Chicago - A message from the station manager

The [Thursday] Papers

By Steve Rhodes

1. I Was On Bill O’Reilly’s Show Once.
And the topic was sexual harassment!
I was on to discuss this story about disgraced former Tribune columnist Bob Greene.
Unfortunately, the transcript, which used to appear here, is seemingly no longer available.
Let’s just say O’Reilly was more sympathetic to Greene than I was.


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My big line was that you can’t have someone in your newsroom that you have to steer the high school tour around.
2. Contractor Factor.
“One day after a blast from the Ethics Board chairman, a divided City Council got cold feet Wednesday on a proposal to relax ethics standards that apply to independent contractors employed by aldermen,” the Sun-Times reports.
“A plan championed by Ald. Leslie Hairston (5th) to change the definition of “city employees” to exclude independent contractors and excuse them from filing ethics statements went down in flames.
“The City Council defeated the change on a 24-21 vote, just a day after the Rules Committee had approved it.”
Thoughts and prayers to Delmarie Cobb.
3. Sinclair Broadcast Group Said to Be Considering Bid for Tribune Media.
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“Former Trump aide joins Sinclair,” Politico reports.
“Boris Epshteyn, the combative White House aide who was behind Trump’s TV surrogate operation, is joining local television titan Sinclair Broadcast Group as chief political analyst, the company announced Monday.
“As a paid pro-Trump talking head, Epshteyn earned a reputation for heated clashes with anchors, producers and contributors. (Our earlier feature: ‘White House official terrorizes network green rooms.’) It’s also perhaps worth noting that during the campaign, Jared Kushner had previously struck a deal with Sinclair for straighter Trump coverage than could be expected from the major TV news news networks.”
From that last link:
“Kushner said the agreement with Sinclair, which owns television stations across the country in many swing states and often packages news for their affiliates to run, gave them more access to Trump and the campaign, according to six people who heard his remarks.
“In exchange, Sinclair would broadcast their Trump interviews across the country without commentary, Kushner said. Kushner highlighted that Sinclair, in states like Ohio, reaches a much wider audience – around 250,000 listeners – than networks like CNN, which reach somewhere around 30,000.”
4. “There is so much wrong with this [Rauner press] release.”
5. Todd Ricketts, Trump’s Deputy Commerce Secretary Pick, Withdraws From Consideration.
No article about Todd Ricketts should ever go without mention of his embarrassing appearance on Undercover Boss, in which he threw away the concessions he failed to sell and lied to his boss (who is really his employee) about it to seem like he did, in fact, sell them.
Still. Not. Old.
6. Trust Bust.
“The City Council on Wednesday approved a $160 million program to re-light Chicago – but only after shining the light on Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s murky, pay-as-you-go financing plan,” the Sun-Times reports.
“Instead of using his much-ballyhooed-but-slow-starting Infrastructure Trust to attract private investors to bankroll the four-year conversion of Chicago’s 270,000 outdoor lights, the ‘smart lighting’ program is being financed by Chicago taxpayers.”
Here’s the best part:
“Leslie Darling, executive director of the Infrastructure Trust, has given alternate explanations for the financing detour.
“At first, she told the City Council’s Budget Committee that the city was ‘not interested in privatizing a critical public safety asset’ such as street lights.”
Isn’t privatizing critical public assets the very point of the Trust?
“Then she acknowledged it would have been ‘a lot more expensive to use private financing,’ because investors were demanding too great a return. That would have required ‘significant reductions to critical elements,’ that the city was unwilling to make, she said.”
There you have it. Goodnight, everybody!
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Leslie Darling, you are Today’s Worst Person In Chicago.
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BeachBook
Visit Frankie Knuckle’s Sprawling Vinyl Collection At New Chicago Exhibit.

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WGN Friday Night Movie: Fahrenheit 451 (Opening, 1983)

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TweetWood
A sampling.

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Boeing had no comment.


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The Beachwood Tronc Line: Hook ’em, horns.

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Posted on April 20, 2017