Chicago -
By Steve Rhodes
1. How Should You Contend With A New Co-Worker’s Unexpected Hostility?
2. “During negotiations for Chicago’s 2012 budget, newly elected Mayor Rahm Emanuel and then-City Clerk Susana Mendoza agreed to hike the price of what was already one of the priciest tickets vehicle owners can get in the city. Citations for not having a required vehicle sticker rose from $120 to $200,” ProPublica Illinois and WBEZ report.
Posted on July 26, 2018
By Steve Rhodes
1. “I wanted to be a journalist from age 16 onward, and I wanted to cover education – but before that, I thought I would be a poet or a novelist,” says Chalkbeat CEO Elizabeth Green.
I signed up for my high school newspaper, because it seemed like the practical thing for an aspiring poet or novelist to do. One day, I was doing this assignment about “hallway behavior.” You know, a typical high school newspaper topic: “Is it okay to have PDA in the hall?” I interviewed a bunch of different people in the cafeteria during lunchtime, and one of them was this girl who I’ll never forget – I remember her name and everything. She totally changed my life. I was interviewing her, and she started talking about how everyone assumed that she’d drop out of school and become a welfare mom. She said, “That’s what people expect of me, and I work hard because I want to prove them wrong.” I said, “Who do you want to prove wrong?” And she looked me right in the eye and said, “You.”
Posted on July 25, 2018
By Steve Rhodes
1. “It’s crunchtime for Tesla,” the New York Times reports.
The electric carmaker has vowed to turn a profit in the second half of this year and has apparently increased production of a key driver of revenue, the fledgling Model 3 midsize sedan. But analysts are not yet convinced that Tesla and its chief executive, Elon Musk, will turn the corner in this quarter.
“I’m skeptical,” said Efraim Levy, an analyst at CFRA Research who follows the company. “It will be challenging on an operating basis to be profitable in the third quarter.”
And new questions have arisen with the disclosure of an effort by Tesla to renegotiate agreements with suppliers to achieve price reductions on work already underway.
The issue arose in a report Sunday night by The Wall Street Journal that Tesla had asked some suppliers to refund a portion of payments made since 2016. The report cited a memo to a supplier saying Tesla was asking for cash back to help it become profitable.
Yup, Musk is getting desperate alright:
I’m sorry their heads are cut off, it was the best I could do. This isn’t even Photoshop.
Posted on July 24, 2018
By Steve Rhodes
1. The Unanswered Question On The Mind Of Every Politically Inclined Person In Chicago: What’s The Deal With Willie Wilson?
Seriously, that’s the story I would assign if I had me a newsroom. Just like that. Don’t try to dress it up around boring standby journalistic narratives. Just set out to answer the question. Because that guy ain’t right.
Posted on July 23, 2018
By Steve Rhodes
For completists and the historical record, there was no column on Friday.
1. “Several Illinois car title lobbyists declined to comment for this story, and none of the corporate offices returned WBEZ calls or e-mails,” Natalie Moore reports.
Read/listen to her piece to find out why.
Posted on July 21, 2018
By Steve Rhodes
“Two weeks before his inauguration, Donald J. Trump was shown highly classified intelligence indicating that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia had personally ordered complex cyberattacks to sway the 2016 American election. The evidence included texts and emails from Russian military officers and information gleaned from a top-secret source close to Mr. Putin, who had described to the C.I.A. how the Kremlin decided to execute its campaign of hacking and disinformation,” the New York Times reports.
“Mr. Trump sounded grudgingly convinced, according to several people who attended the intelligence briefing. But ever since, Mr. Trump has tried to cloud the very clear findings that he received on Jan. 6, 2017, which his own intelligence leaders have unanimously endorsed. The shifting narrative underscores the degree to which Mr. Trump regularly picks and chooses intelligence to suit his political purposes.”
Posted on July 19, 2018
By Steve Rhodes
I’ve been away from the news all day and it’s 4:33 p.m. as I write this, so I’m just gonna get started on the top of tomorrow’s column. See you then!
Meanwhile . . .
Posted on July 18, 2018
By Steve Rhodes
I mean they already released an edited silent film https://t.co/l12trRZpZK
— Sec. Lord Voldemort (@Voldemort4Mayor) July 17, 2018
Posted on July 17, 2018
By Steve Rhodes
Politico’s Playbook on the extraordinary press conference that took place in Helsinki this morning after Donald Trump’s extraordinary personal meeting with Vladimir Putin:
ON MEDDLING … AP’S JONATHAN LEMIRE got the last question: “Who do you believe,” the U.S. intelligence community or Russia? And can you warn Putin to not meddle again?
TRUMP: “All I can do is ask the question. My people came to me, Dan Coats came to me and some others. They said they think it’s Russia. I have President Putin. He just said it’s not Russia. I will say this. I don’t see any reason why it would be . . . I have confidence in both parties.”
Wow.
But I can’t help but notice that Lemire violated a fundamental rule of interviewing – particularly in press conferences – that we see violated again and again by our most elitely positioned reporters:
Posted on July 16, 2018
By Steve Rhodes
For completists, there was no column on Friday.
Thread.
A very large crowd is gathering at 71st/Chappel, where Chicago Police say they shot and killed a person this evening. It’s hard to put in words how tense the scene is. Witnesses say a female officer shot the man in the back while he was running away. He was a local barber. pic.twitter.com/aaV6smY07V
— Nader Issa (@NaderDIssa) July 15, 2018
Posted on July 15, 2018
