Chicago -
By Steve Rhodes
I spilled High Life on my keyboard last night.
Rescue and recovery operations are underway.
I’ve regained access to e-mail, social media and the site.
Obviously I’m typing this on someone else’s computer.
All I can do now is pray. To the gods of High Life.
Please do not take my laptop away.
Posted on August 18, 2016
By Steve Rhodes
“The schedule says Governor’s Day, also known as Republican Day, but make no mistake: It’s Gov. Bruce Rauner’s day at the Illinois State Fair,” the Tribune reports.
“The festivities kick off with a GOP breakfast at a downtown Springfield hotel, followed by a host of speakers including Rauner, followed by the traditional rally at the director’s lawn on the State Fairgrounds.”
Is there a dunk tank?
Posted on August 17, 2016
By Steve Rhodes
“Chicago police officers’ e-mails discussing the Laquan McDonald shooting can’t be kept secret even though they were transmitted privately, a state official has decreed in what open-records advocates say is a solid step toward transparency on an issue that has roiled Illinois and reached as high as Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign,” AP reports.
“The binding opinion last week by Democratic Attorney General Lisa Madigan follows quickly on a May Cook County Circuit Court ruling that Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s e-mails about separate issues aren’t automatically exempt from disclosure even though sent on private devices.”
In other words, the public’s business is the public’s business, no matter how privately you try to conduct it.
In other other words, you can’t dodge public records laws by conducting the public’s business on private channels.
Posted on August 16, 2016
By Steve Rhodes
“A scathing assessment by the City of Chicago’s inspector general is recommending that at least 10 officers involved in the Laquan McDonald case be fired or severely disciplined – a report that is sitting on the desk of Police Supt. Eddie Johnson, awaiting his action,” the Sun-Times reports.
Posted on August 15, 2016
By Steve Rhodes
“[T]he Kane County Cougars are hosting a promotion they’re calling Political Corruption Night Thursday, when the team plays the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers at 6:30 p.m. in Fifth Third Bank Ballpark in Geneva,” the Elgin Courier-News reports.
George Ryan should throw out the first pitch to a holographic Rod Blagojevich.
Posted on August 13, 2016
By Steve Rhodes
A hot one today in Chicago. My advice would be to lie out in the sun and make sure you drink plenty of alcohol.
— Irvine Welsh (@IrvineWelsh) August 11, 2016
Posted on August 11, 2016
By Steve Rhodes
“John Oliver Has Given Us The Best Defense Of Newspapers Ever,” syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker writes.
Please tell me: Who is against newspapers? Why this constant need to defend them?
Nobody. Nobody is against newspapers.
People are against crappy newspapers. People are against some things newspapers do. But nobody is against newspapers on the whole; this is a straw man made of newsprint by intellectually unable people.
Newspapers haven’t been foundering for decades because people are “against” them. Newspapers have been foundering for decades because of a plethora of greedy, short-sighted business decisions combined with a change-resistant newsroom culture built on fear and arrogance.
This need to constantly cry out that this article or that investigation proves the worth of newspapers – and of journalism in a broader sense – is maddening, and illustrates perfectly the ignorance of those doing the pleading.
Who doesn’t believe journalism has value?
Advertisers en masse no longer believe that newspapers – or their websites – deliver the kind of value they once believed they did (and they’re right, though that belief was largely built on an illusion of how many people saw their ads and how effective that was), but that is not the same as the public not believing that journalism has no value.
And neither does the unwillingness of more folks to subscribe to newspapers – print or online. Newspapers have always been sold at a cost far less than what they take to produce, because readers are the product being sold to advertisers, and gathering as many of them as possible (or as many with the “right” demographics) is thus a business objective. Also, the vast majority of what a newspaper produces isn’t worth a single penny to one reader or another. Only a tiny fraction of what newspapers produce is Journalism, and in a democracy, no one should have to pay for the rest to find out their mayor is a crook.
A failure of newsrooms – filled with journalists who posit themselves as instant experts of everything – to understand these basic concepts of their own industry has gone a long way toward the industry’s near-total failure to adapt to the digital age, which offers so many more opportunities than the print age. That way lives salvation.
Posted on August 10, 2016
By Steve Rhodes
Ex-Governor and current felon Rod Blagojevich failed this morning in his bid for a reduced prison sentence. You can see my real-time commentary at @BeachwoodReport.
Posted on August 9, 2016
By Steve Rhodes
I’ll have regular column material again soon, I swear.
Posted on August 8, 2016
By Steve Rhodes
Weekend Note: The Weekend Desk Report will appear at some point between now and Monday. Sorry for the erratic publishing schedule lately; trying to get back on track.
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I’ve got nothing today.
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I mean, I’ve got a lot of material to work with, but it’s the kind of material that requires a bit of work to, um, work up. I don’t have that kind of work in me right now. Not for free, anyway.
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Besides, it’s all the same. Same horrible people doing horrible things. People who don’t care – including people in my own profession. What’s the point? It’s just all so awful.
Posted on August 4, 2016
