Chicago Print Journalism, Really? - Depends Upon the Journalist

"There is no such thing, at this date of the world's history, in America, as an independent press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone. The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it, and what folly is this toasting an independent press? We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes." John Swinton 1829-1901)

The Nicene Creed has worked pretty well, given the bumps and starts and start again nature of history.  I more than go along with that code and have a devil of a time living up to that Athansian paradigm almost as much as the four gospels, Acts, Epistles and Apocalypse sequel to the Old Testament.

Aside from that Code, pretty much everything else depends upon how well I think and act in its light.  Trial and error have had a remarkable effect upon me - I no longer light tire fires under viaducts, climb water towers upon challenge, vote the Party line, answer 1800-# phone announcements, regard Male Lo T or The Mood On Demand Products commercials with anything short of a belly-laugh, or worry about fairness in print journalism. By journalists, I refer to the opinion makers and heart breakers who go unchallenged in this traditionally hick burg.  I leave out of this very inky mix - news writers - reporters, Tim Novak, Natasha Korecki, Maureen O'Donnell, Dan Mihiopoulas, Chris Fusco & etc. They are a credit to the canons of taste.

For journalists I must include the disc jockeys turned editors and their peers who run opinion in both papers.

Journalism is as hit-or-miss as American movies. Sometimes you get My Weekend With Marilyn, most times you get what ever is playing On Demand.( Hey, at least you didn't spring for AMC& Lowes prices and the $12 small combo, parking and gas!).

There's good stuff out there, but you really must be discerning -trial and error - I'd take one Steve Rhodes over any number of Eric Zorns, Carol Marins, Mary Schmichs, or Richard Roepers; one Dennis Byrne over a parliament of  Steve Chapmans, Clarence Pages, Neil Steinbergs, or David Brooks-eses..

They are the cheerleaders for the powers that be and wanna be, if funded and sanctioned by the political social engineers and their wallets .Shucks, a hack ink-slinger who barks on demand may . . . .just may end up as a career king maker, or helping the thieves steal more efficiently.

John Kass remains the only true link to the Arrch Wards, Ray Coffeys, Nick Von Hoffmans, Herman Kogans and Mike Roykos of Chicago's great writers.

Wit has been replaced with snark -whatever the Hell that is; opinion is not wanted - e.g. Steve Rhodes.

Like betting on clams in the Midwest, too many of the passed along and institutionally agreed-upon talents ( Manya Brachear, Megan Daum, Mary Mitchell, Stella Emerita, Dawn Turner Trice, Rich Miller and the Latino Line-up at the Sun Times -Alejandro Escalano, Suzanne Ontiveros, et.al.) will give that uncomfortable tum-tum followed by 

• A feeling that your teeth are loose and about to fall out
• Confusing hot and cold temperatures (for instance, you will feel that an ice cube is burning you, while a match is freezing your skin)
• Headache (probably the most common)
• Low heart rate and low blood pressure (in very severe cases)
• Metallic taste in the mouth
• 
  

Trial and error, the gradus to discernment, may lead one to believe that there are more than one bad clam in the bag.

Mike McGill- All American!

One of the joys in life is meeting wonderful people. I continue to be blessed by association with smart, generous, thoughtful and witty human beings who add to life's purpose and make people happier by the simple act of being present.

Around the time that my wife Mary was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor, a group of Inland Steel engineers, and executives with whom I became aquainted through my fund-raising work for Bishop Noll Institute, took great pains to help me maintain through the grief. One of this circle of well-educated and generous gents was an executive for Calumet Refractory which made bricks used in steel plants.

Mike McGill looks about ten years younger than his age and presents himself like an English teacher or a bookish scholar. I spent many hours talking literature and history and politics with Mike McGill. Mike had been an NFL Pro, but never talked a down of football. He was like the many heroes who fought at Khe Sanh, Bastogne and the Chosen Reservoir. Mike McGill, like the great newspaperman Ray Coffey, was there and did not need to advertise the fact.

Mike McGill would rather discuss Thomas 'Stonewall' Jackson's Shenandoah Campaign of 1862, than the interceptions he made for Purple People Eaters of the Joe Kapp -Era Minnesota Vikings - which numbered MN Justice Allan Page and Jim Marshall among the greats. Nevertheless, Mike McGill would never ask "Do You Know Who I am?" Mike McGill waits in the long lines at Strack and Van Til grocery market until the lady with seven kids -and half of them crying -gets taken care of.

Mike McGill is devoted to his family, his church and his friends. Unlike too many of the Notre Dame Alumni, Mike McGill is a never 'ring knocker' - he is a gentleman and deeply read scholar.

I am proud to spend time with such a man.


Mike McGill

Born November 21, 1946 in Hammond, Indiana.

Playing career
St. Louis CardinalsLinebacker
1972 1971

Minnesota VikingsLinebacker
1970 1969 1968

Notre Dame Football
1967 1966 1965

Mike with his parents on the Notre Dame campus, Nov. 4, 1967.
Photo Courtesy of the Calumet Regional Archives, IUN, Gary

Mike McGill attended Bishop Noll High School and graduated in 1964. He was an all-star athlete in football, basketball and baseball at Noll and then went on to play football at Notre Dame from 1965-1967. He was an All-American in 1967 and was on the 1968 College All-Star team. McGill played six years in the NFL with the Minnesota Vikings and St. Louis Cardinals. He also played in Super Bowl IV

http://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/M/McGiMi20.htm

Sun Times Gets it Right - After Playing the Lefty Fool for Years

Ray Coffey should be the Standard for News writers and those who would call themselves Journalists. Ray's departure from the Chicago Sun Times was the starting gun for that paper's 90 degree plunge in credibility and honor. There might yet be hope for the Sun Times.

The Sun Times offered a sober look at the value of newspapers in yesterday's commentary.

No army of bloggers, no TV or radio station, no nonprofit journalism collective, no foundation-supported task force of political and government reporters will ever do the job so well.

The first Sun-Times exclusive hit the front page on Sunday: "Blago hit up Burris for cash." The reporters were Natasha Korecki, who covers the federal courts for the Sun-Times, and Dave McKinney, our Springfield bureau chief.

The real significance of that story was not that the brother of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich had asked Sen. Roland Burris for a sizable campaign contribution shortly before Blagojevich appointed Burris to Barack Obama's former Senate seat. No surprise there. That would be Blago's style.

The real story was that Burris had stated earlier in a Jan. 5 affidavit that he had talked to no one in the Blagojevich camp, and he had testified three days later at Blagojevich's impeachment trial that he had talked to just one person. More troubling, he never said a word about talk of money.

The real story, that is to say, is that Burris looks like a liar.

We know. That was why we quit buying the rag that bore the name - Sun Times. There are great newspaper people who have been chained to the oars of the Sun Times Sinking Ship Review for the last few years: Tim Novak, Steve Huntley, Dave McKinney, Natasha Korecki, and Kate Grossman. God love them. Tim Novak was like the Man in the Iron Mask during the last days of the Presidential Campaign. Maybe now, he can be let off the leash.

While the Sun Times has played at being a Revolutionary Organ committed to The Great Patriotic Proletarian Progress Paradee by Cheryl Reed, readers in my neighborhood and others in Chicago have pocketed the two-bit pieces.

My neighborhood, where crime happens due to the Thug Comfort Zone* that Sun Times helped create, has been insulted and caste as some kind of Third Reich Sculpture. The dampness on our backs is not rain or sweat but the dewy offerings of lazy writers and pop-eyed Advocacy nuts drawing pay from the Sun Times.

I was happy to see that the CEO and the publisher have taken their Golden Parachutes out of town.

Newspapers are essential to free Republic. Perhaps, the Sun Times will become one once again - now that the Jacobin Hat and Cap and Bells have been hung up on the hook.

*http://hickeysite.blogspot.com/search?q=Thug+Comfort+Zone