By Steve Rhodes
We are both amused and rankled to find Chicago Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg copying one of our ideas for use in his column today.
Or maybe his appropriation is “unintentional and unconscious.”
But his (Don’t) Ask Amy column item today sure looks familiar.
We inaugurated a regularly occurring “Answering Amy” item on March 4, in which, our usual description says, “we take one question posed each week to the Tribune‘s highly-paid, highly-marketed, highly-mediocre advice columnist and contrast her answer with ours.”
We haven’t posted an Answering Amy since March 24 – low-down in the column here – as I’ve pondered where to give it a home on the site and who to delegate the work to. Maybe this is just Steinberg’s way of applying for the job.
Sorry to inform you this way, Neil, but you didn’t pass the audition.
Theft Ring?
The Chicago Tribune is awfully self-congratulating in an editorial today about the troubles dogging Democratic state treasurer candidate Alexi Giannoulias. While I haven’t kept a scorecard matching each Giannoulias development with the news organization reporting them, this Greg Hinz story in Crain’s Chicago Business is dated March 13 and the Trib edit credits its own reporting of March 15. Just sayin’.
Stolen Courage
“A Glen Ellyn man who fled to New York City after being charged with twice stealing shipments of Red Bull Energy Drink in DuPage County was returned to Illinois recently and was arraigned Wednesday.”
I’ll bet he fled on foot, too.
– Tim Willette
Stealthy Jury Reports
The Beachwood Reporter noted a study Tuesday by trial consulting firm DecisionQuest explaining why prospective jurors don’t tell the truth about their backgrounds when being considered for jury panels. The Tribune published an editorial citing DecisionQuest on the very same topic two days later.
Unintentional and unconscious? Perhaps, though I was tipped to the DecisionQuest study by someone as unlikely to also tip the Tribune editorial board as they would be to enjoy those lame jokes Neil Steinberg now uses to pad off his column.
The Beachwood Reporter: Worth Stealing From Since 2006!
Editorial Ennui
When I saw the headline on the Sun-Times‘s lead editorial today, “How About A Sign We’re Coming To Our Senses?,” I thought maybe the page had shaken off its recent torpor.
The page is slumping badly, straining even more than usual to find a point to make, but I suppose we all get sluggish from time to time.
But no. Today’s editorial is about the sudden discovery – 1,280 designations later – that it might be a good idea to end the practice of awarding honorary names on our byways.
After all, what of emergency vehicle drivers who could get confused? The last thing we need is for them to mistake a one-block long Fred Hampton Way with some other street in the city.
Required Reading
The Tribune drills a little further into the governor’s phony town hall meeting ad.
The Sun-Times gives major advertiser Macy’s a wet kiss while the Tribune practices something more resembling of journalism.
Aldermen may ask for a raise and it’s too infuriating to even write a clever punch line.
St. Charles blogger Bill Baar says there is an editing battle raging on the Wikipedia entry for Jan Schakowsky.
Self-help books are depressing. Literally.
NEW ADDITIONS 12:44 p.m.: Two worthy Change of Subject postings: See the latest example of how Sun-Times columnist Michael Sneed earns a lucrative paycheck as a major metropolitan newspaper columnist; and treat yourself to a music video parody of Biblically hysterical proportions.
Reefer Madness
The Sun-Times‘s Andrew Herrmann shows off his reporting chops today by looking up a list of drug terms on Wikipedia to learn that “baked” means “intoxicated from marijuana use.”
Then he makes that extra phone call that distinguishes great reporters from merely good reporters by calling an official with the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy to find out that it is “naive” to think that Lollapalooza concertgoers will use rolling papers for tobacco instead of pot.
Pump Profits
I wonder if the hit newspaper companies are taking in delivery truck fuel costs due to the rise in gas prices is offset by the revenue taken in from full-page ads like the one in this PDF bought by the American Petroleum Institute appearing in the Tribune today.
Note From Beachwood HQ
A ton of new stuff coming, as promised in the last week, just hung up a bit on other site improvement-related distractions, like what to do with these “rolling papers” someone sent to us.
The Beachwood Tip Line: We won’t “kill your buzz.”
Posted on April 28, 2006