By Steve Rhodes

“I do not believe they are in a civil war today,” said Secretary of Defense and former Tribune Company director Donald Rumsfeld on Tuesday.
You do not believe, or you do not know?
Because that’s not really something the secretary of defense could be expected to know. Or believe.
But then, the real problem in Iraq is the failure of the media to report the good stories.
We don’t make that mistake here at The Beachwood Reporter.
For example, we think all of the items that follow in today’s column are quite good.

Read More

Posted on March 8, 2006

By Steve Rhodes

Chicago Sun-Times columnist Mary Mitchell took her journalistic brethren to school today, teaching two remedial lessons, if they were paying attention: Reporting 101, and a freshman survey course of recent race relations in Chicago.
Her contribution to the Fred Hampton Way controversy is vital. And by doing something very basic, Mitchell illustrates just how journalistically lazy and soft much of the Chicago media can be.
You see, Mitchell did what any reporter is supposed to do from the beginning when working on a story but which no one else seems to have done: She checked the clips.

Read More

Posted on March 7, 2006

By Steve Rhodes

Do those creepy police cameras in the city’s blue light districts actually prevent crime?
The Chicago Sun-Times asked this long overdue question in a front page story on Sunday. Unfortunately, the paper failed to answer it.
Learn more in The [Sunday] Papers, already archived for your pleasure.
Crashing the Oscars
Chicago Sun-Times TV critic Doug Elfman called Ben Stiller’s special effects green screen bit at the Oscars “the smartest satire of the night.”
The Beachwood Reporter‘s TV/Movie Affairs Desk called it “about as close to being funny as George Bush came to seeing Brokeback Mountain,” and something that should merit a ban on Stiller appearing on future shows.
The Chicago Tribune‘s Maureen Ryan thought Will Ferrell and Steve Carell in bad makeup “were really funny,” suggesting that “maybe they should have hosted the show, fake eyelashes and all.”
The Beachwood Reporter‘s TV/Movie Affairs Desk thought the Ferrell/Carell bit was so lame it wasn’t even worth mentioning, not reaching the absolute awfulness of Stiller’s performance but instead just being a throwaway waste of time.
So for your Oscar reviews this morning, check out our Black Carpet Report. It has the special effect of being better.

Read More

Posted on March 6, 2006

By Steve Rhodes

Do those creepy police cameras in the city’s blue light districts actually prevent crime?
The Chicago Sun-Times asked this long overdue question in a front page story on Sunday. Unfortunately, the paper failed to answer it.
“[The] jury is still out,” the paper announced.
But it would have been more accurate to say, “The reporting is not finished but we’re publishing this anyway.”

Read More

Posted on March 6, 2006

By Steve Rhodes

A NOTE TO READERS ABOUT THE BEACHWOOD’S WEEKEND EDITIONS: We’re gonna kind of fake it around here on Saturdays, just like the daily papers do. And look for The [Sunday] Papers on Mondays, when we’ve had time to digest the folly and get some sleep. We’ll deal with the Monday papers then, too. You can also look forward to new postings throughout the site next week. In the meantime, remember one of our many mottos: Admit nothing, blame everyone, be bitter. Cheers!

Read More

Posted on March 4, 2006

By Steve Rhodes

It was perhaps the busiest day of the legislative session in Springfield yesterday, with lawmakers taking up issues ranging from the amount of out-of-state wine available to Illinoisans to legislation requiring cigarette companies to sell only self-extinguishing cigarettes, in the interest of reducing the number of homes burned down by smokers who fall asleep with their squares in their hands.
Everyday issues that connect with readers–I mean, we’re talking wine and cigarettes. You don’t need market research to tell you that folks might be interested. (You mean current law allows out-of-state wineries to ship only two cases to Illinois stores a year? And this isn’t on the front page?)
You’d think the newspapers would be all over the goings-ons at the capitol. You’d think wrong.

Read More

Posted on March 3, 2006

By Steve Rhodes

Another day, another story about Fred Hampton Way.
Now comes Ald. Tom Allen, of the Fighting 38th, proposing to do away with or severely limit the practice of designating honorary street names.
And the mayor is apparently onboard: “Everybody will want a street sign–every citizen. Some corners will get three or four signs. If anybody reports that I was on such-and-such street and we don’t . . . send an ambulance, we’re liable,” Daley was quoted as saying in the Chicago Sun-Times. “The aldermen have to look at it. I think they should do something differently.”
So at least some good comes out of this: The mayor, who has lived here all his life and has been in office for 17 years, has discovered that many streets in Chicago have more than one name. Maybe for that contribution, we oughta name a street after Fred Hampton.

Read More

Posted on March 2, 2006

By Steve Rhodes

Don’t be fooled: The Sun-Times‘s war-is-declared size headline “‘Embarrassment’ Or Fair Tribute?” is not in reference to the photo of the naked male torso above it (with obligatory leaf covering the goods).
The torso belongs to the headline to the left, “Where Are All The Naked Men?”
(Not in the Sun-Times, it turns out. But I digress.)
No, the Embarrassment or Fair Tribute debate belongs to Day Two of Monroe Street Held Hostage: The Chairman Fred Hampton Way Story.

Read More

Posted on March 1, 2006

By Steve Rhodes

The big story on the front page of the Chicago Sun-Times today: “Black Panther Street Name Outrages Cops.” The paper reports that a city council committee passed an ordinance Monday that would rename Monroe Street from Western to Oakley Avenues “Chairman Fred Hampton Way,” after slain Black Panthers leader Fred Hampton. The police union is furious and Ald. Madeline Haithcock, who sponsored the measure, is already backing down.
Priceless Haithcock quote: “It’s only one block–and it’s not even a long block.”

Read More

Posted on February 28, 2006

By Steve Rhodes

A recent Chicago Tribune/WGN-TV poll showed that 70 percent of Chicago voters don’t believe Mayor Richard M. Daley when he says he didn’t know about “wrongdoing in city contracting and hiring,” to use the Tribune‘s words. But in coverage of the poll, the mayor actually got off easy.
And coupled with another recent Tribune poll–this one about the mayor’s plan to expand the number of surveillance cameras in the city–the seemingly eternal problems with conducting and interpreting polls were once again revealed.

Read More

Posted on February 27, 2006