."

November 1988
A national version of "Chronicle" premieres on A&E Network. The arrangement lasts about two years.

January 1993"Chronicle" wins its first prestigious Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award for general excellence.

September 1993
Liz Brunner joins as a reporter and occasional anchor.
"My first story was a 30-minute show on the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. It was poignant, it was dark, it was unbelievable. Then I heard that 'Chronicle' had never been to Hawaii. I grew up there until I was 10. I convinced them I was the perfect tour guide."

September 1995
Ted Reinstein, a reporter and producer, joins the team.

July 1998
"Chronicle" finishes No. 1 in its time period for the first time.

March 2001
Richardson goes to Cuba. "When we got on the plane, we were slightly fearful. We had heard so many stories about Fidel Castro. We found an enormous gulf between the people and the government."

February 2002
"Chronicle" launches "Beyond the Big Dig," a series on Boston's plans for redevelopment that takes viewers to urban renewal projects in Barcelona, Paris, and San Francisco. The series, done with the Globe and MIT, wins a duPont-Columbia award.

September 2005
Anthony Everett replaces Peter Mehegan as cohost.
"As part of a 'Take this job and love it' story, I cleaned up the poop in the flamingo exhibit at the Franklin Park Zoo."

March 2006
"Chronicle" covers the topic of adoptions by gay couples after the Archdiocese of Boston shuts down its local adoption agency rather than allowing gays and lesbians to be adoptive parents.

April 2006
Shayna Seymour joins as a reporter and producer.