By Steve Rhodes

I’d like to say a few words about the Beachwood this morning.
First, all hail our very own Tom Latourette!
Tom is the man behind many of our song parodies and videos and today we kick off Tom Latourette Month with three of his latest creations.
Our Politics page today features Tom’s “Patti Just Sold A Home For The Holidays,” a Christmas tribute to our state’s fine First Lady.
Tom’s song is also an entrant in Eric Zorn and Mary Schmich’s seasonal-song parody contest.

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Posted on December 12, 2007

By Steve Rhodes

“He hurt the public – by him taking money from the paper, that gives them less resources to bring us the news,” a Chicago law clerk is quoted saying about former media mogul Conrad Black, who was sentenced to six-and-a-half years in prison on Monday, in a Sun-Times editorial this morning.
“I’m sure he didn’t reinvest money to make the paper better,” a consultant said.
If only we could imprison all news executives who commit that crime.

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Posted on December 11, 2007

By Steve Rhodes

Just an abbreviated version of the Papers this morning as I tend to other business. Tomorrow I’ll return with a full column and new offerings throughout the site.
Loafing’s Losers
“The owners [of the Reader] in Chicago sold out last summer to an unfortunately named outfit, Creative Loafing from Atlanta, which has mandated cuts across the organization. It is as if Creative Loafing executives bought a shiny new doll and then once they got their hands on it, felt compelled to tear its head off,” media columnist David Carr writes in the New York Times this morning.

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Posted on December 10, 2007

By The Weekend Desk B Team

While Weekend Desk Editor Natasha Julius is on assignment with Rod Blagojevich for her upcoming report Weekend With The Governor – it turns out his weekends are a lot like his weekdays; you know, a lot of puttering around the house – the rest of us underlings are keeping an eye on the following stories for you over the next couple of days.
Brain Scan
A new National Intelligence Estimate has concluded that President Bush doesn’t have any.
Pen Pals
President Bush has written a letter to North Korea strongman Kim Jong-il begging him to continue his nuclear weapons program so somebody in the Axis of Evil is actually a threat.

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Posted on December 8, 2007

By Steve Rhodes

1. The new ownership of the Chicago Reader – along with its longtime editor, Alison True – apparently believes that making the stale weekly even worse is the path to success.
Here’s the memo.
There will be less justice in Chicago as a result of this move. John Conroy’s work in particular has been Pulitzer-worthy in the best sense of that phrase. If you haven’t read Steve Bogira’s Courtroom 302, buy it now and do so. It’s a tremendous insight not only into the Cook County criminal courts, but the way your media gets police and court coverage so wrong. Tori Marlan’s work has always been impressive and Harold Henderson is as much a part of the place as anyone.

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Posted on December 7, 2007

By Steve Rhodes

BREAKING NEWS 4:56 P.M.: It’s a bloodletting at the Reader, and a sad, dark day in Chicago journalism. Four of the best folks they have are no longer there, as the consequences of the new ownership makes itself known. And while all are a big loss, the loss of John Conroy is most stunning. My God, the man has produced perhaps the most important journalism in the city in his time at the Reader. This is wrong and unconscionable.
Here’s the memo.
*
From: Alison True <atrue@chicagoreader.com>
Date: December 6, 2007 4:40:02 PM CST
To: everyone@chicagoreader.com
Subject: Reader news
Dear Reader staff–
Despite the considerable challenges we’ve faced recently, you’ve continued to make a newspaper and Web site we can all be proud of. Unfortunately the financial pressures of our industry continue unabated, and I’m very sorry to announce that as a cost-cutting measure we eliminated several positions in editorial this week.
The people we cut–John Conroy, Harold Henderson, and Tori Marlan, as well as Steve Bogira, who’s been on a leave of absence–are all staff writers, and as you might guess, this move represents a shift in the financial structure of our relationship with contributors.</atrue@chicagoreader.com>

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Posted on December 6, 2007

By Steve Rhodes

In the first of a two-part investigative report called “Shielded From The Truth,” the Tribune reports today that the Chicago Police Department’s method for investigating police shootings is a sham.
“The inquiry, which reviewed available records for more than 200 police shooting cases over the last decade, found that these cursory police investigations create a separate standard of justice and fuel the fear among some citizens that officers can shoot people with impunity,” the paper reports.
“Law enforcement officials at all levels, from the detectives who investigate cases to the superintendent, as well as the state’s attorney’s office, have failed to properly police the police.”

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Posted on December 5, 2007

By Steve Rhodes

“A new assessment by American intelligence agencies released Monday concludes that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and that the program remains frozen, contradicting a judgment two years ago that Tehran was working relentlessly toward building a nuclear bomb,” the New York Times reports this morning in a front-page story with a bold, four-column, two-deck headline.
“Rarely, if ever, has a single intelligence report so completely, so suddenly, and so surprisingly altered a foreign policy debate here,” the Times wrote in an accompanying front-page analysis from Washington.
The Tribune also put the story atop its front page this morning, stating that “U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and that international pressure has succeeded in compelling the Islamic Republic to back away from its pursuit of the bomb.”

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Posted on December 4, 2007

By Steve Rhodes

“Call it death by a thousand tiny wounds, just about all of which were self-inflicted,” our very own Jim Coffman writes in Bear Monday. “The Giants did a few things right down the stretch of Sunday’s showdown at Soldier Field, but mostly the Bears chipped and chipped and chipped away at themselves until they crumbled.”
Cop Shop
I found it odd that the mayor made sure to say at the press conference announcing his pick for new police chief that Jody Weis was going to be around for a long time.
Neither of Daley’s last two chiefs – Terry Hillard and Phil Cline – were on the job for long, and Cline and Daley’s first police chief, Matt Rodriguez, had to step down because of scandal. The mayor’s track record isn’t good.
Was Daley trying to say that this time he’s gotten it right – that this guy will last, unlike the others?

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Posted on December 3, 2007

By Natasha Julius

Our extra-special Evel Knievel Memorial Edition.
Market Update
Eternally humane Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has announced a plan to delay the inevitable ripping off of the Band-Aid for a few years, hopefully giving Americans more time to heal. Unfortunately for Chicago, it ain’t our only bandage.

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Posted on December 1, 2007