The Grassroots Collaborative issued a report last week looking at mainstream print media coverage of the Living Wage Ordinance that was passed by the City Council and subsequently vetoed in 2006. The research was done in conjunction with the Community Media Workshop and media researchers.
3. Balance was lacking in presentation of problems and solutions, or framing.
Essentially, the Collaborative argues that the policy ramification of the Living Wage Ordinance was reduced to the typical power-politics analysis of "unions versus business", ignoring the deeper issues of the effect of low-wage jobs in poor and minority communities, and disregarding the opinions of supporters of the Living Wage Ordinance where they did not fit into the pre-defined (by Mayoral forces) narrative.
The most troubling fact revealed by the study was that while 75% of those quoted in the articles surveyed were businesspeople or politicians, only 6% were community residents.
Hey! Mechanics contributor and co-founder of the conservative satirical blog The Talking Mirror , Conor McCarthy, was featured in the Sun-Times yesterday! Look at that grin on Conor. Attaboy!
Do not sit in the seat of mockers," one Talking Mirror critic wrote, quoting Psalms 1, after Woodyard dared to mock contemporary worship music. "I never like this kind of humor when it's applied to the church or to the work [of the] Holy Spirit."
"Chicago Matters has provided the most rare form of new reporting - in-depth coverage of events from multiple points of view," said Elizabeth Richter, vice president of marketing and communications for the Trust, in a press release. "Chicago Matters has served the community well. The Trust is now looking at how to leverage our limited resources to work with those fulfilling core needs of our community in a time of crisis."
Reached by email, WBEZ Managing Editor Sally Eisele said, "Our commitment to public affairs reporting remains the same but obviously, I'm disappointed by this development. Chicago Matters is the type of journalism many of people in this community right now are concerned about saving. The end of this highly acclaimed series means the end of one of the most important local journalism projects in the region. For 19 years, Chicago Matters has been a forum for the exploration of key community issues through in-depth, insightful reporting across multiple platforms. Work produced for the series has won dozens of awards, including a Peabody award -- one of the highest honors in broadcast journalism."
The Trust isn't pulling out of funding media entirely. It has provided grants for "Arts Beat" on WTTW, Chicago Public Radio's Campaign for a Sound Future and Vocalo.org, and the Chicago Public Library's Chicago Vision Project in the past two years. It also just awarded $500,000 in grants to 12 organizations, including Gapers Block, to spur growth and innovation in the city's media landscape.
The Trust is also partnering with the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning to develop a set of regional indicators to track the health of Chicagoland across a wide spectrum of measurements.
It's interesting to me that the end of the Chicago Matters series occurs just as the public affairs journalism arena is heating up. The newly launched Chicago Current and soon-to-launch Chicago News Cooperative are newcomers to the field -- both might have been fine new additions to the Chicago Matters partnership, possibly breathing new energy into the series as it looks ahead to its twentieth year. Instead the participating media outlets will be left to go it alone, now with fewer funds to produce journalism that in some years was only being done as part of Chicago Matters.
I've been working on a city-based research and organizing project for the last six weeks, and in doing so came across these amazing videos.
I remember when Harold Washington died. The sense of sadness over everybody. The television coverage. I remember it. I loved Harold, despite only being vaguely aware of what a Mayor even was. He was the grandfatherly face with the big smile on the TV. Also, he kind of looked like Ossie Davis.
Let's start with a young Walter Jacobson and a young Bill Kurtis throwing it to a young Phil Ponce (and a young Robin Robinson) the night Mayor Washington took control of the City Council, thanks to a run-off victory by a fiery 26th Ward aldermanic candidate named Luis Gutierrez.
Documentarian Ken Burns has been all over the place, promoting his beautiful new documentary on America's national parks, America's Best Idea. Part of his regular schtick in promoting what looks like an amazing documentary series has been to mention that while the idea in the Declaration of Independence ("All men are created equal") is a great idea, Jefferson actually meant (this is a direct quote) "All white men of property, free of debt." The national parks, Burns goes on to say, are the distilled spirit of that ideal set in practice. Thus why the national parks are "America's Best Idea."
Historians have made various excuses for Jefferson's owning of slaves, but none are wholly satisfying. That said, Burns' characterization of Jefferson's intentions is not fair or accurate. While Jefferson was definitely a hypocrite who couldn't square his idealistic Enlightenment radicalism with his very human weaknesses, Burns shouldn't irresponsibly put words in his mouth and motives in his heart.
The reason this quote stands out is because one of Thomas Jefferson's animating life experiences was the fact that basically from the moment of his maturation to his death, he was drowning in debt. This was not something that slowly built on him. He was in debt essentially his whole life; in fact, among the excuses historians make for his failure to manumit (free) his slaves was that his enormous debts would have essentially meant handing his slaves over to his creditors, who he feared would treat them no better. (This would not have stopped him from any number of other remedies, of course).
In any case, could Jefferson, who never uttered this phrase Burns keeps repeating ("white men of property free of debt") really have "meant" that the group of people created equal was a set that didn't include himself?
Check out friend of Mechanics and neighbor to me Josh Kalven of Progress Illinois discussing the state budget (along with Mechanics contributor Richard Lorenc's boss John Tillman of the Illinois Policy Institute) on Chicago Tonight:
I had the pleasure yesterday, in between e-mail and a client meeting, to take in the 7th Annual lunchtime media briefing by Chicago Metropolis 2020. CM2020 is a non-profit organization originally established by the Commercial Club of Chicago "to promote long-term planning, better regional cooperation, and smart investments in the Chicago region and its people." The briefing, attended by a number of notables on the Chicago journalism scene, promised presentations on criminal justice reform; campaign finance limits; housing policy, early childhood education, and the Burnham Plan Centennial.
Adele Simmons, VP of the Burnham Plan Centennial, combined a general welcome with an overview of the mission of the Centennial, which is to carry on the legacy of legendary planner Daniel Burnham by focusing on innovative regional solutions for the Chicago metro area, saying, "The choices we make today will shape the future." While that statement might seem tautological at first, the emphasis was on bringing to the forefront of our decisionmaking the long-range, rather than short-term drivers.
Without commentary on the content of the rest of the piece, the Sun-Times editorial board wins line of the day:
Mayor Daley said he wants the local cut of video poker money and will devise ways to regulate the devices.
No offense to the mayor, but given his parking meter debacle, our faith in the city's ability to regulate anything shaped like a box that takes your money is not exactly high.
Keeping the internet free from corporate consolidation is critical to the future of or democracy. Obviously democracy was fine before the internet, but our means of communication with each other should stay as free as possible. Check out the new Open Internet FCC website.
To catch you up on last week--crossposted from Chicago Now.
His Elective Majesty, Mayor Richard M. Daley, of Ithaka Chicago --Alfred, Lord Tennyson
It little profits that an idle Mayor, by this over-priced park, among these barren potholes, match'd with a rubber stamp Council, I mete and dole unequal laws unto a savage race that hoard and sleep and feed and know not me.
...so, in other words, the Tribune reported that Mayor Daley has the lowest approval rating of his career. He blames it on the economy. I blame it on his not doing things that earn people's approval.
Meanwhile, the City Council--unbelievably, given the above, which anybody could have explained to them if they listened to anybody--unanimously voted to give the Mayor a blank check for the Olympics, with some minor transparency concessions--that would still let the Mayor do whatever he wanted, but would force us to watch him while he did it. Gross.
Former Blagojevich fundraiser Christopher Kelly was found dead this weekend. It is suspected that an overdose, and suicide, was the cause of death. The cost of corruption.
In the 1972 election between Richard Nixon and George McGovern, the Committee to Re-Elect the President - or "CREEP" as some of us fondly remember it - ran an extremely effective attack ad against McGovern. The ad, internally titled "McGovern Turnaround," paraphrased McGovern's, stands on issues with his face facing one way, then would flip the visual around to show him facing the other way, while accusing him of taking a position more recently that seemingly stated the opposite. This was repeated for a number of issues.
After a few week hiatus I was back on Ray's show this morning, had a good time as always. I'll be appearing Tuesdays at 8am, and Josh Kalven of Progress Illinois will be on on Wednesdays. Check it out here.
Watch Mick Dumke of the Chicago Reader take on Berny Stone (50th) over the Parking Meter Privatization deal. By "take on" I mean "throw confetti from a bucket on," or "pretend to throw a basketball to with a string attached to the ball and the hand". (Via Whet Moser at the Reader.)
The following is a repost from Mike Fourcher's blog, Vouchification.
The increasingly desperate straits of Chicago's news outlets is already having an impact on what - and how much - news gets covered. More cuts are coming. In the next year we should expect a significant decrease in community and political news coverage in the Chicago area. Small start-up are trying to fill the gaps, but they lack resources and readership to make up the difference.
Last week I reviewed the financial states of Creative Loafing, Inc. and the Sun Times Media Group. Although CLI is suffering, friends from the Chicago Reader assure me their paper remains profitable - despite CLI's debt. But STMG regulatory and bankruptcy filings seem to show that the Chicago Sun Times is the major money loser among STMG properties. It seems possible - even likely - that the Sun Times may not exist in 2010.
Earlier this year the Chicago Tribune's parent company, the Tribune Company, went into bankruptcy, burdened by $12 billion in debt created by Sam Zell's leveraged buyout of the company. Although recent news suggests Zell will be muscled out and the company will become the property of creditors - especially Deutche Bank - it seems likely that the new owners will be looking for ways to increase cash, reduce expenses, prepare the company for sale, or dismember it into parts for individual sales.
In recent days, the job of bossing Chicago around hasn't been easy. Daley continues to push for his ridiculously expensive 2016 Olympics plan, while stubbornly refusing to make any reference to Chalkie, my favorite hypothetical chalk-outline homicide victim.
Talk about good things happening to a good guy. Disgraced former governor Rod Blagojevich writes a book, reads it himself for the audiobook, and you could feel the warm mirth emanating from Capitol Fax publisher Rich Miller's blog comments.
- Rich Miller - Monday, Jul 27, 09 @ 3:32 pm:
Notice that the book's price has already been marked down by one-third.
- Rich Miller - Monday, Jul 27, 09 @ 4:01 pm:
...But, I may buy the CD anyway in order to excerpt the best parts here. lol
- Rich Miller - Monday, Jul 27, 09 @ 4:16 pm:
Just pre-ordered the audio book. Ringtones for everybody!!!
Tribune statehouse reporter Ray Long had a commendable piece in the Sunday Trib about how state cuts will affect the state's most vulnerable residents. To wit:
Illinois might have a working budget in place, but there is a broader story behind the numbers: Real people are hurting.
If they have not lost care, they worry the thin reed of stability provided by non-profit, community-based organizations will disappear without state support. Cuts at social service agencies are tearing holes into safety nets for the state's most vulnerable residents.
People who need medication are not getting it. Single parents are thinking about quitting jobs, unsure whether they can count on state assistance for day-care costs. Families that depend on counseling for mental health, substance abuse and other social ills are finding, at least in some places, they are out of luck.
....
Quinn has pushed for a 50 percent income-tax increase he said would better fund social services, but lawmakers have not agreed with him. Some opponents say the state should tighten its overall spending, and many predict a taxpayer backlash in the 2010 elections. Lawmakers are expected to consider a tax increase later this year, after they know whether they will face primary opponents in February.
Long's story highlights the fact that a government's budget is not the caricature of waste and hilarious programs that conservatives have fabricated. It is collective spending determined by the public. Yes, much waste and abuse is in there, too. But in highlighting that waste and abuse disproportionately, the right has made it all too easy to talk about "cutting spending" while disconnecting that from the human cost.
Kudos to the Trib for running a story proving that they know exactly what a shortfall of revenue leads to. Where were their editorials insisting on raising revenues to make sure they wouldn't have to run these human interest stories? Why wasn't the Tribune supporting an alternative, like Sen. James Meeks HB 174, which would have raised revenues to pay for these things (not that Meeks' plan is a cure-all)? Now that there's a budget deal and lawmakers have refused to face economic reality, the Tribune bawls for the people negatively impacted by the failure to raise a commonsense level of revenue?
No offense to my print journalism friends (may your Victrolas play joyous tunes) but reporting like this from the Chi-Town Daily News, who are covering the discrimination lawsuit at the City Colleges that implicates the administration in intimidation over personnel decisions, leads me to believe that democracy could potentially survive the death of ink. (Don't get me wrong--I love ink).
Here is staff writer Peter Sachs:
Last week, we reported that there was a culture of retaliation inside the City Colleges, citing the deposition of the district's former general counsel, now a circuit court judge. There's more to it.
Now that we've had time to go through yet more of the depositions, we find this:
"Non-African-Americans were easy to promote and were not punished as severely if they made a mistake, or if they did something that was not within procedures or the rules of the City Colleges."
That's Marnell Love, a former vice chancellor (read: high-level manager) inside the district's HR department, in his deposition in the Shaw lawsuit.
Speaking of promotions:
"I wanted to promote my employees who had outstanding records, and we had documented their performance ... and that they deserved to be promoted. And I had to promote other people that did not deserve it in order to get my promotions through, which, basically, I promoted everybody in the department."
Love goes on to talk about the tense work environment, festering upset over pay inequities, and infighting and feuding among some people in the HR department.
Most Americans got along well for the more than two hundred years after independence without holding tea parties to protest the excesses of government. The election process worked pretty well, the branches of government power were balanced, and freedom was pretty much a given on Main streets. What changed things in 2009?
Indeed, those stable 200 years after independence, where no Americans felt any need to protest, were rent asunder by Waxman Markey. Only by this vote has freedom not been fairly distributed and "a given" for Americans.
Here's one good example of the kind of representation that brought 10th District voters out to protest in public. Only a few weeks ago 10th Congressional District Rep. Mark Kirk violated the trust of many of his constituents by voting in favor of the Waxman-Markey Cap and Trade legislation in the House of Representatives. Kirk's was one of only eight votes that put the legislation over the top.
All kidding aside, the author ends on a note I think we can all agree with:
Today, I ask only that you give the state of Illinois the opportunity to have a careful and open discussion about the vitally important issues that will come before our new senator. Allow us an effective debate during our primary campaign by withholding your endorsement of any candidate until after the primary on February 20, 2010.
Competitive primaries are an important part of our democracy, and keeping the already stifling two-party system somewhat in check.
Got a blog or opinions you can express meaningfully? Contact us (contact information at the bottom of the sidebar) and perhaps become a contributor to Mechanics. All opinions and ideologies welcome...to apply.
Progress Illinois' effort to track exactly how the budget debacle in Springfield is impacting Illinoisans--both in number of individuals left unserved and number of private sector employees laid off--has gained lots of attention, and deservedly so. This effort at crowd-sourcing may just become the next tool for activists of all ideological stripes to document exactly what the state is doing and how it impacts you locally.
Progress Illinois, a website supported by the Service Employees International Union, is trying to track cutbacks at the organizations that state government uses to deliver services at the local level. As of Friday, it reported, 68 agencies had cut at least 1,420 jobs and halted services for nearly 13,500 people.
It is extremely easy (and, as is often the case with extremely easy things, wildly irresponsible) to just flog the putrid "wasteful government spending" horse corpse to win votes and sound like a good government watchdog. So it's important to make direct connections for people about what exactly we spend our money on, and how the constant assault on public goods and public spending ends up not only harming the disadvantaged but also, in the medium and long term, all of us (well, except the extremely priveleged who are never harmed by anything). At the same time, I imagine such a project flipped backwards (as with Chicago City Payments) could be a valuable way to highlight government waste where it does occur.
Progress Illinois has posted the audio from my and PI publisher Josh Kalven's appearance on Ray Hanania's morning show yesterday. Please note that the Lisa Madigan news broke about 20 minutes after our appearance. Yeah, I know. We'll be on every Wednesday at 8 a.m.
Tune in to Ray Hanania's morning talk show--WJJG 1530 AM, Radio Chicagoland--to hear me and Progress Illinois' Josh Kalven talk about local and state politics of the preceding week tomorrow at 8 a.m. We'll be on until 8:30 or 8:45, as part of a weekly feature. Josh has a pretty soothing voice and Ray is a comic, so there will be plenty to counter act my very limited wit and nasally, accent-y voice (also I have a nasty cold, so there's that).
Any issues you'd like us to talk about? Email me (email is below on the side bar) or comment here.
I love democracy, don't you? I've been following the Iranian election pitting (primarily) Ahmadinejad (Bush) versus Mousavi (Anybody But Ahmadinejad) pretty closely. It's funny--the conservative Iranian elements are saying similar things to what the most conservative American elements were saying in 2004--the enemy wants the challenger to win because it'll make us weaker and more rife for takeover. A vote for Mousavi (Kerry) is a vote for the Americans (terrorists)! (Please don't construe that as a defense of John Kerry's shitty campaign).
I hope Iranians don't fall prey to fear mongering.
5.10pm:
President Obama said that his government was "excited" about the debate surrounding the elections, Reuters report. "Whoever ends up winning, the fact there has been a robust debate hopefully will advance our ability to engage them in new ways," he said.
4.50pm:
Update: Voting has been extended for a third time, Reuters reporters. Polls will now close at 9pm (5.30pmBST).
3.50pm:
Polling time has been extended until 8pm (4.30pmBST) AP confirmed, in another sign of the huge turnout.
3.35pm:
The Ahmadinejad camp claims their man is winning.
"Based on the evaluation of Ahmadinejad's position he is ahead ... with 60% of the votes and we are certain that the election will end in the first round in his favour," Ali Asghar Zarei told Mehr News Agency, according to Reuters.
I recently had the opportunity to go to a town hall meeting hosted by the Independent Film Channel (IFC) and listen to a panel of prominent journalists (pictured left, photo from IFC) discuss why media matters. The town hall meeting is part of IFC's pro-social initiative "Make Media Matter" which raises awareness about the vital role media plays in our lives, society and world.
In the wake of the economic crisis and political unraveling in Chicago, media is more important than ever. As Attorney General Lisa Madigan boldly stated in her introduction to the panel, "media makes democracy work; without it, who would hold the government accountable for their actions?"
Megan Mccardle is one of my least favorite bloggers, if by least favorite you mean it takes me hours after reading her to figure out exactly why I disagree with her. Mccardle is clearly not pro-labor (as she herself admits) and her coverage of restructuring and bankruptcy at Chrysler and GM clearly reflects her "liberatarian-ish" (her words) Booth school pedigree. What the government's role in the crisis of the automakers and who is to blame for their collapse is not a topic I'm 100% qualified to opine on, but what is interesting is what the frothy-mouthed language of those who would use the automakers' descent into receivership to bludgeon UAW and unions in general reveals about the politics of class in the US.
We're conditioned to think of class envy as a right-wing, anti-communist term, seeing it mostly in those of a lower station envying the accomplishments of their betters and turning to politics to take short-cuts to prosperity. The rhetoric around the "semi-skilled" workers of GM, Chrysler, and Ford making too much money reveals a class envy of another kind. It's the "I went to college, took a lot of math classes, and went to graduate school so I should make more than the assembly line worker who went to community college" kind of class envy. It's not fair that the beefy NASCAR fan from rural Ohio or African-American from Detroit (UAW is a heavily African-American union) can work 8 hours a day and earn a decent living while I work 16 hours a day calculating complicated capital flows. This kind of class envy is part and parcel of an economic philosophy that not only assumes that all wages are merely returns to human capital, but a specific kind of human capital, too. Learning firm-specific skills that allow (for example) blue collar autoworkers to become really, really good at putting together cars is less important than having some sort of general academic skill set that allows you to jump from job to job when you boss decides to downsize you to improve his company's stock price.
And so we of the creative, educated class are envious of those last vestiges of our parents and grandparent's generations, the ones who worked hard, built something tangible and not just played with words or numbers and got to come home at the end of a day and actually see their family. It's a shame so many of us have decided to take out our insecurity and envy on those workers.
On Saturday, the Chicago Police Department's computer systems went down for a full 24 hours, according to the Second City Cop blog, which described the entire police force "reverting to paper arrest reports, paper inventories, no fingerprints, no photographs, no anything." The malfunction also apparently caused the lock-ups to "overfill," as those arrested on petty offenses weren't being processed at the normal clip. It's reasonable to expect that a prolonged computer "blackout" of this sort would eventually start draining the streets of police officers as more and more of them are stuck filling out hard-copy forms they haven't touched in years (if ever).
Seems like a story worth reporting on, particularly considering it's been less than a month since calls were found to be "disappearing completely" from the city's 911 emergency system.
So can you find a single news article on it? I sure can't.
There's a hidden sub-story lurking here: It involves the fall of newspapers, lack of access and the future of reporting, not just with sports but with everything. I grew up reading Bob Ryan, who covered the Celtics for the Boston Globe and remains the best basketball writer alive to this day. Back in the 1970s and early '80s, he was overqualified to cover the team. In 1980, he would have sniffed out the B.S. signs of this KG story, kept pursuing it, kept writing about it, kept working connections and eventually broken it.
