Author: John McCarron

News media also “guilty” in Blago trial

Guilty as charged! That’s the ultimate news Illinois voters and news media need to take away from the big federal corruption trial in Chicago this summer. No, not the fact that former Gov. Rod Blagojevich was found guilty. That wasn’t news, really. Anyone who followed the interminable trial and re-trial, and who listened to the FBI

Best Chicago media coverage of 2010 Illinois races

With so much sloganeering and mud-slinging leading up to the Nov. 2 mid-term elections, the challenge for Chicago’s news media—print, broadcast, online—was whether to echo the races’ shallow bombast … or cut through to the issues. By and large, the metropolitan press held to the latter, more difficult course. Which is saying something, given the

Daley departure tells us a lot about the media

The Chicago Tribune’s banner headline on Tuesday, September 7, the day Mayor Richard M. Daley announced he would not seek a record seventh term, read: “City wants $1 billion more for O’Hare Plan.” This signaled two things, one obvious, the other less so . . . but worth exploring, for it helps explain why Daley is