Chicago Tribune

Chicago Teachers Authorize Another Strike; Press Mostly Fails to Report Current Pay or Union's Demands
By Tom Blumer | December 15, 2015 | 10:44 PM EST

The Chicago Public Schools system, from which came Arne Duncan, perhaps the nation's most execrable Education Secretary, is in serious financial trouble. So is the State of Illinois. Having already borrowed against next year's property tax collections, CPS somehow expects the state to bail out its underfunded pensions to the tune of $500 million. Though it has subsequently been narrowed, MRC-TV, in covering the district CEO's resignation over a federal no-bid contract investigation, reported in June that the district was facing "a $1 billion budget deficit" for fiscal 2016.

In the midst of all of this, the district's teachers union has overwhelmingly authorized a strike. In searching several current articles on the topic, the hardest things to find were answers to two questions any reasonable person would ask: 1) How much do teachers currently make? and 2) What are their contract demands?

Student in Custody Targeted 'White Devils': Will the Media Cover?
By Matthew Balan | November 30, 2015 | 4:19 PM EST

The media has been carrying water for pro-abortion activists since the Friday shooting at a Planned Parenthood in Colorado in trying to hold the pro-life movement/conservatives, along with the Republican Party, responsible for the murders for their "fierce criticism" of the abortionist organization. However, a more recent incident of threatened violence leads one to wonder if the press will advance the same narrative with Black Lives Matter and other "racial justice" activists.

Ted Cruz Declares War on 'Liberal Media Agenda,' Columnist Declares War on Cruz
By Tim Graham | November 1, 2015 | 7:29 AM EST

The Dallas Morning News reports Ted Cruz’s campaign “raised $1.1 million in 22 hours” after the CNBC debate by “declaring war on the liberal media agenda.” It’s the third straight million-dollar post-debate fundraising haul for the campaign.

This led Chicago Tribune columnist Rex Huppke to write an allegedly humorous column declaring war on Ted Cruz:

Why Is the Press So Quiet About Illinois Lottery Winners Not Getting Paid?
By Tom Blumer | August 31, 2015 | 11:37 PM EDT

Silly me. I really thought that every state's lottery operation was walled off from the rest of its finances. They collect bets, pay out winnings and administrative costs, and turn over the profits to general fund. End of discussion. No muss, no fuss. Right?

In Illinois, based on recent developments, we know that's obviously not the case — leading me to wonder how many other states potentially have the same problem the Land of Lincoln currently has. You see, the state is about to move into the third month of a budget standoff between Republican Governor Bruce Rauner and its Democrat-controlled state legislature. As a result, because the lottery's operations are at least in a legal sense commingled with the rest of the state's finances, its comptroller has been forced to cancel payouts of lottery winnings greater than $25,000. It appears that very few media outlets outside of Illinois are interested in covering this obviously important story. Why?

10-1: Biggest U.S. Newspaper Editorials Lambast ‘Bigoted’ RFRA
By Kristine Marsh | April 7, 2015 | 11:22 AM EDT

One would think the editorial boards of the nations’ top newspapers – journalism’s brightest and best – wouldn't lightly throw around inflammatory language, slurs and insults.

But it appears that an Indiana law protecting the religious freedom of businesses and individuals is so beyond the pale it had the journalistic high-priests at many of America’s top 20 papers sputtering “bigot,” “homophobia” and “anti-gay.” 

Chicago Trib Gives Short Shrift to Emanuel's Ignorance on Origins of City Airports' Names
By Tom Blumer | March 29, 2015 | 9:32 PM EDT

In Chicago, incumbent Mayor and longtime Democrat fixture Rahm Emanuel floated the idea of renaming one of its airports after President Obama. After all, according to Emanuel, both of Chicago's major airports, O'Hare and Midway, are "named after battleships." No they're not, as will be seen after the jump.

The Chicago Tribune's Bill Ruthhart failed to recognize Emanuel's startling gaffe until the fifth paragraph of his story. Even then, he treated his breathtaking ignorance as some kind of routine, unimportant mistake. If you have a hard time imagining the Trib giving a Republican or conservative committing a similar whopper such an easy time of it, join the club.

AP Treats Jesse Jackson's Endorsement of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel's Runoff Opponent as a Local Story
By Tom Blumer | March 10, 2015 | 2:11 PM EDT

A review of the "Big Story" archive at the Associated Press's national site on Jesse Jackson's name returns quite a few instances where the wire service has treated the "Reverend's" self-injection into stories considered nationally important as noteworthy.

In addition to the predictable plethora of stories relating to Ferguson, Missouri and "police-communities tension," Jackson's name has recently appeared in two stories about a Chicago area Little League team stripped of its national title over "falsified boundaries," tech jobs for minorities, an Ebola patient and several relating to the National Football League. But somehow, Jackson's endorsement of Jesus "Chuy" Garcia, who is challenging incumbent Chicago Democratic Mayor and former Barack Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel in its April 7 runoff election, is not a "Big Story" or present anywhere else on AP's national site, indicating that the wire service considers it a mere local item.

Donald Trump Blasts Chicago Tribune's 'Third-Rate Architectural Critic' Attacking His New Skyscraper
By Kyle Drennen | June 13, 2014 | 4:30 PM EDT

UPDATE [06/16]: Monday's Today offered a correction on Trump's claim that Blair Kamin had been "fired" from the Chicago Tribune. At the top of the 8 a.m. ET hour, news anchor Natalie Morales explained: "Well, in fact, that critic, Pulitzer Prize winner Blair Kamin, has been with the Chicago Tribune for more than twenty years and also spent the 2013 academic year as a Nieman Fellow at Harvard." See a transcript of the June 16 news brief below.

On Friday, NBC's Today and CBS This Morning touted Chicago Tribune architecture critic Blair Kamin hurling insults at Donald Trump's newest skyscraper in the Windy City, condemning the "brashness" and "egotistical overstatement" of the billionaire's decision to place his name on the building, even calling it a "wart" on the city skyline and comparing it to "Godzilla." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]  

Reacting to the melodramatic declarations during a live phone interview on Today, Trump slammed Kamin: "This was started by a third-rate architectural critic for the Chicago Tribune, who I thought got fired. He was gone for a long period of time. Most people thought he got fired. All of a sudden he re-emerges, and to get a little publicity, he started this campaign."

Major Newspaper Editorials Ignore or Praise EPA Controls 90 Percent of Time
By Sean Long | June 3, 2014 | 4:19 PM EDT

When the government pushes to destroy America’s biggest source of energy, you can certainly trust the media to jump on board.

On June 1, the Environmental Protection Agency unveiled drastic new limits on carbon emissions, mandating steep emission cuts within 16 years. It’s a move that may cost  hundreds of thousands of jobs each year, but only 13 of the 20 major United States newspapers discussed the issue in editorials. Eleven of those papers actually promoted the new regulations with editorials or official endorsements – from their editorial board.

In Lionizing NYT's Baquet, Press Ignore Childish Insubordination Which Led to His Firing at the LA Times
By Tom Blumer | May 18, 2014 | 11:49 PM EDT

At the Politico, concerning Dean Baquet, the new Executive Editor at the New York Times, Dylan Byers wonders: "How will ... (he) handle the necessary digital transformation facing 'All the news that’s fit to print.'?" The better question is: How will he handle the financial constraints Times management will almost inevitably have to impose on a stagnant if not shrinking newsroom operation?

To say that Baquet didn't deal with such matters well when he was in a similar position at the Los Angeles Times eight years ago is an understatement. The working press seems to consider him some kind of hero for standing up to senior management at the Tribune Company, the paper's owner. The fact is that his childish, passive-aggressive posturing made his firing inevitable, and that he should have been sent packing months earlier than he was.

Chicago Trib 'Forgets' Illinois' Unpaid Bills in Covering Dems' 'Millionaire Tax' Referendum Proposal
By Tom Blumer | March 22, 2014 | 8:57 PM EDT

I would say "Only in Illinois," but I suspect that other states have similar problems and would propose "solutions" just as nutty as the Democratic state Speaker Michael Madigan and his party have chosen.

The states has an unpaid bills backlog of $5.8 billion, meaning that vendors are going months before they get paid. We're supposed to be thrilled that this total is down from $8.8 billion several years ago. So when I read that Madigan wants to impose a "millionaire" income tax of 3 percent over and above the steep tax increases on income-earning Illinois residents across the board three years ago, I figured that he would at least plan on using the money to further whittle down those past-due amounts. Silly me. Unfortunately, reporters Ray Long, Monique Garcia and Maura Zurick at the Chicago Tribune didn't even bring the topic of old bills up in covering Madigan's ill-advised plan, which seems to have more to do with swaying the November election results — especially the race for the governor's mansion — than anything substantive:

Press Nearly Mum As VW Displaces GM As World's Number Two Automaker
By Tom Blumer | January 31, 2014 | 4:58 PM EST

In yet another negative milestone for the bailouts that supposedly saved the U.S. auto industry — already a hard-to-handle claim given that Chrysler, one of the two beneficiaries, is now 100% owned by an Italian company — Volkswagen has surpassed General Motors as the world's number two automaker behind Toyota.

The reporting on this development has been quite sparse. It's not news at the Associated Press's national site, even though AP mentions VW in a report on Super Bowl ad and social media strategies. At USA Today, James R. Healey's could easily have inserted the news into his story today on the 65th anniversary of the VW Beetle's first arrival here, and didn't. What follows is an excerpt from Expatica, one of the few publications to note the shakeup in the auto industry hierarchy: