Saturday, November 03, 2007

Hey Abdon! Who Lied and Made You Boss? !!! A Reporter's Privilege



Nothing to read at Kean Gas station at 111th & Talman this morning - Gino Ford grabbed the last Daily Southtown and Dawna said that Sunday edition wouldn't be in until about 11AM. The Kean dark roast was still slowdripping.

Against Dr. Vargas' orders - I picked up the Sun Times ( HOWLS OF DERISIVE LAUGHTER emitted by your your humble servant) - The Progressive-Independent Conscience of the City that 's better than endless Seinfeld loops on two competing channels.

OK - Alderman Tom 'Hold on a Sec there's a Cop on Me . . .What??? Don't You Have Criminals to Catch?' Tunney's Boy's Town Bird Watchers Beef about Montrose Harbor Crocus Cruisers.
- Priest denied bail - tough padre; enjoy the trip to Switzerland
- Obligatory George Ryan pimp slap - wait - this is not an editorial or is it?

Ryan wins switch to cozy Wisconsin prison

November 3, 2007
BY ABDON M. PALLASCH Staff Reporter/apallasch@suntimes.com
Former Gov. George Ryan got some good news Friday.

Not great news, but good news.

The U.S. Bureau of Prisons agreed to let him serve his 6½-year sentence in Oxford, Wis. -- closer to his Kankakee home than the prison in Duluth, Minn., where the bureau had initially assigned him.

Was it because bed space opened up there in the year and a half Ryan has been out on bail while he appeals his case? The bureau didn't say. Ryan did not tell his lawyer, former Gov. Jim Thompson, whether the news had improved his mood as he awaits word from the U.S. Supreme Court about whether they will take his appeal.

"He just told me he had gotten the letter," Thompson said. "He didn't have any comment one way or the other."


Galloping Goldfish!

Now that's an editorial! A reporter's story would or might say: 'Ryan going to Oxford; not Duluth,' but Abdon insists that there is a COZY prison. Funny, he opted not to spend one night in jail over his 'belief and - dare I say it? - conviction about reporter privilege - and Antagonistic Abdon goes on . . . Was there a Storming of the Winter Palace on the River? Did La Pasionaria Reed go down in a 'talentless' coup?

Abdon's doing some editorializing in the Repor - Taj . . .Machs Nicht - Matters not !It's the Sun Times Oh, VELL!
Machs dir nicht so schwer mit mir

mach dir kein Problem aus mir
quäl dich nicht so sehr,
quäl dich nicht so sehr,
mach’s dir nicht so schwer
Sorry, I was reminiscing about my undergraduate years at Universität Heidelberg and my career in the duelling fraternities where Honor was tested with the epee or the cavalry saber ( schläger) - mensur,"Studentenverbindungen" - Ach, ZO! Abdon didn't go there.

In 2004, Abdon lectured the future ink-slingers at Indiana University- the Home of Ernie Pyle who really understood honor as a man and a writer - about 'reporter privilege' - the need to piously protect the source of story. Now get this: Abdon told the Hoosier Higher Critics of the Future that - a reporter should be willing to go to a - I'll use Abdon's words from today's editorial - story - Nice Cozy Prison in order to protect reporter privilege:

Reporter's privilege is the idea that journalists have the right to keep any information they receive, from any source, confidential. Most journalists value this right because, as Pallasch said, if reporters reveal their sources, no one would talk to them.

"People shouldn't be afraid to talk to the press," he said. "And the press should be willing to go to jail for not disclosing (information)."


Then three paragraphs down in the full story - that you can access by clicking on my post title - Abdon admits to caving in and avoiding a trip to a COZY Prison cell.

Well if you can't do the time - You can write for the Sun Times with your COZY mantle of smug, self-righteousness wrapped warmly about your avian-like shoulders! That Kean Dark Roast is the Ticket! Steady, Old Man!


Well, Boys and Girls, that trip to Kean put me to thinking that Cheryl Reed might be locked in a paper closet over on Orleans and the River - maybe even wearing an iron mask.

Was La Pasionaria couped out of the editorial work or will every feature be a kick at political Enemies of the PEOPLE and a loud opinion piece? Coup-Coup Cachoo!

There is no Honor among Feebs!

1 comment:

Cal Skinner said...

When I saw the word "cozy" teamed up with "prison," I figured the reporter had never been to a prison.