Founded as St. Louis Journalism Review in 1970
More than a decade after St. Louis editor William Marion Reedy helped launch Carl Sandburg’s long career as a poet, Sandburg still saw himself as a journalist – and he offered advice to fellow newspapermen. His 1918-1919 series of essays, “Books the newspaperman ought to read,” ran in Pep, the monthly in-house magazine for Scripps’ Newspaper Enterprise Association around the time they hired him to cover World War I and the Russian Revolution.
If you’ve ever strapped on shoulder pads and fastened up a helmet, this is a special time. High school football practices are gearing up across the nation and the media is pulling out all the familiar heart-string pulling methods to remind all of us too old to play but young enough to remember this time of year. This year the memories start by listening to country music radio stations.
Still no word on the Blagojevich trial. Former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich still sits in limbo as the jury decides his fate on corruption charges and the media still has stories to write about the case. It may have quieted somewhat, but those on the beat must find something to write about every day.
How important are headlines? How often do newspapers frame stories to put a different light on the same event? Look at how two Chicago newspapers handled the same story, court examiner Kenneth Klee’s findings in the Tribune Company Chapter 11 bankruptcy case and the leveraged buyout of 2007.
As the summer started it was hard for me not to look just a little bit forward to the Rod Blagojevich trial. It promised so much, a state governor on a corruption trial, the promise of airing dirty political laundry and even the possibility of the political stench reaching the hall of the White House.