Chicago Reader: Media

WBEZ Staffers Want to Talk Turkey

mail@chicagoreader.com (Michael Miner) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 04:00:00 -0600

And they think their boss, Torey Malatia, is focusing on the trimmings. by Michael Miner No one minds a leader dialed in to the future so long as that person also shares a wavelength with the here and now. At Chicago Public Radio there are staffers who feel they speak on one frequency and president Torey Malatia responds on another. For the past year and a half, Malatia, with input from the staff, has been fashioning a new strategic plan for CPR, whose two components are WBEZ and the rowdy radio/Web hybrid Vocalo. Vocalo, which…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

They Just Think It�s Important for Chicago to Have Two Newspapers

mail@chicagoreader.com (Michael Miner) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 04:00:00 -0500

The Sun-Times's investment group includes some colorful characters. by Michael Miner It's tempting to make too much of Kevin Flynn's role in snatching the Sun-Times from the jaws of death, the reason being that the bigger the role the richer the irony. Suffice it to say that Flynn belongs to the investment group assembled by James Tyree that on Monday took control of the Sun-Times and the other 58 titles that compose the Sun-Times Media Group. Ten years ago Flynn and his father, Donald, were heading up their own investment group,…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Should Unfair Be Illegal?

mail@chicagoreader.com (Michael Miner) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 04:00:00 -0500

Thanks to Conrad Black, the Supreme Court is set to think on the mushy concepts of honesty and intangible rights. by Michael Miner If children made the laws, everything we do that isn't fair would also be illegal. The problem critics find in a federal law that could easily be called the Chicago doctrine is that it judges human conduct as a child might: behavior a parent would tell a child is bad, or an editorial writer a reader, or a prosecutor a jury, can be punished because—well, because it ought to be. Now the U.S. Supreme Court has decided to take a…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

How a Little Pig Lipstick Saved the Sun-Times

mail@chicagoreader.com (Michael Miner) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 04:00:00 -0500

After a grueling standoff, the union agrees to let the Sun-Times Media Group�s new owners do anything they want�almost. by Michael Miner The negotiations Tom Thibeault calls the hardest of his life were over everything and almost nothing. At stake was the continued existence of the Sun-Times, Pioneer Press, and the dozens of other titles that constitute the Sun-Times Media Group—not to mention the Chicago Newspaper Guild, of which Thibeault is executive director. Were the guild to agree to all the concessions financier Jim Tyree was demanding before he'd take over the bankrupt company, it would turn itself into a nullity. Thibeault's…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Aliens in Our Midst

mail@chicagoreader.com (Michael Miner) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 04:00:00 -0500

Why columnists need to keep a safe distance from their fans by Michael Miner Last month I fretted about "celebrity journalists" turned into "commodities" doing "star turns." That doesn't sound like a good thing—but what exactly was I talking about? What I had in mind was the columnist, and the most insidious of all threats to his or her individualism and self-worth: fans. I was thinking of the difficult occasions when a writer who suspects no one reads him is approached by a stranger—at a wedding reception, let's say, for that's a time when…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Everyone Is Implicated

mail@chicagoreader.com (Deanna Isaacs) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 04:00:00 -0500

My Kind of Town, John Conroy's unforgiving new play about the Chicago police torture scandal, gets a reading at the Chicago Writers' Bloc New Play Festival. by Deanna Isaacs The trial of former Chicago police commander Jon Burge, slated to begin later this month, has been postponed until January. We'll have to wait till then to see if Burge is found guilty of lying under oath about the interrogations-by-torture he allegedly conducted at Area Two headquarters in the 1980s. But on October 12, we can get a look at the latest work on the subject of police torture by John Conroy, whose reporting in the Reader exposed a situation…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Gather News and Bust the Union

mail@chicagoreader.com (Michael Miner) — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 11:00:00 -0500

Some lively suggestions for the Sun-Times Media Group from a lively former employee by Michael Miner A couple weeks ago I reported on a chat I'd had with a savvy observer of the Sun-Times Media Group who wanted to remain nameless. His advice to the Sun-Times included this: "Go the way of becoming almost like an urban daily magazine on newsprint and de-emphasize the personalities. . . . Give them the opportunity to become writers without their mugs in the paper, and if it doesn't work sweep them out." For the money they made, he believed, the destitute Sun-Times…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

First Thing We Do, Let's Kill All the Columnists

mail@chicagoreader.com (Michael Miner) — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 04:00:00 -0500

Could less star power and more depth save the Sun-Times? by Michael Miner There's an old saying in the newspaper business, and if there isn't there should be: keep your reporters close to your market and your ad staff closer. I was having a conversation the other day with someone I've turned to for years for smart analysis of the Sun-Times Media Group. He thinks this cluster of about five dozen regional titles made a big mistake a few years ago when it centralized its ad operations downtown. He believes the decision makers…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

We Are 85 Percent Sad

mail@chicagoreader.com (Michael Miner) — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 04:00:00 -0500

Do the news media need to be BFFs with the public to serve the public? by Michael Miner You know how the police are. Their squad cars say we serve and protect. Officer Friendlies stroll into neighborhood meetings and say, please share your concerns. You'll spot officers idling on the edge of a mellow Jazz Fest crowd, savoring the night as much as you are. But that's all the whipped cream. The police aren't paid to be nice. It's part of their training, but mainly they're trained to be tough customers. To be a cop is to piss…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Meet One of the Reader's New Bosses

mail@chicagoreader.com (Michael Miner) — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 04:00:00 -0500

What the American Press Institute thinks about the future of newspapers has suddenly become very relevant to the Reader. by Michael Miner Same building, same office and desk, same bosses and colleagues. But off somewhere in the sweet abstract yonder, the Reader has new owners who intend to make big decisions. What's ahead? I've just skimmed a couple of long reports from the American Press Institute looking for clues: "Newspaper Next: Blueprint for Transformation," released in 2006, and "Newspaper Next 2.0: Making the Leap Beyond 'Newspaper Companies,'" published in early 2008. Newspaper Next is the industry-funded API's response to a time of…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Who Wants to Be the Future of Arts Journalism?

mail@chicagoreader.com (Deanna Isaacs) — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 04:00:00 -0500

Entrants in a national competition, including two local groups, hope to be chosen as models of the future of arts journalism. by Deanna Isaacs Lee Rosenbaum, the veteran east-coast journalist behind the CultureGrrl blog, seemed to have a bead on the future. Her smart, breezy, deeply informed, and brazenly opinionated posts focused on visual art, especially art museums, and she had a faithful following among museum professionals. (Her other gigs have included frequent freelance contributions to the Wall Street Journal, where she reported, for instance, on the recent opening of the Art Institute's Modern Wing.) For the last three years her posts have been…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

The Trib's New Editorial Cartoonist Ponders a Miracle

mail@chicagoreader.com (Michael Miner) — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 02:00:00 -0500

Years after its last staff editorial cartoonist died, the Chicago Tribune finally replaces him. by Michael Miner Of the fervent wishes I've been privy to over the past many years, the most sympathetic was probably that of Scott Stantis, the Birmingham News editorial cartoonist who longed to draw for the Chicago Tribune. It's conservative and I'm conservative, he'd moan. We're a perfect match. And so it seemed to me. But like the lothario in the second reel of a Hollywood sudser, the Tribune was blind to what was perfect for it. Now its eyes are wide open—last…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Reader Bidder Would Bring Jim O'Shea Back to Chicago Media

mail@chicagoreader.com (Michael Miner) — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 20:18:00 -0500

A hearing in bankruptcy court Tuesday in Tampa could decide who winds up controlling the Reader and five other Creative Loafing Inc. papers—the present management or CLI's primary creditor, Atalaya Capital Management of New York. There's not much doubt that Atalaya—owed about $30 million by CLI—has the deeper pockets. But CLI's CEO, Ben Eason, argues that the judge should favor not merely the biggest but the "best" bid, and defer to the incumbents' experience and expertise.

But Atalaya is prepared to argue that Eason doesn't have the corner on those virtues. Managing partner Michael Bogdan has been calling the publishers of the six papers to assure them that Atalaya doesn't mean to take over the papers in order to run them into the ground. And on some of those calls—including the one to Reader associate publisher Steve Timble (Eason is currently acting as the Reader's publisher)—he's been joined on the phone by James O'Shea, who will become a CLI board member if Atalaya wins the auction.

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