Say, whatever happened to that story that seemed to pass by in a twinkling of an eye about Gov. Quinn’s early parolees including one locked up for a 2008 murder disappearing after they were set free as part of Quinn’s infamous early release program? If anything should underscore the incompetence of the Quinn administration, this is it: yet after the first glimmer of the story…zip…nothing has been heard of it since.
This is only the most glaring case of the Chicago media tipping the scales to elect Quinn by sitting on follow-ups of a glaring story. Instead the media are concentrating as if it is as important as release of the Pentagon Papers of Mark Kirk’s inflated resume. Okay…it’s been given justifiable and expansive coverage. Now where is the guy who’s news director of Channel 2 WBBM-TV who complained that Kirk was sending out too many news releases attacking Giannoulias’ failed bank? Remember this guy said: “Alexi’s been pilloried enough”? I haven’t heard a word of complaint from Channel 2 or any of the other stations concerning the repeat and re-repeat and re-re-repeat of Kirk’s failings. Guess you can’t get enough of that stuff when it happens to a Republican.
If any story is worth more than a one-day exposure it’s Quinn’s failure to keep tabs of the inmates who were put on early release. Yet Chicago media is ho-hum not all that concerned. For those who missed the one-day story here it is:
The parolees released on early parole were part of a program that Quinn tried to sneak over on the public without release. The Associated Press here released it. Known as MGT Push, the program was launched last December and after the public gained wind of it, Quinn shut it down. He said he hadn’t known that Corrections Commissioner Michael Randle was going to release violent offenders. Then the Governor announced that they were going to be rounded up. One hitch: More than 50 are on the lam, some have been gone for months and dozens are still missing.
Hundreds of violent criminals were among the 1,745 released weeks early,
My question is: why did this story which under the canons of journalism demands a follow-up…die on the vine? It certainly hasn’t gained much attention after the initial disclosure from the big urban papers and the TV stations. Instead we’re being treated to pap “analysis” stuff by such Big Foot ahem “serious pundits” who pronounce themselves seriously worried…as partisans do…about the tardy campaign being mounted by Quinn—as if commentators like Carol Marin have a stake in his Democratic victory: which, of course, is evident.
For emphasis: The biggest gaffe in governance to-date is Quinn’s release of early prisoners…his protests that he didn’t know about it…his determination to recoup the absconders and state government’s inability to find them.
In any other state, that issue would be determinate. Here it’s just a one-day story.
The last viable survivor of Cold War victory over Gorbachev is Lech Walesa. He along with Ronald Reagan, John Paul II and Margaret Thatcher turned the balance that won the Cold War. I guarantee you that if Lech Walesa came here to tout the glories of (a) Alexi Giannoulias…(b) Pat Quinn,…(c) Richard M. Daley he would be surrounded as he made his speech by a forest of TV cameras and microphones. Nary a one when he came out for Adam Andrzjewski running for governor. Carol Marin the one woman media-monopoly…columnist for the Sun Times…commentator for NBC Channel 5…commentator for WTTW Channel 11…was busy mooning over the future of Forrest Claypool.
What’s the story with these biased editors even if the reporters are hopelessly Left-Wing? Even on a matter of personal history doesn’t Lech Walesa, a genuine hero of the West mean anything? Forrest Claypool more important?
Another thing: I guarantee you that in the old days…John Callaway on “Chicago Tonight”…if Alan Dershowitz, the Harvard law professor who is rated as the top criminal lawyer in the country and the pre-eminent civil rights lawyer as well were here to endorse a candidate Dershowitz would be interviewed on “Chicago Tonight.”
Further if he had come in to campaign for Rep. Jan Schakowky, he’d be interviewed up one side and down the other and especially by Phil Ponce (with help in the form of 3x5 cards supplied by the `TTW staff).
Nothing happened. Why? Because he came in to campaign for…gag, it sticks in Big Liberal Media’s throat…Joel Pollak who’s running as a Republican against Schakowsky.
I’ll tell you, the hideous bias…big stories that last only one day and are shoveled under the rug because they reflect on the Dems…big stories that never see the light of day because they impact favorably on conservative Republicans…stories that are recycled endlessly because they wound Republicans. Protests from a TV news directors because poor Alexi has been pilloried enough. I’ll tell you…
…this is the sickening scandal of media here—and nobody talks about it because it’s so politically correct to protect the Dems and politically exciting to rage about Republicans.
Years ago there was for a short time something known as The Chicago Journalism Review. It’s sorely needed now as media monopolists and others ply their trade favoring their liberal biases…favoring whom they wish and ignoring as it suits their prejudices.
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*: St. William of Vercelli [1142] Abbot of Monte Vergine. . The founder of a religious congregation known as The Hermits of Monte Vergine was born in 1045 of as Piedmontese family. His parents died early and at the age of 14, believe it or not, he set sail for Spain where he lived a penitential life as a hermit. He returned to Italy, to Melfi in the Italian Basilicata and then at Monte Solicoli where he lived for two years in prayer and solitude. He started a community at Monte Vergine but the rule he wrote was so austere that the community engaged in a revolution against him. So he handed it over to a prior and left, taking with him five faithful followers.
He started one congregation after another. King Roger II of Naples heard of him and invited him to be his chaplain. This encouraged William’s enemies to be very jealous. They tried to set him up with a woman of loose morals who came to his cell and invited him to a orgy of licentiousness as William’s enemies peered through a knothole in the wall. You know what William did? He received her in a room where a roaring fire was going in the fireplace. When she began her blandishments he walked over to the fireplace, parted the coals with his bare hands and stretched out on the roaring fire, inviting her to join him!
She screamed and ran away whereupon he arose, walked to the center of the room, brushed his hands from the ashes and remained completely unharmed. That was the formal end of the trick played on him. The woman was instantly converted and took vows as a nun. William died at Guglietto on June 25, 1142.
You and I are the current Chicago Journalism Review.
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