Bob Chiarito – Page 3 – Gateway Journalism Review

Chicago media outlets ignored R. Kelly story for decades. We try to understand why.

“There’s no way around it — South and West Side victims. The girls are all black except for one.” –Jim DeRogatis on why the Chicago media ignored the R. Kelly story for decades.

Journalism largely failed in R. Kelly case, but Sun-Times reporters persisted

By Bob Chiarito

Jim DeRogatis, a Chicago pop music critic with a hard news background, almost threw away a fax he received the day before Thanksgiving in 2000. It was that fax–and not an anonymous videotape–that started DeRogatis on the trail of singer-songwriter R. Kelly, who was charged and arrested on Friday for sex crimes. The inaccurate videotape…