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The Beachwood Radio Hour #38: Lessons In Chicago Crime, Politics & Media

By Steve Rhodes

How Rahm Emanuel is both vulnerable and inevitable. Plus: Media Redlining; Cops vs. Civilians; and Convicted In Cook County.


SHOW NOTES
:00: Strawberry Rock Show.
2:19: JEFF The Brotherhood at the Empty Bottle on New Year’s Eve.
3:10: Political Science 101.
* Most vulnerable mayor isn’t vulnerable at all.
* Too little, too late. As usual.
* Better than Rahm by miles, to be sure, but besides that low standard, not buying what challengers are selling.
* Invisible coalition.
* Missed opportunity: Organizing around school closings.
* AFT’s $1 million promise.
* A second term: Rahm unfettered.
* Chicago media wants a wet mayor.
* The BGA: Hooters, pot and tinted windows.
* Andy and Rahm.
* Bruce and Rahm.
* Pining for Terry Brunner.
* Sun-Times Columnist Rahm Emanuel Praises The Awesome Job Mayor Rahm Emanuel Is Doing.
* The Mayor’s Office Facebook Feed on the Sun-Times.
* Media feeding the suburbs.
* Media redlining.
* Squires:

“By reducing circulation efforts among low-income, minority readers, newspapers actually improve the overall demographic profile of their audiences, which they then use to justify raising advertising rates,” wrote James Squires in his 1993 book, Read All About It! The Corporate Takeover Of America’s Newspapers. Squires was editor of the Tribune for eight-and-a-half years; I have yet to hear his account disputed.
When Squires was at the Tribune, the paper divided Chicagoland into five Quintiles. Quintile One had the highest demographic profile while Quintile Five had the lowest. You can guess which Quintile Englewood fell in. That’s why there are fully-staffed bureaus in Vernon Hills, Schaumburg, Oak Brook, and Tinley Park, but not a single reporter (as far as I know or that anyone could glean from the newspaper’s coverage) assigned to Englewood.
So when the Tribune editorial page calls on everyone else to act, it ought to consider the role its own paper is neglecting.

* Stites:

“By this time I was associate managing editor of the Chicago Tribune, and all the talk among the news management was about editing the paper for the top two quintiles of the income distribution. That means that 40 percent market penetration is the goal, not 100 percent, and that the Trib cares little about 60 percent of the people who might be its readers. And these people are the men and women in the bowling alley. Why doesn’t the Trib care? Because these days nonaffluent people shop at Wal-Mart, and advertisers like Lord & Taylor and stores that sell fancy wines don’t want to pay for circulation among people who can’t afford their wares. It’s as simple as that.
“Now almost all metro dailies want only the affluent readers. Everybody else is what advertisers call ‘waste.’ So publishers simply ignore the interests of the bowling alley set, or write about ‘them’ only as statistics or as the objects of debates among economists and policy analysts. I am absolutely confident that it takes these ‘waste’ readers – more than half of all Americans – very little time perusing their metro daily to see that reading further is a waste of their time.”

* Marketing is pre-determining the contours of coverage.
* Angela Caputo.
* Mortgage Street.
* Rahm’s campaign:


* Rahm’s Reality.
* Greg Hinz: “[A]ttorneys battle over binder checks, funky handwriting, bad notaries and other minutiae that constitute Chicago’s election law.”
* Rahm’s [Residency] Rules.
* Emanuel Allies Send Loyalty Scorecards To Aldermanic Challengers.
* Moreno (D-Rahm) vs. Waguespack.
* Four Vie For Moreno’s Post.
31:25: Certain Stars at the Empty Bottle last Sunday night.
* The Week In Chicago Rock.
33:10: PD Blue.
* Cops vs. Civilians.
* Second City Cop.
* Daley’s Cop Canard.
* IPRA: A Four-Year Analysis.
* Chicago Police Board: A 10-Year Analysis.
* 2 Ex-Cops Plead Guilty To Misconduct, Avoid Trial.
Two Cops Charged With Sexual Assault.
* Koschman Cop Found Soft Landing In Lisa Madigan’s Office.
* Blue-Ribbon Walk Through Mount Greenwood Shows Support Of Police.
* “We are now a wartime police department.”
* NYPD Union President Patrick Lynch Is Completely Nuts: A History.
* How Did The NYPD Cop Killer Get His Hands On A Gun From Georgia? Because Our Laws Are Insane.
* NYPD Shooter Had A History Of Mental Health Issues And Violence Against Women.
58:10: Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe at the Park West on New Year’s Eve.
58:50: Siska In Love.
* The Beachwood Radio Sports Hour #32: The Upcoming Hero Of 2015.
1:02:50: Cutler, Schmutler.
* Skate to where the puck will be.
* Trestman Spotted On Clearwater Beach With McCown.
* Cutler is uncoachable.
* Kickstarter Pitch: Raise money from fans to pay off enough of his contract to make him tradeable.
1:12:33: Convicted In Cook.
* Just another Cook County coinkydink!
* The data is factual, but it may not be true.
* It’s all about patterns and trends. Context, people.
* NYC took data down.
* “Hyde Park Johnny” fakes it at the Daily Kos.
* Mandatory minimums: Stop. I’m begging you.
* Should we really hire more cops?
* Why response time is irrelevant.
* #CrimeIsDown.
* The scoop.


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Previously with Tracy Siska:
* The Beachwood Radio Hour #2: Crime Is Down.
Is the Chicago Police Department really juking murder stats? We have the surprising answer. Plus: Chicagoetry with J.J. Tindall, The Cub Factor with Marty Gangler, Remembering Big Glo, Jim “Coach” Coffman on sports and the week in politics and music.
* The Beachwood Radio Criminal Justice Hour #1: Pot.
How Chicago’s New Pot Law Is Bogus, How Roosevelt University’s New Study Is Bogus, And How The Media Covers The Bogosity. With Tracy Siska of the Chicago Justice Project. Plus: The Week In Juvey.
* How Many Police Officers Does Chicago Need?
* Illinois Pols Slather On The Sunscreen.
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* Siska on WBEZ on Monday:

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STOPPAGE TIME: 48:50.
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For archives and more, see The Beachwood Radio Network.
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Comments welcome.

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Posted on January 6, 2015