“We live in an increasingly stupid and narcissistic culture, so good writing that turns a critical eye on the city and world around us will continue to find a smaller and smaller audience.”
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
It would be incorrect to assume that this particular staffing change was made hastily or without exploring other options. But needless to say, we’ve gotten some heat for our decision. A selection of letters to the editor and comments from Michael Miner’s media news blog (blogs.chicagoreader.com/news-bites) is included below.
Alison TrueEditor
By what definition of journalism are the Reader jobs of Alison True and Michael Crystal more important than those of John Conroy, Harold Henderson, Steve Bogira, and Tori Marlan, the exemplary journalists purged by True and Crystal last week? What is it that this pair is trying to save for its bosses? The Reader logo? The Restaurant Raters system? Club listings? Ownership of the “Straight Dope” trademark?
Rob Z.
As a non-Chicagoan who regularly enjoys the Reader for its long essays, this is tragic. I’m saddened, too, that it seems a done deal that whenever a persistent, quality publication is bought by outside interests, they turn it to crap. I would love to see Creative Loafing take a great institution and not destroy it by betraying its identity, but so far so bad. I wait (and want) to eat these words.
I read the article and detected not a single trace of sympathy for the conviction of Andrew Wilson but saw very clearly that Conroy’s argument was that this, of all possible cases, ironically happened to be the one that broke the horrible fact of a long history of torture conducted by the Chicago police force. Are we so hellbent on taking vengeance on human beings who commit crimes that we are willing to throw out our humanity and sense of justice and gleefully endorse torture and flagrant and insulting abuses of power?! If so, then I hope J.B. enjoys the second coming of the Third Reich and doesn’t piss anyone off who happens to be in power.
Slightly off topic [“The Persistence of Andrew Wilson” by John Conroy, November 29] but what’s up with Richard M. Daley being your mayor?
