Newspapering was still a man’s world in the 1980s so I didn’t know what to make of my first female boss. But a few things became obvious. She knew as much as I knew about how the city-that-works really works … and a lot more about the internal workings of the Chicago Tribune. I was the younger by a few months, yet she had more energy, especially when making assignments. … [Read more...] about Soeteber Remembered
Chicago murder coverage isn’t stopping the bullets
CHICAGO – Back in the early ’70s, as a cub working off the overnight city desk at the Chicago Tribune, you learned fast that all murders were not equal. Sure, all were listed methodically on the deputy superintendent’s logbook at the old police headquarters at 11th and State streets. But while killings on the city’s predominantly white North Side were almost always pursued … [Read more...] about Chicago murder coverage isn’t stopping the bullets
Beat reporters step up in Chicago strike
There’s nothing like a bitter teachers’ strike – and one chockablock with national ideo-politico implications – to bring out the best, and not-so-best, in the newsrooms of the Midwest’s largest media market. Initial coverage of the seven-day Chicago teachers strike largely consisted of by-the-numbers spot news and predictable sidebars of the kind assistant city editors … [Read more...] about Beat reporters step up in Chicago strike
Rahm confounds Chicago media
Is he a hyper-efficient reformer using corporate management techniques to shape up a city grown lazy and weak from decades of old-fashioned patronage politics? Or is Chicago’s Mayor Rahm Emanuel a calculating maestro of Beltway spin and the dark art of “controlling the narrative” … if not the reality? News media here in the Midwest’s largest city agonize daily over those two … [Read more...] about Rahm confounds Chicago media
Investigate This
Some of my best friends are investigative reporters, so what follows is argued with no small amount of trepidation. My friends are a bit thin-skinned, you see, because their work is constantly criticized by those they investigate. But they are the stars of our profession, so they almost never get criticized by those of us stationed elsewhere along journalism’s far-flung … [Read more...] about Investigate This
