Ever since the Chicago Sun-Times started pillaging the regional community newspapers, it has been violating its claim to be a union newspaper. The majority of community newspapers it grabs are non-union. And the Chicago Sun-Times has been using that fact to save money, They have been gutting the community newspapers and fleecing them for their advertising revenues to support their own deteriorating business.
The Chicago Sun-Times takes articles from the non-union newspapers that are written by non-union employees and they publish them in the Chicago Sun-Times, filling valuable editorial content space which has become smaller and smaller in the paper. In other words, space is a premium for new copy and there isn't as much today as there was in the past.
But the worst thing is that the articles they take from non-union writers are replacing articles that could have been written by union writers at the Chicago Sun-Times.
So, by doing this, they have been able to shove union workers aside. And worse, they have used this system to support their policies of firing union writers who are paid at a higher rate than the non-union workers who writing they are exploiting.
You won't see this story in the Chicago Sun-Times because they do not write about or expose their own unethical misconduct and their hypocrisies and double standards. And since they have that big fat-cat contract to the Chicago Tribune to publish the Chicago Sun-Times, at the expense of 400 loyal union printers, the Chicago Tribune won't write about it either. The Tribune has been bought off.
Instead of writing about this, the Chicago Sun-Times has been publishing really stupid and pointless stories about other topics including: the PR for Bank of America. Instead of reporting and criticizing the bank for imposing outrageous ATM card fees, is getting Chicago Sun-Times PR support to boost their image. And there is the ongoing ridiculous charges against the Town of Cicero that, wow, politicians hire their relatives -- like not every municipality government leader is hiring their own relatives too? Amazing waste of news space.
Of course, when it comes to nepotism, the Chicago Sun-Times is right up there hiring their relatives and putting relatives of their business owners in key positions. Nepotism is only bad when someone else does it, not the Chicago Sun-Times.
BT
A satire site to expose the real face of the "The Bright One," the Chicago Sun-Times & its biased news coverage
Friday, October 7, 2011
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Union-busting Chicago Sun-Times, more lay-offs and Marin still a hypocrite
Chicago Sun-Times management is mulling a plan to fire editorial workers including two reporters who they believe have been "disloyal" to their newspaper. One is an investigative reporter. Another is a beat reporter.
The newspaper also reportedly met with the publishers of three of its top non-union community newspaper properties and, to undermine the union, agreed to use more non-union editorial copy from the non-union newspapers.
It's a cute anti-union gimmick. Buy up anti-union newspapers and then use the anti-union workers (exploit them) to fill up copy in the "union" newspaper the Chicago Sun-Times.
The end result is that the Chicago Sun-Times is doing more to bust the union than the Chicago Tribune ever did; not to mention that the Sun-Times fired 400 union workers (including mwaaaah) so that they could save money by publishing at an anti-union printer -- the Chicago Tribune.
Normally, Carol Marin would write about these shenanigans but she has been compromised -- at her own choosing, of course. She is allowed to triple-dip and hold several jobs (at the expense of the union workers who were fired). So Carol Marin is doing very well financially, which makes it easy for her to slam others.
Unethical. Hypocritical. And a true journalism double-standard that the Chicago Sun-Times hopes no one will see.
BT
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Sun-Times slanders Braun to promote pals of its questionable business wners
Chicago Sun-Times pit bull poodle Carol Marin is assaulting Carol Moseley Braun. Marin alleges falsely that Braun's campaign for mayor failed to disclose more than $300,000 in spending. That's not true but anything Marin writes is published in the Sun-Times regardless of backup facts.
To make it worse, Marin accused Braun of throwing her elderly campaign worker "under the bus" in order to make Braun look even worse.
Braun simply said that one of her aides was putting the documentation together and may not have recorded everything. That's a far cry from stealing or fiscal mismanagement or violating state laws.
Why is Marin attacking Braun? Because Marin was a backer and supporter of first Gery Chico, but when it looked like Chico was losing to Rahm Emanuel, she was ordered by the newspaper owners (yes, the newspaper is owned by Chicago businessmen and a few mobsters and sultry characters) to switch to Emanuel. And she did.
The people of Chicago are not getting the straight story from the Sun-Times and the Sun-Times is not being fair or ethical. The newspaper has hired 18 people who are related to owners of the Sun-Times, while firing 400 union workers to break the union. They gave the newspaper to the Chicago Tribune to print, which basically means it is the Chicago Tribune that owns the Sun-Times.
Union-busting has always been one of the Sun-Times goals to profit from the dying newspaper.
It's a shame that the Chicago Sun-Times is so pathetic today. Although it "won" a Pulitzer -- it's first ina long time, it came at the cost of hundreds of families, employee wages and a major part of the newspaper's collapsing ethics.
Boycott the Chicago Sun-Times and tell them you do not support the robber barons who now own it and are destroying it.
The reporters who work there agree but they are afraid to speak up, The Sun-Times union has been gutted by management and pressures from the business cronies and investors who are using the Sun-Times to elect their pals, profit for their businesses and strike out at their foes.
Tragic.
Click here to read Marin's latest PR Release for her friends who hate Braun.
BT
To make it worse, Marin accused Braun of throwing her elderly campaign worker "under the bus" in order to make Braun look even worse.
Braun simply said that one of her aides was putting the documentation together and may not have recorded everything. That's a far cry from stealing or fiscal mismanagement or violating state laws.
Why is Marin attacking Braun? Because Marin was a backer and supporter of first Gery Chico, but when it looked like Chico was losing to Rahm Emanuel, she was ordered by the newspaper owners (yes, the newspaper is owned by Chicago businessmen and a few mobsters and sultry characters) to switch to Emanuel. And she did.
The people of Chicago are not getting the straight story from the Sun-Times and the Sun-Times is not being fair or ethical. The newspaper has hired 18 people who are related to owners of the Sun-Times, while firing 400 union workers to break the union. They gave the newspaper to the Chicago Tribune to print, which basically means it is the Chicago Tribune that owns the Sun-Times.
Union-busting has always been one of the Sun-Times goals to profit from the dying newspaper.
It's a shame that the Chicago Sun-Times is so pathetic today. Although it "won" a Pulitzer -- it's first ina long time, it came at the cost of hundreds of families, employee wages and a major part of the newspaper's collapsing ethics.
Boycott the Chicago Sun-Times and tell them you do not support the robber barons who now own it and are destroying it.
The reporters who work there agree but they are afraid to speak up, The Sun-Times union has been gutted by management and pressures from the business cronies and investors who are using the Sun-Times to elect their pals, profit for their businesses and strike out at their foes.
Tragic.
Click here to read Marin's latest PR Release for her friends who hate Braun.
BT
Friday, September 30, 2011
Chicago Sun-Times plays shell game with its circulation numbers
The Chicago Sun-Times, which dissects spoon-fed stories about Chicago and Cook County budgets is playing a shell game with its circulation numbers.
The newspaper claims it has a circulation of 419,000 newspaper on an average day. But, like most stories in the anorexic newspaper, the numbers are fabrications and lies. The 419,000 figure is actually a combination of the Sun-Times and all of its community newspapers that it has purchased to gut and then pillage for advertising revenues.
Faced with bankruptcy, the newspapers has been promoting itself as the 10th largest newspaper in the Midwest, based on circulation and 14th largest in Sunday circulation using the skewered system hoping to fool advertisers. Sunday is traditionally a newspaper's largest circulation day.
But the lie is obvious to anyone who looks.
The real Sun-Times circulation is a meager 251,000 papers for 2011.
That's compared to 486,900 in 2004 (when it previously inflated its numbers to fool advertisers. Read that story?) And that's pathetic.
How does it double it's phony numbers? By adding the circulations of its community newspapers: In addition to the Chicago Sun-Times, the figures include six daily suburban papers — Beacon-News (Aurora), Courier-News (Elgin), Herald-News (Joliet), Lake County News-Sun, Post-Tribune (Merrillville, Ind.) and the SouthtownStar — the three-times weekly Naperville Sun and 32 weekly newspapers published by the Pioneer Press.
One strong boycott would put the newspaper (and its readers) out of their misery.
The lying liars at the Chicago Sun-Times do it again.
The newspaper claims it has a circulation of 419,000 newspaper on an average day. But, like most stories in the anorexic newspaper, the numbers are fabrications and lies. The 419,000 figure is actually a combination of the Sun-Times and all of its community newspapers that it has purchased to gut and then pillage for advertising revenues.
Faced with bankruptcy, the newspapers has been promoting itself as the 10th largest newspaper in the Midwest, based on circulation and 14th largest in Sunday circulation using the skewered system hoping to fool advertisers. Sunday is traditionally a newspaper's largest circulation day.But the lie is obvious to anyone who looks.
The real Sun-Times circulation is a meager 251,000 papers for 2011.
That's compared to 486,900 in 2004 (when it previously inflated its numbers to fool advertisers. Read that story?) And that's pathetic.
How does it double it's phony numbers? By adding the circulations of its community newspapers: In addition to the Chicago Sun-Times, the figures include six daily suburban papers — Beacon-News (Aurora), Courier-News (Elgin), Herald-News (Joliet), Lake County News-Sun, Post-Tribune (Merrillville, Ind.) and the SouthtownStar — the three-times weekly Naperville Sun and 32 weekly newspapers published by the Pioneer Press.
One strong boycott would put the newspaper (and its readers) out of their misery.
The lying liars at the Chicago Sun-Times do it again.
Carol Marin's "lost" notes from her PR column on Gutierrez
One of the most controversial members of the US Congress is former cab driver turned Chicago alderman turned Congressman, Luis Gutierrez.
Gutierrez was raking in quite a bundle when his wife was working for the Town of Cicero under convicted felon Betty Loren-Maltese and then later under her seat-warmer and stooge for convicted felon Edward R. Vrdolyak, Romero Gonzalez. She was bringing in cash through her commissions and real estate deals. Until Gonzalez was ousted by Larry Dominick.
Suddenly, Gutierrez is the champion of citizen's rights in the Town of Cicero -- he's never been there or organized any programs to help residents there.
But we have the transcript of the interview Carol Marin did with Gutierrez for her puff piece on the congressman that didn't make it into her column:
Marin: Luoey, can I ask about the money your wife made from the Town of Cicero in real estate commissions?
Gutierrez: No beyitch! I told you we can't talk about my wife and her sweetheart deals and we can't talk about my ties to Tony Rezko. You said you were going to do a puff piece because the Sun-Times has it in for the Dominick administration.
Marin: Hey, I may be the Jerry Springer of newspaper reporting, but I thought we were going to do so advance work to head-off criticism. You know, I don't control all of the reporters here. Just a few and one of them might wake up a do a story on you.
Gutierrez: Look, I told you, just re-write that garbage that was published in El Dia. That's all you have to do. That's all you do do, right?
Marin: I just want to make sure when I write a puff piece that I look like I am being tough and readers don't see through the scam. I have a lot of things going. Political editor here. Political editor at WMAQ TV. Political editor at WTTW Channel 11 ...
Gutierrez: And you complain about double dippers? Any of your relatives working for the Sun-Times. We might as well get in to nepotism.
Marin: We're off track, Louey. Come on. We have a good thing going. You give me dirt, I publish it. Doesn't matter if it's true or not. If I say it's true, it's true. That's why they overpay me the big bucks.
Gutierrez: Look, our deal is you help me get elected and when you retire from the Sun-Times, WMAQ or WTTW or wherever, I'll help you get a job in government in the justice department so you can be close to your buddy there. The stash.
Marin: Well, the Sun-Times is dying. No one is reading the paper. A girl needs some help.
Gutierrez: Look, here's the story. I planned a speech in Cicero and they let me speak. But I don't want to say they let me speak. They changed rooms on me so you can write they tried to censor me.
Marin: Good. Good. Let me write all that down ... censored me ... Okay.
Gutierrez: No one showed up at the speech. Thank God no one covered it. But that doesn't matter. It's not about helping the people. It's about helping me and perception is reality. If the Sun-Times says I was targeted for political retribution, then who's going to challenge it.
Marin: Okay. Give me a second to write it down.
Gutierrez: Not all that beyitch! Write this down. So, my new congressional district is in Berwyn. Now, technically, I can't go there as a congressman or use government resources to promote myself there because I don't represent Berwyn just yet. In 18 months. But, since you won't write that I am violating federal regulations, I can go to Berwyn and basically use my office to campaign.
Marin: Good. That's a good story.
Gutierrez: No beyitch. You can't write that. This. Pay attention. You getting old? So I plan an event in Berwyn and we say that Berwyn cancelled it on orders from Cicero. I slander all my political foes there who kept my wife from making her highly justified and deserving six-figure commissions ...
Marin: highly justified and deserving ... yes. Yea.
Gutierrez: Right? We just say it and it becomes so! That's my motto. We just say it, and it becomes so.
Marin: Kind of like your phony campaign to defend the rights of illegal Mexican immigrants.
Gutierrez: Yes. I know. That's funny, isn't it. I'm Puerto Rican. Puerto Ricans are American citizens. We don't have no stinking immigration problems. So I have to pretend I care for Mexican Americans. And I don't. But you can't write that.
Marin: No. No. I won't write that.
Gutierrez: And I get arrested and who gets the attention? Mexican immigrants who are being harassed by the U.S Government and your buddies in the U.S. Justice Department? No. I get the publicity.
Marin: Great. Where you going to be later Louey?
Gutierrez: I have to keep the government from looking in to me real estate deals.Thank God Blagojevich got in trouble otherwise my goose would have been cooked. Why, what you want?
Marin: I have to run the column past you before I get it published.
Gutierrez: Oh yea. America. Where else can you manipulate the freedoms of the press? Come here baby. Let's have some freedom.
[Remainder of transcript too crumpled to make out.]
Gutierrez was raking in quite a bundle when his wife was working for the Town of Cicero under convicted felon Betty Loren-Maltese and then later under her seat-warmer and stooge for convicted felon Edward R. Vrdolyak, Romero Gonzalez. She was bringing in cash through her commissions and real estate deals. Until Gonzalez was ousted by Larry Dominick.
Suddenly, Gutierrez is the champion of citizen's rights in the Town of Cicero -- he's never been there or organized any programs to help residents there.
But we have the transcript of the interview Carol Marin did with Gutierrez for her puff piece on the congressman that didn't make it into her column:
Marin: Luoey, can I ask about the money your wife made from the Town of Cicero in real estate commissions?
Gutierrez: No beyitch! I told you we can't talk about my wife and her sweetheart deals and we can't talk about my ties to Tony Rezko. You said you were going to do a puff piece because the Sun-Times has it in for the Dominick administration.
Marin: Hey, I may be the Jerry Springer of newspaper reporting, but I thought we were going to do so advance work to head-off criticism. You know, I don't control all of the reporters here. Just a few and one of them might wake up a do a story on you.
Gutierrez: Look, I told you, just re-write that garbage that was published in El Dia. That's all you have to do. That's all you do do, right?Marin: I just want to make sure when I write a puff piece that I look like I am being tough and readers don't see through the scam. I have a lot of things going. Political editor here. Political editor at WMAQ TV. Political editor at WTTW Channel 11 ...
Gutierrez: And you complain about double dippers? Any of your relatives working for the Sun-Times. We might as well get in to nepotism.
Marin: We're off track, Louey. Come on. We have a good thing going. You give me dirt, I publish it. Doesn't matter if it's true or not. If I say it's true, it's true. That's why they overpay me the big bucks.
Gutierrez: Look, our deal is you help me get elected and when you retire from the Sun-Times, WMAQ or WTTW or wherever, I'll help you get a job in government in the justice department so you can be close to your buddy there. The stash.
Marin: Well, the Sun-Times is dying. No one is reading the paper. A girl needs some help.
Gutierrez: Look, here's the story. I planned a speech in Cicero and they let me speak. But I don't want to say they let me speak. They changed rooms on me so you can write they tried to censor me.
Marin: Good. Good. Let me write all that down ... censored me ... Okay.
Gutierrez: No one showed up at the speech. Thank God no one covered it. But that doesn't matter. It's not about helping the people. It's about helping me and perception is reality. If the Sun-Times says I was targeted for political retribution, then who's going to challenge it.
Marin: Okay. Give me a second to write it down.
Gutierrez: Not all that beyitch! Write this down. So, my new congressional district is in Berwyn. Now, technically, I can't go there as a congressman or use government resources to promote myself there because I don't represent Berwyn just yet. In 18 months. But, since you won't write that I am violating federal regulations, I can go to Berwyn and basically use my office to campaign.
Marin: Good. That's a good story.
Gutierrez: No beyitch. You can't write that. This. Pay attention. You getting old? So I plan an event in Berwyn and we say that Berwyn cancelled it on orders from Cicero. I slander all my political foes there who kept my wife from making her highly justified and deserving six-figure commissions ...
Marin: highly justified and deserving ... yes. Yea.
Gutierrez: Right? We just say it and it becomes so! That's my motto. We just say it, and it becomes so.
Marin: Kind of like your phony campaign to defend the rights of illegal Mexican immigrants.
Gutierrez: Yes. I know. That's funny, isn't it. I'm Puerto Rican. Puerto Ricans are American citizens. We don't have no stinking immigration problems. So I have to pretend I care for Mexican Americans. And I don't. But you can't write that.
Marin: No. No. I won't write that.
Gutierrez: And I get arrested and who gets the attention? Mexican immigrants who are being harassed by the U.S Government and your buddies in the U.S. Justice Department? No. I get the publicity.
Marin: Great. Where you going to be later Louey?
Gutierrez: I have to keep the government from looking in to me real estate deals.Thank God Blagojevich got in trouble otherwise my goose would have been cooked. Why, what you want?
Marin: I have to run the column past you before I get it published.
Gutierrez: Oh yea. America. Where else can you manipulate the freedoms of the press? Come here baby. Let's have some freedom.
[Remainder of transcript too crumpled to make out.]
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Crains Chicago Business pulls the wool off the Chicago Sun-Times mob ties
Crains Chicago Business pulls the wool off the Chicago Sun-Times mob ties
When the Chicago Sun-Times was about to go bankrupt from falling subscriptions and reader complaints, the newspaper publicized that it was up for sale to the highest bidder.
Well, the highest bidder turned out to be a conglomerate organized by the late James Tyree, according to Crains Chicago Business, that included two gambling and waste industry honchos, both controversial and one with ties to the Chicago Mob.
Former Casino Owner Kevin Flynn and dirt-hauler Ed Heila became the largest owners of the newspaper, paying $5 million in 2009 each for a 20 percent stake in the ownership of the publication.
According to Crains Chicago Business:
Immediately after Flynn and Heil became owners, the newspaper started to fire union workers, many who fought against mob-influence in the newspaper industry. Months later, 400 union printers were fired and the newspaper cut a deal with the devil to have their newspaper published by the rival Chicago Tribune.
There were no headlines in either paper about how the Tribune was working with a mobbed-up company, nor the fact that the union-busting Tribune was glad to see the printer’s union workers laid-off to send a signal to their own employees that being a union member was hazardous to their careers.
Crains reported:
Crains wrote about Heil:
These are stories you won’t read in the Chicago Sun-Times because the newspaper is notorious for its hypocrisies. They can dish it out but they can’t take it. They claim to uncover corruption but their employees swallow hard not to complain about the hypocrisies that are the newspaper’s ownership.
Mob ties at the Chicago Sun-Times.
Mike Royko would be rolling in his grave right now knowing that a newspaper that showcased his tough columns hammering the mob has now laid down with the fish.
At least the Crains Chicago Business has the ethics and courage to expose the Chicago Sun-Times hypocrisy. Click here to read the story (subscription to Crains required).
-- BT
When the Chicago Sun-Times was about to go bankrupt from falling subscriptions and reader complaints, the newspaper publicized that it was up for sale to the highest bidder.
Well, the highest bidder turned out to be a conglomerate organized by the late James Tyree, according to Crains Chicago Business, that included two gambling and waste industry honchos, both controversial and one with ties to the Chicago Mob.
Former Casino Owner Kevin Flynn and dirt-hauler Ed Heila became the largest owners of the newspaper, paying $5 million in 2009 each for a 20 percent stake in the ownership of the publication.
According to Crains Chicago Business:
Mr. Flynn, 43, a repo man today, made news in 2001 when the Illinois Gaming Board rejected his bid to launch a Rosemont casino, saying he and his father, Donald, lied to the panel and let investors with mob ties into the deal. Mr. Heil, 66, who made his fortune in the 1980s on the sale of a waste-disposal business, has taken flak for being a politically connected DuPage County contractor.
Immediately after Flynn and Heil became owners, the newspaper started to fire union workers, many who fought against mob-influence in the newspaper industry. Months later, 400 union printers were fired and the newspaper cut a deal with the devil to have their newspaper published by the rival Chicago Tribune.
There were no headlines in either paper about how the Tribune was working with a mobbed-up company, nor the fact that the union-busting Tribune was glad to see the printer’s union workers laid-off to send a signal to their own employees that being a union member was hazardous to their careers.
Crains reported:
Mr. Flynn, the son of former Waste Management Inc. executive Donald Flynn, started his career innocuously enough, developing a playground company called Discovery Zone Inc. with his father.
In 1996, he switched gears to launch Blue Chip Casino in Michigan City, Ind., and sold it in 1999 to Boyd Gaming Corp. for $273.5 million. Later, his failed Rosemont casino bid spawned a slew of litigation. Today he mainly runs a Chicago-based repossession firm, Renovo Services LLC.
Mr. Flynn, who declines to comment on his casino business and Sun-Times' current operations, says Mr. Tyree persuaded him to invest in the company by inviting him out to breakfast and asking if he'd consider joining in if “30 things happened.” In the following weeks, Mr. Tyree called him with updates, checking items off that list.
Crains wrote about Heil:
Mr. Heil built up a dumping, demolition and road construction company that his parents founded. He sold the dumping segment to Browning-Ferris Industries Inc. in the mid-1980s, reportedly for $62.5 million.
Though he is now semi-retired, his longtime penchant for contributing to politicians in places where his Plainfield-based company, now called E. F. Heil LLC, does government work still attracts attention.
Mr. Heil raised eyebrows when he contributed $50,000 last year to the Illinois House race of a DuPage County board member just before receiving a $23,200 contract from the county. Mr. Heil, who defended his donation at the time, declines to comment.
These are stories you won’t read in the Chicago Sun-Times because the newspaper is notorious for its hypocrisies. They can dish it out but they can’t take it. They claim to uncover corruption but their employees swallow hard not to complain about the hypocrisies that are the newspaper’s ownership.
Mob ties at the Chicago Sun-Times.
Mike Royko would be rolling in his grave right now knowing that a newspaper that showcased his tough columns hammering the mob has now laid down with the fish.
At least the Crains Chicago Business has the ethics and courage to expose the Chicago Sun-Times hypocrisy. Click here to read the story (subscription to Crains required).
-- BT
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