A Whole Lot of Bile in the Great State of Illinois

Thank you Mr. Miller. Illinois is blessed with a number of great newsmen and news outlets, but it is also weighted down by a growing number of hacks and political tool shops masquerading as journalists and journals.

I looked forward to reading Lisagor, VonHoffman, Fitzgerald, Royko, Coffey, Gleason, Cleary, Gibson, and so many others. The Kankakee Daily Journal, Joliet Herald, Will County Farmers Weekly, as well as the once great Chicago papers were places to understand the events and form a judgment as a citizen.

Today, Phil Kadner, Mark Brown,Laura Washington and occasionally John Kass seem to be last ones to give it to us straight. Neil Steinberg's commentaries are almost always on target and reveal a great heart. Dan McGrath writes the best sports prose and Mike Mulligan is the only one who seems to understand the relationship between sports fans and sport.

There are many talented and clever people writing copy and opinion, but very few seem to have a clue about the ethic of their craft. Our airwaves have become the skyways of poor man's Goebbels or side-show freaks. What will the market bear?

As a citizen and a reader, I would like to see more agenda proof writing credited by our papers's
ownership and more editorial control exercised in political matters. I have not bought a Chicago Tribune since the editorial board out-sourced a cartoon in order to embarrass the Chicago Fire Department. That's a half-buck they won't get. My father-in-law bought a multi-year subscription to the Tribune's Chicago Magazine. When that bill comes due, it too will lapse.
The Tribune agenda is their business - they can keep it; they have lost mine.

Rich Miller writes a great weekly column in the Daily Southtown - a true newspaper. I don't like what he writes all the time, but I always like the way he writes it. There is too much bile in Illinois ink - I hope that there will be more blood -honest and human articulation of men and events - ( this is a pretty testosterone heavy set of paragraphs - Laura Washington, you are the one!) Illinois deserves better of the media.