By Steve Rhodes
FInal Update: My aborted column yesterday was going to argue that the story of Juan Johnson was underplayed by the newspapers in particular and the media as a whole. This argument becomes even stronger, I think, when compared to the treatment given today to a judge’s decision to sentence infamous bartender beater Anthony Abbate to probation instead of sending him to jail.
Both papers not only put the story on their front pages, but did so in an inciteful, outrage-exploiting manner. But Abbate’s sentence is wholly reasonable, as Whet Moser shows.

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Posted on June 24, 2009

By Steve Rhodes
Programming Update 2 p.m.: Due to a laptop snafu that just cost me about two hours, there won’t be a Papers column today. I have other things that now must be tended to. However, here are a couple of additional items along with those already posted.
* Walgreens: Beer Is Back! “Woo-hoo!,” says Homer Simpson of Springfield.
* DePaul Law School Saga Aboil. Jonathan Turley weighs in.
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Today’s Beachwood comes to you live from the Mercury Cafe, where the milk shakes and the tunes are equally scrumptious.
The Papers is on the way. Here’s what else we’ve got so far:
* Our Olympic Day! Our celebration is a little different than the one Chicago 2016 has in store.
* Stop the Violence. Twenty-four hours of programming.
* Legal Fiction. Are judges getting carried away with literary pretensions?

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Posted on June 23, 2009

By Steve Rhodes
1. “The United Neighborhood Organization, the city’s largest Latino community group, is poised to become the biggest charter school manager in Illinois after scoring a $98 million state grant to build eight more schools,” the Tribune reports.
“How UNO landed all that cash – believed to be the largest-ever taxpayer windfall in the U.S. for a community-run charter group to build schools – at a time of massive government budget deficits is a classic Chicago story of awakening immigrant clout and lobbying muscle.”

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Posted on June 22, 2009

By Natasha Julius
Oh, you’ll get your news. We guarantee it.
Change Watch
Analysts at the Weekend Desk are unsure how to cope with the unprecedented number of cheap and easy jokes flooding the Change market. As a result, trading has been suspended for the week.

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Posted on June 20, 2009

By Steve Rhodes
Of all the cities in America to be infested by naive reporters, you’d think Chicago would rank low on the list.
But no.
The maxim for the vast majority of media in this town seems to be, “If the mayor says your mother loves you, it must be true.”
I mean, what gives?
Did nobody do their homework way back when when the Olympic bid process first got started? Hasn’t every reporter in town been reading Ben Joravsky?
There are books that should have been required reading for anyone on the bid beat.

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Posted on June 19, 2009

By Steve Rhodes
“Whoa!” the Tribune editorial board exclaims today. “What did Mayor Richard Daley just do?”
That depends on who and how you read.

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Posted on June 18, 2009

By Steve Rhodes
Sometimes people make mistakes. And they deserve second-chances.
Even lifelong criminals can be rehabilitated.
But for the most part, I’ve concluded, people are who they are. Their essential character doesn’t change.
Richard M. Daley isn’t going to change, and neither is Todd Stroger.
Therefore, they must be contained.

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Posted on June 17, 2009

By Steve Rhodes
First, a correction to my NBCChicago.com post yesterday about the mayor skipping town for Switzerland on Sunday night. Obviously that wasn’t the case, seeing as how he greeted President Obama at the airport on Monday and then met with union leaders to discuss layoffs.
How did such a mistake happen? Well, you can’t believe everything you read on the Internet when it comes from a blogger in their basement mainstream news source like ABC7, which reported that “Mayor Daley was on his way to Switzerland Sunday night, along with the Chicago 2016 Olympic bid team.”
Not to bust their balls, because we all make mistakes. Just sayin’.
But the curious thing is that the ABC7 report came with photographic evidence; there’s someone who appears to be the mayor at a location that seems to be an airport! And there’s even a timestamp: 10:18.

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Posted on June 16, 2009

By Steve Rhodes
Note: Whether you made it to the Chicago Media Future Conference on Saturday or not, there’s some goodies to avail yourself of over on their website, including audio of the panels, a live-blog of the proceedings, and a Twitter stream. I haven’t had time to write up my thoughts on the conference, but hope at some point this week.
Twinkie Town
I was on the Jackson Blue Line platform early Saturday evening and it was mobbed with Twins fans in town for the weekend series against the Cubs. A busker started playing an old Replacements song and I had a bit of a moment.
Our very own Jim Coffman wasn’t so lucky with the Twins fans he ran into.
“I know that visiting Cub fans can be annoying elsewhere in the country, especially up at Miller Park,” Coffman writes in SportsMonday. “But then they leave and you have the place to yourselves again, don’t you Brewers fans? At Wrigley at this time of year in particular, it seems like every time we North Siders turn around we’re running into packs of opposing fans. Interleague play in particular brings out the visiting hordes, giving them the still relatively rare opportunity to see their squads at the finest ballpark in the land. And of course we always have the delightful White Sox and their gracious manager in for a series in the middle of it all.”

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Posted on June 15, 2009

By Natasha Julius
The world ended last night, but we’re still here covering the key stories.
Change Watch
Recovery took a bearish turn this week when analysts revealed nothing ever changes.

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Posted on June 13, 2009