When Dave McKinney of the Chicago Sun Timjes resigned, because then Sun Times owner's ties to then candidate Bruce Rauner and long-running he-said-she-said embroglio, the media locked shields like Vikings.
That was then.
McKinney resigned following what he called “disturbing developments” after reporting a story critical of Rauner. In his resignation letter, he says the firewall protecting independent journalism was breached. Meanwhile, the Sun-Times abruptly brought back editorial endorsements, supporting its onetime owner Bruce Rauner without having interviewed either Rauner or Gov. Pat Quinn.Mark Konkol was cashiered by the same News Group currently owned by SEIU and run by Edwin Eisnedrath, after ten days and cover art that hair-lipped JB Pritzker and all of the beneficiaries of his . . .largesse.
This is now.
No media outrage. No Emile Zola for Konkol's Dreyfuss.
- No, Neil Steinberg opaque ouvere.
- No Mark Brown nosing.
- No Eric Zorn squeak.
- No Carol Marin press conference.
Only Rober Feder bothered to report on the disgraceful treatment of a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter at the hand of in-the-tank management of Illinois' mercury spined ink slingers. You will no hissy-fitting columnist, objecting to the termination of Mark Konkol.
Here is the best example of the mind-set of our in-the-tank Illinois media - Capitol Fax Blog.
News aggregator and Progressive Democrat activist Rich Miller's Capitol Fax Blog lays out the corpse with yellow-bellied snark but dis-invites the mourners:
Konkol out at Chicago Reader after “tumultuous ten days”Saturday, Feb 17, 2018* The Chicago Reader has been suffering serious turmoil since its new executive editor Mark Konkol took over. Konkol fired the paper’s editor by phone just after the editor got off a plane returning from his honeymoon, killed the transportation writer’s respected column, nixed a couple of columns by longtime Reader columnist Ben Joravsky and lost another columnist after publishing a racist front page cartoon featuring JB Pritzker sitting on a black lawn jockey ornament. Word from inside was that the paper itself could be in peril.
Sun-Times Media owns the Reader and here’s its CEO Edwin Eisendrath…
I am announcing today the departure of Mark Konkol from the Reader. Mark came to the publication bringing great hope for a new direction and a new life to a storied brand. Sometimes things don’t work out as planned. A tumultuous ten days culminated in the publication of a Reader cover that we believe was not in line with either our vision for the Reader or that storied history. We wish Mark well.
While controversy is sometimes seen as part and parcel of the alternative weekly world, we believe it’s necessary in this instance to apologize to anyone who was offended by this week’s cover. The published cover in my view distracted from the publication as a whole.
The reporters at the Reader work hard to be great journalists. They can and will take on the toughest stories — including issues of race, injustice and people struggling to be heard.
We will put in place interim leadership and plan for the future.
* From the Reader’s own Twitter feed…
Ding dong the witch is dead! https://t.co/Npx1zAehpR— Chicago Reader (@Chicago_Reader) February 18, 2018
Ouch.
- Posted by Rich Miller Comments Off
(emphasis my own)
Comments Off! Ouch.
Illinois is fixed, to quote the brilliant Dan Proft. Illinois is a rigged game. The news media plays for one side - the side that is screwing voters; Bruce Rauner plays for that side.
Mark Konkol paid the price for speaking out turn. There are no and there will be no media types coming to Mark Konkol's defense.
His voice was silenced, because fair is, after all, fair.
This is Illinois - a Banana Republic run by oligarchs.
Take a GOP ballot and vote for Jeanne Ives. Unfix this sad State.
re is not followed by a colon. Re is lation for matter.
