Month In Review

I've been asked--as I mentioned about a month ago--to contribute to the Month in Review panel at Change of Subject, the blog of Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn. He provides the categories, we provide the examples; there's a largely Chicago/Illinois focus, but that's not necessarily written in stone (and I would imagine the focus will be wider this month than in many others.) Anyway: here goes...

MOST SIGNIFICANT STORY OF THE MONTH: “Public Official A” and the teachers’ pension scandal. No matter whether or not “A” equals Blagojevich, our “reform” governor’s image has taken a huge bullet—and I don’t think the damage can be repaired.

WINNER OF THE MONTH: Traditional media, both national and local, who regained some of their lost credibility by asking the right questions about the response after Hurricane Katrina. It was good to see journalists doing something to the administration other than tossing softballs and kissing butts. (Present company excepted, EZ...)

LOSER OF THE MONTH —The Hispanic Democratic Organization. Every teflon politician needs their scapegoats; Daley has just found another. (Runners-up: the present and future taxpayers of Chicago (gee, thanks for settling that Ryan Harris case, alderpeople...) and our (ahem) esteemed governor.)

MOST UNDER-REPORTED STORY --WTTW, Chicago’s largest so-called “public” television station, has hooked up with the WNBA’s new Chicago Sky team. Under the terms of this deal, the PBS station will produce, sell ads for, and broadcast all the team’s home games starting in May. How is this “television in the public interest”? Aren’t there FCC regulations about public-television stations accepting the sort of advertising professional sports will attract? Why isn’t anyone talking about this? (Runner-up: None. Reluctantly, I concede that “Marty Casey getting totally robbed by losing to J.D. on Rock Star: INXS”—as wrong as that was!—is not technically “news”. Unless you’re Channel 2, that is; then it’s among your top stories.)

MOST OVER REPORTED STORY—-From New Orleans, the stories of violence. Most particularly, the story about “people shooting at helicopters”. Sorry, there’s no local angle to this one—but every time I hear this reference it makes my blood boil. If you look closely at the initial reports—the source data, as it were—they use similar phrasing. I understand that most news is sourced through national bureaus, hence the similarities—but in the early days of the Katrina disaster, so many unsubstantiated urban legends popped up about what happened in New Orleans, particularly the Superdome and the Convention Center. Time, reflection, and proper investigation have shown:

--By and large, the “looters” were not crazed junkies searching for drugs, as Mayor Nagin said.

--The incident involving a group of survivors turned back while attempting to cross into nearby Gretna was not entirely a case of “rich white people turn away poor black people”. (link)

--There was not a wave of babies and children being raped in either the Superdome or the Convention Center-- one case has been substantiated, but no confirmation can be found of the “stories of a 14-year-old girl and a 7-year-old boy reportedly raped to death in the New Orleans Superdome” (as reported by Reuters, according to this link.)

The “people shooting at helicopters” story was given as an excuse for rescues and food drops to cease, for trucks and buses to be turned back from New Orleans—and my suspicion is that this was one incident, one expression of EXTREMELY poor judgement on the part of a frightened and frustrated individual, which has been reported as an indictment of an entire class of people who managed to survive under conditions none of the rest of us can comprehend. And it’s a reminder that there’s no substitute for responsible journalism, either in the “mainstream” or the “new” media.

STORY TO WATCH IN THE UPCOMING MONTH: The Ryan trial.