By Steve Rhodes

Reading the stories about the death of David Koschman in the Sun-Times led one of my contributors to wonder this week where the paper was seven years ago when the actual incident occurred. I wondered too; I presumed a fight outside a bar didn’t result in any coverage at all, but in fact the papers back then – if briefly – were asking some of the same questions they are now. Let’s take a look.
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Headline: Mayor’s Nephew Quizzed in Fatal Fight – No charges in Suburban Man’s Death Outside Bar
Date: Saturday, May 22, 2004
Newspaper: Sun-Times
Reporters: Frank Main, Fran Spielman
“A nephew of Mayor Daley was among those questioned by Chicago Police about a fight outside a Near North bar that led to the death of a suburban man, sources said Friday.
Richard J. Vanecko, the son of Daley’s sister Mary Carol Vanecko, has not been charged in connection with the fight at 3:15 a.m. on April 25 on the sidewalk at 35 W. Division, officials said.

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Posted on April 6, 2011

By Steve Rhodes

You may have heard about the news this week that the city could save $18 million if it just cracked down on loafing truck drivers who, the city’s inspector general found, are so typically paid to do nothing.
And you would have heard wrong because the media largely missed the point of the report that came out of Joe Ferguson’s office, which was that Richard M. Daley negotiated a terrible long-term deal with the city’s unions that we know was spurred by his desire to assure labor peace for the 2016 Olympics – which will be held in Rio.
In fact, Ferguson said in a statement accompanying his report that “The prevailing stereotype would have it that these workers were wrongfully loafing on the taxpayer dime when they should have been actively engaged in work. Our review revealed that these idle workers were not technically doing anything wrong; remarkably, they were completely fulfilling their defined job duties.”
So what did the media do? It went with the stereotype.

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Posted on April 1, 2011