By Steve Rhodes

I’m assured this is real: Highlights from new Tribune Company owner Sam Zell’s employee handbook. It sounds too good to be true – and represents a wholesale culture change from the TribCo of old.
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UPDATE 7:30 A.M.: Crap, the Los Angeles Times already has this story. As does The Washington Post. At least I beat the Chicago Tribune. Here goes.
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* Rule 1. Use your best judgment. “Unless we made a serious mistake when we hired you, you have good judgment. You know what it takes to succeed.”
* Because it “has always been done that way” or because “the boss said so” aren’t reasons for doing anything.
* Keep your word. If you promise something to a reader, you are expected to uphold it.
* Playing bagpipes in the newsroom is annoying and considered bad judgment.
* Coming to work drunk is bad judgment.

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Posted on January 17, 2008

By Steve Rhodes

The presidential debates have really been the best part of this year’s campaign, but the newspapers sure don’t have much interest in them. The stories they provide readers offer very little; it’s like editors only publish them out of duty or to prove that they know they took place. It’s baffling. All this preaching journalists do about the public’s lack of interest in serious issues . . . could it be that it’s the press that isn’t interested?
Take last night’s Democratic debate in Las Vegas. Watch John Edwards regret his entire Senate record! That’s good stuff, people. Watch Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama reverse themselves on gun registration and licensing. Squeal in delight as Hillary lashes into Barack Obama for supporting an energy bill she says was written by Dick Cheney and his oil lobby pals.
This is important stuff. You learn a lot about these candidates in these settings. At least we do.
And if you crack open a beer, you can even have some fun. At least we do.
TruthTube
Former Tribune editorial page editor Don Wycliff discovers the sorry truth about our mediocre media in today’s must-read. Clip it, save it, show it to the children.

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Posted on January 16, 2008

By Steve Rhodes

Yesterday we talked about gender. Today, let’s talk about race.
Because once again voters are being played like suckers.
“The D.C. media invented this war and sucked the candidates into race-baiting,” Dan Abrams said last night on MSNBC in a segment that pretty much summed up the last few days of nonsense. It was titled “Media Fairy Tale.”
How so?

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Posted on January 15, 2008

By Steve Rhodes

“When I heard about the Clinton ‘cry,’ I just had to check it out, and when I did I ran smack into a lie,” Mara Tapp wrote Sunday on the Tribune’s Op-Ed page. “It doesn’t really matter whether you like or hate Hillary Clinton. All you have to be is honest to see that this is not what it was made to seem.”
See for yourself.
Opposite Tapp’s Op-Ed was a Mike Luckovich cartoon with a voter saying “Thanks a lot, Hillary” while watching the rest of the presidential field in tears and a letter to the editor titled “Big Girls Don’t Cry.”
This is the sort of media behavior that has most informed my writings about Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. It’s not about who you like more, it’s about truth in reporting. We’re seeing precious little of it.

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Posted on January 14, 2008

By Natasha Julius

Playoffs, bus rides and peace in our time. We’ll take a break from our devotional marathon to keep you updated on the latest events.
Market Update
You know it’s bad when Ron Paul is the only one making any sense.

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Posted on January 12, 2008

By Steve Rhodes

“Does he lie awake at night thinking of ways to exasperate people?” the Tribune editorial page asks of Gov. Rod Blagojevich today.
No. That’s how he spends his days. He doesn’t lose any sleep over it.

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Posted on January 11, 2008

By Steve Rhodes

I’ll be attending to various unpleasant tasks and chores today. The Papers will return on Friday. In the meantime, spend some quality time around the rest of the site. Set aside an hour or two. Treat yourself – and us.
The [Wednesday] Papers
“In New Hampshire, Clinton started raising questions about Obama’s record as an Illinois state senator and in the U.S. Senate – something she decided to do only very late in the Iowa contest, thinking the press would do the job for her,” Lynn Sweet writes.
“Realizing that if she had something to say she would have to say it herself, she did so more forcefully in New Hampshire, with an assist from Bill Clinton.
“The Clinton camp is determined now to start a more aggressive conversation about Obama’s record – health care, energy, taxes, his work in the Senate.”
Meanwhile, Sweet writes, “Obama has been saying these past days that he thought he was done being vetted. I’m not so sure where he got the notion that there was a place called ‘done’ in a big presidential contest.”

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Posted on January 10, 2008

By Steve Rhodes

“In New Hampshire, Clinton started raising questions about Obama’s record as an Illinois state senator and in the U.S. Senate – something she decided to do only very late in the Iowa contest, thinking the press would do the job for her,” Lynn Sweet writes.
“Realizing that if she had something to say she would have to say it herself, she did so more forcefully in New Hampshire, with an assist from Bill Clinton.
“The Clinton camp is determined now to start a more aggressive conversation about Obama’s record – health care, energy, taxes, his work in the Senate.”
Meanwhile, Sweet writes, “Obama has been saying these past days that he thought he was done being vetted. I’m not so sure where he got the notion that there was a place called ‘done’ in a big presidential contest.”

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Posted on January 9, 2008

By Steve Rhodes

1. I miss Mike Gravel.
2. President Bush visited Horace Greeley Elementary School on the North Side on Monday to campaign for an extension of his signature No Child Left Behind law.
The Sun-Times reported the story with its typical wide eyes.
The Tribune, to its credit, didn’t.

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Posted on January 8, 2008

By Steve Rhodes

“The debate was as difficult for Clinton as Romney,” Robert Novak writes in his nationally syndicated Sun-Times column today.
“Following her script that Obama could not be trusted, Clinton quoted an alleged Associated Press crack that Obama ‘could have had a pretty good debate with himself’ (when in fact it was the AP quoting a Clinton supporter).”
Just patently not true. The article was real, not merely “alleged,” and the description came from the AP’s Springfield reporter, not a Clinton supporter. In fact, it was the lead. Use the Google, Bob. It’s free.

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Posted on January 7, 2008