By Steve Rhodes

UPDATE: 10:40 A.M.: See below for new town hall comments and NBCChicago.com links.
7:17 A.M.: Just to get started, here are some comments I received via e-mail in response to my first piece about the Chicago Journalism Town Hall. I didn’t receive any negative comments; I’m not editing selectively. I am deleting names and other identifiers to protect commenters, many of whom are frustrated inside their own news shops. In some cases I have edited the comments ever so slightly for punctuation and clarity. I’m still planning on a second installment and some other related content, as well as some semblance of a regular Papers column this morning, but first I have to do some work for NBCChicago.com. Back soon.

Read More

Posted on February 26, 2009

By Steve Rhodes

I’m hopelessly behind. Please send food and beer. Also, I haven’t had a pair of socks to wear since Friday. Not even dirty ones. Don’t ask.
*
I’m gathering reaction, which I will post soon, to my initial piece about the Chicago Journalism Town Hall. I’m going to clean that one up a bit and write up a second part as well, I’m just not there yet. Be patient.
*
First, let’s take a look at the news.

Read More

Posted on February 25, 2009

By Steve Rhodes

UPDATE: 4:31 P.M.: Okay folks, I think I’m back in business. Media Temple and Movable Type are still blaming each other, but I think I’ve made enough tweaks in enough places to be up and running. I’ll resolve the blame game later.
So . . . here’s what we’ve got.
* Burris Clergy Speaks With Forked Tongues. This is breaking news, folks! A group of ministers that calls itself Clergy Speaks reacts to Dick Durbin’s call for Roland Burris to resign – and we’re there!
* Open Letter: Dear Illinois African-American Community. How on the ball are we? Very!
* Intimations. The tyranny of assaulting air.
* What I Watched Last Night: Jockeys. Jimmy the Hat, sex in the saddle.
And more about the Chicago Journalism Town Hall, sometime between now and tomorrow morning. You can read the first part here.

Read More

Posted on February 24, 2009

By Steve Rhodes

PROGRAMMING NOTE: I’m having problems with my server today, coping the best I can.
*
This is the first of what I suspect will be two parts about the Chicago Journalism Town Hall held on Sunday. Because of said server issues, it gets rougher as my frustration mounted while trying to deal. I may polish and re-post later.
I was reluctant to attend the Chicago Journalism Town Hall when I first read about it. And yes, one of my first thoughts was: Why am I not on this panel? That’s not an arrogant thing to say, it’s just that this is my wheelhouse. I’ve been dealing with these issues for the whole of my 20-year career and let me tell you, it’s been nothing but heartbreak learning of and observing the near-ignorance that most journalists have of their own business, and their recalcitrance not just to things that are new, but things that are better. It never seems to occur to most journalists that – like the American auto industry – the quality of what they do could be upgraded drastically.
But then, newsrooms are a culture that one study found is more resistant to culture found everywhere else in business but 1950s hospitals and the military. Progressive-thinking these people are not; change-averse to ridiculous levels and scared of their shadows they are.
Let me give you a recent example. Bear in mind that the year is 2009; the Internet has been around so long that the dot-com bust was eight years ago.
I was reading a trade industry publication last week informing those of our profession that you don’t have to use the old AP inverted pyramid style when writing your stories. You can use feature leads! You can write in narrative style! You can use all sorts of gimmicks to “write” if you just learn the craft of newspaperese! You’ll win awards!
Um, what is this, the wayback machine to 1975? Not only is that an amazingly stale discussion, it’s amazingly outdated. The revolution of the simple link has irrevocably altered the way we should be writing and structuring our stories. But guess what? Newspaper reporters don’t put links in their stories! It’s true! And when newspapers put stories online, an editor doesn’t put links in those, either!

Read More

Posted on February 23, 2009

By Natasha Julius

Don’t worry if this Report doesn’t tickle your fancy; they’re working on a pill for that.
Market Update
False Optimism took a major pounding this week. Not that Stark Realism has seen much of a rally either.

Read More

Posted on February 21, 2009

By Steve Rhodes

BREAKING 11:19 A.M.: Gov. Pat Quinn just called on Roland Burris to resign. Quinn also asked the General Assembly to pass a bill sponsored by Rep. Jack Franks that would create special elections to fill U.S. Senate vacancies. Temporary appointments would be made in any interim between the vacancy and the election.
–
Burris should run in the special election!
–
The [Friday] Papers
It just never ends.
“A former top official for then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich said Thursday he got a ‘courtesy call’ from Roland Burris last fall noting Burris’ interest in a vacant U.S. Senate seat – a contact Burris failed to mention to lawmakers in his evolving testimony about how he got the job,” the Tribune reports.
This isn’t the biggest revelation in the world – the contacts (there was a second one too) sound innocuous. But how do we know? The point of Burris filing affidavits and testifying in Springfield was to find out – under oath – how Burris got his appointment. And like one state legislator said the other day, you can’t cross-examine an affidavit.
A bigger problem for Burris is this, from Dave McKinney and Natasha Korecki of the Sun-Times:

Read More

Posted on February 20, 2009

By Steve Rhodes

It gets worse.
“U.S. Sen. Roland Burris had more contacts with then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s chief of staff before being appointed to his Senate seat than he disclosed in his most recent affidavit, phone records and interviews show,” the Sun-Times reports in its print editions today but apparently not online.
“One of the calls placed to John Harris came Nov. 13, the same day Burris discussed the possibility of raising money for the governor with Blagojevich’s brother, Robert Blagojevich, according to phone records obtained by the Sun-Times and sources. That call was likely caught on an FBI wiretap.”

Read More

Posted on February 19, 2009

By Steve Rhodes

Roland Burris is scheduled to speak to the City Club at 12:30 p.m. today. I’ll try to live-blog it here.
UPDATE 12:43 P.M.: Burris blogging is below.
UPDATE: 12:36 P.M.: Lynn Sweet just said on Fox News that Burris will give a speech at the City Club but is not planning to take questions – even though that’s usually the routine at these things.
BREAKING 12:37 P.M. (NOW UPDATED AND CLARIFIED): This is heartbreaking, if true (you have to scroll down):
“Little birds were whispering rumors of the demise over the last 24 hours, but it seems like the gossip is now true. Touch and Go Records, Chicago’s venerable indie institution, is done. The label will go the way of its Bay Area cousin, Lookout! Records, ceasing new releases and managing back catalog only. Issuer of influential post-punk albums – Slint’s Spiderland, the Jesus Lizard’s Goat and Big Black’s Atomizer, to name a few – Touch and Go began at the dawn of the ’80s in East Lansing, Michigan, before founders Tesco Vee and Dave Stimson handed the biz over to Necros bassist Corey Rusk in 1983. Soon after the baton passing, the label moved to Chicago and began documenting our city’s burgeoning punk scene.”
In the meantime . . .
* What’s the deal with Kwame Raoul? In What I Watched Last Night.
* What Robert Plant Hath Wrought. In Don’s Root Cellar.
* The New Political Dictionary. Contributions welcome.
* NBA trades and MLB second-basemen. In Fantasy Fix.

Read More

Posted on February 18, 2009

By Steve Rhodes

BREAKING 12:43 P.M.: I’m late to this, but I’m only one person. I just saw it now.
“U.S. Sen. Roland Burris has acknowledged he sought to raise campaign funds for then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich at the request of the governor’s brother at the same time he was making a pitch to be appointed to the Senate seat previously held by President Barack Obama.”
Unbelievable.
BREAKING 12:53 P.M.: Via Capitol Fax:
“Illinois House Speaker Michael J. Madigan today referred several documents associated with U.S. Senator Roland Burris and his testimony last month before the Illinois House Special Investigative Committee to Sangamon County States Attorney John Schmidt.”
PLUS: Arenda Troutman sentenced to four years.
–
The Roland Burris Show rolls on.
Perjury Trap
I get a kick out of all these experts opining about whether Burris committed perjury. Just to cite one of numerous examples, the Sun-Times digs up former Cook County prosecutor Irv Miller today.
“Miller said he wouldn’t approve perjury charges if the case were brought to him,” the paper reports.
How do you know? There hasn’t been an investigation yet.
No perjury case would be brought solely on the “evidence” at hand. Depositions would be taken, witnesses interviewed, documents subpoeaned and reviewed . . . there’s no way to know what an investigation would turn up. So the question isn’t whether Burris committed perjury, it’s whether a perjury investigation ought to be opened. And I can’t imagine a rationale for answering that with a No. Unless Irv Miller knows something we don’t.

Read More

Posted on February 17, 2009

By Steve Rhodes

BREAKING 9:31 A.M.: Roland Burris will hold another press conference at 10 a.m. I’ll bring it to you live. Ish.
In the meantime, you can catch up with Mystery Burris Theater – the best coverage in all the land of yesterday’s developments – while I put together the rest of today’s column and prepare offerings throughout the rest of the site.
Oh, and here’s some material already posted at NBCChicago.com:
* Resign, Roland.
* Presidents’ Day, Chicago-Style.
See you soon.

Read More

Posted on February 16, 2009