Forget the argument about how keeping up with the news is a civic duty. If you live in Chicago and don’t read the papers you’re missing out on one of the joys of life. Most cities have one daily paper, and it probably thinks of itself as a utility like the water works, bland and inoffensive. In Chicago there are two metropolitan dailies (and others in the suburbs). Reporters here compete by one-upping each other. They can’t afford to be second, and they can’t afford to be dull.
The King said, ‘Relocate the Serbs,’ to where the grass was greener,
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Stephen Colbert polished his skills at Second City, where he performed that ditty, and though other giants claim more orthodox backgrounds and greater fidelity to the facts, the outlook that prevails among them is roughly as skeptical as Colbert’s. Chicago is not a place where reporters acquire a lofty view of human nature.
Mayor Daley is expected to run for a fifth term next spring, this time on the unspoken premise of apres moi, le deluge. The excitement builds as federal investigators, who in July convicted Daley’s patronage chief on fraud charges, now have senior Daley aides in their sights. It’s taken for granted they’re looking at the mayor–oh, and the governor too.
Chicago’s legendary black daily, the Defender, helped inspire the Great Migration north, but it hasn’t been readable for decades. At least it isn’t moribund any longer. A young new publisher, Roland Martin, is a bundle of energy, but he symbolizes greater change than he’s been able to make yet. He’s in action weekdays as a tub-thumping midmorning host on the city’s indispensable black talk radio station, WVON (1450 AM).
