Jesse Jackson and the Chicago Sun-Times

Jesse Jackson and the Chicago Sun-Times 
How the newspaper compromises its ethics and violates journalism principles

The Chicago Sun-Times in is trouble. The only thing keeping them alive is their investment in smaller newspapers. They just bought up the Chicago Reader. But it is like a pyramid scheme. Every knew acquisition brings in some financial reprieve and cash flow until they need to find something else.

Each small newspaper is like a new credit card bringing in fresh revenue.

A consequence of the Chicago Reader purchase is the compromising of the Reader's once fierce independence and ability to criticize other news media, especially the Chicago Sun-Times which was a frequent target.

But now, the Chicago Reader is hammering the Chicago Tribune. And the Chicago Sun-Times is free to act as irresponsible and as unethical as it has been since the felony conviction of its former boss, Conrad Black.
The latest ethical lapse is int he strange story of Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr., who took a leave-of-absence from public life (not his congressional salary of healthcare benefits, mind you) claiming he was suffering from some form of exhaustion.

The truth is that the same week that he announced the sudden physical problems, his closest fundraiser, Raghuveer Nayak, was arrested recently on unrelated fraud charges. But Nayak played a prominent role during the trial of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, reportedly having promised to raise a $1 million for Blagojevich is Blagojevich would appoint Jackson to the vacated seat of then US Senator Barack Obama. Blagojevich was sentenced to 14 years for trying to sell the seat to the highest bidder, and apparently the highest bidder was Nayak on behalf of Congressman Jackson. Now that Nayak is facing charges, there is the theory that he will turn state's evidence and testify against Jackson regarding to money offered to Blagojevich.

It's a complicated mess, one that the Chicago Sun-Times is very knowledgeable about. But the Sun-Times isn't writing much about it at all.

Instead, the Chicago Sun-Times is giving Jackson a pass. Why? Well, Jackson's father, the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson writes for the Chicago Sun-Times. Yes he is a columnist there. And sure enough, Rev. Jackson hasn't been writing any columns urging his son to come clean about what the real cause of his mysterious disappearance from public life is.

In fact, none of the Sun-Times big gun columnists have been writing about Jackson in a critical manner. Just reporting the news. Vanilla. Bland. No controversy.

The newspaper played up a claim by Congressman Jackson's aid, Frank Watkins, that the congressman is worse than we all thought. Well, by "we" he means himself and his besieged staff. He doesn't mean the public because no one in the public believes he is really sick at all. Everyone believes Congressman Jackson is suffering anxiety over the fear that with Nayak's arrest on unrelated corruption charges, it may result in the Feds taking a closer look at his role with Blagojevich and trying to become a US Senator, for a measly $1 million bucks.

Instead of seeing columns by Carol Marin and Mark Brown or Steve Huntley, the newspaper ran an obscure column by Phil Kadner, a longtime editor at one of the Sun-Times community newspaper properties, the Southtown/Star newspapers. Kadner rightly demanded that Jackson owes the public an explanation.

Well, the Southtown doesn't circulate int he heart of the Sun-Times base, in the inner city of Chicagow here the population is predominantly African American. It circulates in the nearly all-White Southwest Suburbs.

Nice compromise to keep the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson happy. Whip up anger among Whites, play down the controversy among blacks. That eases the pressure of Congressman Jackson and undermines the critical speculation of what has been happening to him.

The public is not stupid. They know. The Chicago Sun-Times isn't writing as an ethical, moral journalism venture but rather as a cigar smoking, clout-heavy political lobbying organization for its business interests, and for the interests of its friends, like Rev. Jackson.

Sun-Times guts suburban newsrooms but has cash to build lavish cafeteria

The Chicago Sun-Times, which has spent the past five years gutting the newsrooms at a dozen or more once great suburban community newspapers, is spending lavishly to build a new cafeteria for its offices on the South Side. The robber barons need a place to roll in their dough that they are bleeding from a dozen or more once great community newspapers.

The Sun-Times has gutted and fired writers and reporters at several newspapers including the Southtown/Star and the Joliet Herald News so that their owners can increase their profits.News staff at many of these suburban newspapers have been cut 75 percent compared to when they were leading news coverage in their communities.

The Sun-Times has acted like the old Soviet Union, occupying suburban newspapers, acquiring their advertising accounts and profits, cutting back on spending and support, and firing and laying off employees.

Despite these efforts, the Sun-Times' daily circulation continues to drop and is reportedly below 200,000 newspapers. To mislead advertisers, and in an ironic twist, the Sun-Times is merging the circulation of their occupied satellite newspapers to artificially boost their total circulation figures, claiming they publish more than 400,000 newspapers each day.

In the old days, before the Sun-Times acquired and then cannibalized the smaller community newspapers, the Sun-Times had a circulation on its own that was in excess of 750,000.

That's why the fat pigs who run the Sun-Times need an expensive cafeteria that some estimate could cost as much as $400,000 to design and build (the salaries of six reporters), so they can sit around and wallow in their financial obesity and laugh and enjoy their cash flow.

BT

Scandal from Sun-Times Reporters who made things up

From the Chicago Tribune

Fired Sun-Times critic Paige Wiser 'ashamed' for made-up details in review

'Glee Live' review mentioned song not performed

described another she didn't see 

June 10, 2011
By Phil Rosenthal Media

Paige Wiser is out at the Chicago Sun-Times after 17 years, the last three as its television critic, because her "Glee Live!" concert review in Sunday's newspaper mentioned one song that wasn't performed and described another she did not see.

"I'm at fault," Wiser said. "I do understand what a big deal this was. I am ashamed, and it's just a matter of making bad decisions when you're exhausted."

Wiser, 40, said she brought her two young children to the show Friday at Rosemont's Allstate Arena with the approval of an editor who told her "cute kids' reaction would be more than welcome" in the story. Her son fell off a chair during the show. Her daughter vomited into a cotton candy bag.

They left three songs later, only 13 numbers into the concert, but her report included commentary on the encore based on information from previous "Glee Live!" shows.

The Sun-Times on Thursday posted an editor's note about the lapse and Wiser's dismissal, and it withdrew the review from its website.

"Accuracy and honesty in reporting are essential parts of the promise we make to our readers," Don Hayner, the Sun-Times editor, said in the note. "We regret the incident and apologize."

Last month, at the last minute, Wiser had to ask out of a deadline writing assignment covering taping of the "Oprah Winfrey Show" farewell extravaganza at the United Center. Upon arriving in the hockey press box, high above the arena floor, she was afflicted with vertigo. Colleague Kara Spak, who had been assigned to watch from a seat in the stands below, changed places with Wiser and wound up writing the story.

[NOTE: Kara Spak is the wife of Sun-Times reporter Steve Warmbir]

Wiser's published "Glee" review noted that cast member Lea Michele "made Barbra Streisand proud — and probably a little jealous — with 'Don't Rain on My Parade,'" a song Wiser said Thursday that she liked on one of the show's cast albums. The review was capped with a reference to an encore cover of Rebecca Black's "Friday" that Wiser wrote was "irresistible" and "infused ... with joy."

"I'd like to think it wouldn't have been part of my thought process if it hadn't been 1 a.m. and I was just trying to get the story done," Wiser said. "I just wanted it to be a complete review after the Oprah travesty."
The incident recalls an infamous 1986 Sun-Times review of an Elton John concert by Patricia Smith, who reported John wore an outfit he didn't wear and sang two songs he didn't sing. John's representative also said Smith never picked up her press ticket.

Smith told her editors at the time she was distracted during the show by a boyfriend she brought with her and that they had bought their own lawn tickets. She was let off with a lecture and respite from writing for several months, according to a 1998 American Journalism Review report written after Smith lost her job at the Boston Globe for fabrications in her work.

Wiser said that, with the workload employees at the Sun-Times must carry in the wake of recent cutbacks, "for me to have even taken up their time because they had to deal with this, I feel bad."

[NOTE: Another fired reporter was Ray Hanania when he was accused of dating City Treasurer Miriam Santos in 1991 while covering Cook County.]

END