The Tribune editorial board is stuffed with disc jockeys, ladies-who-lunch, real estate 3Card Monte shufflers, but bugger all newsmen.
The newspaper is becoming one big blog.
Witness this smear of Attorney/journalist Tamara Holder:
On June 9, she posted commentary on the Huffington Post after attending opening arguments the day before. Most of her posting focused on U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., who is alleged to have bargained with Blagojevich for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by President Barack Obama. Jackson has denied any wrongdoing in the public corruption case against Blagojevich.
Holder concluded before the first witness had taken the stand that Jackson's name should be cleared.
"Of course, we haven't yet heard any of the evidence, but what we did hear leads me to believe that now, after 18 months, Congressman Jackson can breathe a sigh of relief, no matter how you look at this case," Holder wrote.
What she didn't say in her post is that she has professional ties to the congressman's father, the Rev. Jesse Jackson. According to her online biography, Holder created a legal clinic in 2006 at Jackson's Rainbow PUSH Coalition headquarters in Chicago.
She opened the clinic to generate clients for her law practice, which focuses on clearing people's criminal records by getting them expunged or sealed. In an interview Monday, Holder said she reviewed the records for free and if a person wanted to hire her she charged $500 plus filing cost, half of her regular fee.
Holder's work with the Rev. Jackson is a conflict of interest if she is writing about his son, said Kelly McBride, a media-ethics expert at the Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank. But bloggers who are not journalists are generally not held to the same ethical standards as journalists.
First off - to paraphrase a real journalist Steve Rhodes, "This is news . . .how?"
Secondly, Tamara Holder is offering her insights on the Blagojevich Trial.
Thirdly, Sneerdly, Ms. Holder is quite up-front in her associations.
Fourth and Foremost, I am no friend of the Family Jackson, but believe that Congressman Jackson was jackpotted by Blago and friends.
Ameet Sachdev wrote this about Tamara Holder because . . . someone told him to do so, it seems to me.
A real journalist like Phil Rosenthal, John Kass, or John McCormick would have had some meat to bring to the table.
Ameet has only that which blocks the space between his ears - seems to me.
About Ameet Sachdev - Pocket Pup ( whose pocket? whose pup?)-
Ameet Sachdev is a leading business reporter for the Chicago Tribune, where he covers legal affairs and law firms. His legal column can be read in Tuesday's Business section.
Ameet has been with the Tribune since June 2000 and has covered several business beats, including aerospace and food and beverage. He won a Peter Lisagor award in 2001 for his coverage of the food/beverage beat.
Before joining the Tribune, Ameet worked as a business reporter for the St. Petersburg Times, Lexington Herald-Leader and Poughkeepsie Journal. He is a 1993 graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.
Ameet also has served on the national boards of the Asian American Journalists Association and Unity: Journalists of Color. Ameet was born in Chicago, grew up in the western suburb of Glendale Heights and now lives on the North Side with his wife and son.
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