By Steve Rhodes
1. Is Rod Blagojevich saying a poor person – even a poor celebrity – can’t get a fair trial?
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And haven’t Sam Adam Sr. and Jr. already said that despite their ostensible fervent belief in their former client’s innocence – and their own personal wealth – that they aren’t willing to see through their commitment to justice if they aren’t gonna get paid?
2. “Poor Todd Stroger,” John Kass writes.
“Only a few months ago, taxpayers were paying him $170,000 a year so that he could pretend to run Cook County government.
“But then taxpayers booted him out of office and Stroger was out of a job.
“The thing is, he couldn’t find another job that paid so well. It’s tough out there.
“And the job market for black political pinatas who take media beatings for the white guys who really run things is exceptionally tight these days.
“So Stroger, like many other Americans out of work, filed for unemployment benefits.”
I added the links. Just trying to be helpful.
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“In fact, news reports indicated she ‘frowned’ upon Stroger’s big idea.
“I don’t think it’s appropriate for elected officials who lose elections to apply for unemployment compensation,” Preckwinkle said Tuesday. “My understanding from staff is that he’s ineligible.”
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One of my many ideas rejected by the Knight News Challenge over the years was a project I called Linking The News. Basically I – and a handy assistant or two – would take create a website where we took a story (or a few) each day out of the print press (and/or lax online operations) and linked it up. We would also add video and/or audio when and where appropriate, as well as other simple but amazingly effective tools such as posting accompanying documents (one thing the MSM has learned to do, to be fair.)
The point would be to create lessons for all as well as to enhance for readers what they were being given by the pokey ol’ MSM. (Truth to tell, ex-pat MSMers like the Chicago News Cooperative could use the same treatment, as well as faux anti-MSMers like the Reader.)
Of course, the Knight News Challenge has never been interested in my ideas, perhaps because they tend to revolve around content, reporting, journalism and even proven business models.
If I proposed delivering citizen journalism to cell phones through Facebook accounts to eighth-graders, I’d be swimming in cash.
But Knight – or someone – oughta get into these newsrooms and either fix whatever technological obstacles they have to an enhanced digital presentation or train reporters and editors in the new newswriting in which the very shape of the narrative of any given story is altered by the ability to present it in 3-D instead of 2-D.
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Not getting it: Links sometimes act as footnotes but they shouldn’t be footnotes.
That’s like giving readers homework.
But then, that’s Zorn! Yeesh.
3. Predicted afternoon headline: “Quinn Kills Death Penalty.”
4. Ask Lee Bey.
5. Snoop Dogg Expands Football League To Chicago With 8 Teams.
6. “Lake Forest School Chief’s Extravagant Compensation Exceeds Governor.”
7. Bulls’ John Paxson Admits He Should Not Have Choked Vinny Del Negro.
8. “Five US cities launched initiatives Tuesday to let residents refuse junk mail, hoping to support the environment and cut expenses by stopping waste at its source,” APF reports.
“Americans receive some 100 billion pieces of advertising mail a year, according to the US Postal Service. Catalog Choice, a non-profit group, estimates that disposal costs at least $1 billion annually.
“Catalog Choice, set up in 2007, allows people to go online to ask specific companies not to mail them. Chuck Teller, executive director of the group, said some one percent of the US population now chooses to opt out of some mail.
“Five communities including Chicago and Kansas City said they were teaming up with Catalog Choice to set up localized versions, which Teller hoped would give the initiative more authority and broaden involvement.”
9. “A wife flew to Chicago and cut the crotches out of the pants of a woman who was vacationing with her Wilmette husband, police said,” the TribLocal Wilmette/Kenilworth reports.
Isn’t that doing the husband a favor?
Bad taste? Too soon?
10. Find out which Chicago player is among our fantasy top 20 outfielders.
11. Bugging The Chicago School Board. Who wants to know?
12. City Needs New Policy For The New Maxwell Street Market: An Open Letter To Mayor-Elect Emanuel.
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The Beachwood Tip Line: Crotchety.
Posted on March 9, 2011