The Chicago Sun-Times avoids an ugly lurch to the left
Editorial page editor Cheryl Reed had visions of a lefty fiefdom
By Mark Kilmer Posted in Liberals — Comments (13) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Seemingly reacting to whatever chemicals inhabited the space between her ears, Chicago Sun-Times Editorial Page Editor Cheryl Reed declared last Tuesday:
"We are returning to our liberal, working-class roots, a position that pits us squarely opposite the Chicago Tribune -- that Republican, George Bush-touting paper over on moneyed Michigan Avenue. We're rethinking our stance on several issues, including the most pressing issue facing Americans today: Bush's war in Iraq."
She screeched that she would make her editorial page "more relevant and irreverent." Actually, she wanted to turn it into her own, personal playground for the hardcore, anti-capitalist, anti-Christian, anti-Israel, anti-Republican, anti-Bush left, the folks who have know vision but a strong will to screech in knee-jerk opposition.
It turns out, though, that this was just another lefty editor running at the mouth:
Read More…
Publisher John Cruickshank had something more urgent to talk about Friday afternoon in the tabloid's offices.
"We're not going to start being a Democratic paper or a liberal paper or a conservative paper or an ideological paper -- we're an independent paper," he said. "We're not going to be a small L liberal paper. We're not going to bind ourselves to a party or ideology in anything."
It is dangerous business for the editorial page of a major daily will lurch into knee-jerk radicalism, turning the editorial page of a newspaper which seeks respectability into an acknowledged slop pit for the rabid left. It certainly would alienate the working class readers in Chicago as well as all but the hardcore, lunatic fringe. I hope publisher Cruickshank frightened the unprofessional Ms. Reed within the edge of her employment.
She wrote this on Sunday:
I have no intention of directing this paper down some partisan path. We are an independent paper; we're just going to be more passionate in our views and more challenging in our opinions. We represent Chicagoans' interest, the people who work hard and pay taxes and don't want to see their money go to corrupt politicians or bloated county programs.
So she was unable to turn the Sun-Times into a lefty fiefdom for sociopathic scribblers. I do hope she hadn't yet signed Ted Rall to a contract. And I hope she hasn't tried to tear up Bob Novak's.
If the Sun Times is to survive in these days of declining revenues for dailies, terminating Nikki Cheryl Reed's contract immediately would be a positive step toward survival for the Sun Times. She has proven that she has the will and thus the potential to be dangerous, that she's perhaps one event away from sliding off the edge. Perhaps she can sign up with Firedoglake or some other such outlet where her esoteric worldview can be put to some use.
« Do Nothing Dem Congress Slow-Bleeding US Auto Industry — Comments (46) | John Murtha: Posting On The Pork Pony — Comments (0) »
The Chicago Sun-Times avoids an ugly lurch to the left 13 Comments (0 topical, 13 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
A lonely voice for "progressivism, justice, equality", speaking truth to power, combating racism, saving the planet while speeding in your SUV, fighting greed, and admiring yourself in the mirror, here she stands, the Hero!
Where's the barf bag?
"a man's admiration for absolute government is proportinate to the contempt he feels for those around him". Tocqueville
That anybody could ever refer to the "Chicago Tribune" as "-- that Republican, George Bush-touting paper over on moneyed Michigan Avenue" tells me she's got to get off the LSD at breakfast time. Both rags are so PC and leftist I can barely read them.
but they've dropped Mark Steyn's column from the Sunday editoral page.
I know it can be easier to assume that every editor who reveals leftist tendencies is a villian ready to pounce on poor unsuspecting readers, but I think you are being far too melodramatic on this one, Mark, and that you ignore vital context.
First, until recently, the Sun-Times, for better or worse, was really known as the city's liberal, working class paper. Liberal + working class in Chicago usually translates into a creature more conservative than your average affluent lakefront liberal, and, of course, your average grad student in California. Given that the sociapathic leftist fringe is served by at least one, if not two, publications in Chicago, I would doubt the S-T would be making a serious play for that readership, or would really "alienate" the working class, as you seem to fear. I think Reed meant that the ST merely would go a bit more left of center in order to return to the paper's percieved roots. The ST went right-of-center perhaps a decade ago, though my date may be off.
This brings up the second issue: Branding. The Chicago Tribune, rightly or wrongly, is seen as a paper that caters to the relatively well-off, and often Republican, residents of such suburban counties as DuPage and Lake, as well as the more affluent areas of Cook County, especially the northern and northwestern parts. The Sun-Times has struggled with branding in the last 4-5 years, and now that it tries to rid itself of some management stain (see: Conrad Black trial), it sees a chance for re-branding by emphasizing its "liberal, working class" roots. Labor just mounted an impressive election effort in Chicago tied to the so-called living wage ordinance, and the working class feels energetic, at least for the time being. Reed's words, I think, speak more to an opportunity to redefine the paper to the large potential working class readership, rather than some nefarious plot to celebrate the likes of Pelosi and Cindy Sheehan, or promote Code Pink everyday.
...is NOT a defeatist lefty Democrat who wants al-Qaeda in Iraq to be victorious because we leave early. I'm not stupid enough to believe that our surrender is any path to peace. Helplessness and surrender in the face of terrorism is not a path to peace--it's suicide. Peace for us follows our victory--not theirs.
...then she's a monumentally bad writer - not a great attribute for someone who is supposedly in the newspaper business.
I suspect she's actually a good writer who said exactly what she meant. When the parrot on her shoulder told her to write, "Bush's war", it told me everything I need to know about Reed's inability to transcend BDS and think for herself.
--
"We want great men who, when fortune frowns, will not be discouraged." - Colonel Henry Knox
was not a all as reasoned as you portray it. The various factors you illustrate are understood, but she was spitting the Bush-this and Bush-that garbage which is associated with the fringe. (The use of the term "Bush's war" is a clear sign of that illness.) Her willingness to use such overthetop rhetoric put the lie to her subsequent vow that they'll eventually "find our center."
There is an argument that the war in Iraq is, in fact, "Bush's war." There is an argument that the policies of President Clinton, in more ways than one, brought us 9-11. Fine to both. If you plan to make either on your editorial page with passionate, fiery prose, you have identified yourself and your page as either hardcore left or Ann Coulter. (It does not have the same effect, though, if you only run columns by Coulter or whats-her-name-from-the-NYT.)
but I see nothing in Reed's comments to indicate, 1) She was merely trying to do anything other than bring the ST back to its percieved roots; and 2) Take more editorial page positions that, frankly, increasing numbers of Americans have apparently come to agree with in the last 2-3 years. You try to make the case that Reed is far outside the mainstream with her remarks, and that is on some dim liberal plot, but your evidence is lacking.
At worst, I see a writer (Reed) failing to be clear enough to please everyone, including out-of-town media observers who see a liberal media plot but fail to address the context of her remarks regarding the future tone of the ST editorial page. You seem to think the ST will chase a publication such as the Chicago Reader for the leftist fringe.
Full disclosure: I've never bought into the whole liberal media boogeyman theory of the press in any case, at least not as expressed by you and a few others here.
Let's set aside placing Ann Coulter in the same sphere as a, let's say, Mike Savage for a moment. There is a reasonable argument to be be made against Ann (though I don't subscribe to it).
The contention that Clinton's Policies (or lack thereof) led in no small part to 9/11 seems irrefutable. I wouldn't claim (as radical lefties do) that a president was behind a conspiracy to bring down our government through causing 9/11, but consider the following:
> Clinton had opportunities to capture Bin Laden through the offers of foreign entities and Clinton said no.
> Clinton was aware that Bin Laden was the force behind WTC bombing one, the Cole incident, Kobar Towers, Mogadishu, and mutliple assasinations of US State personel over seas.
> Clinton's administration treated terrorism as a legal issue, not as a military issue, and also magnified existing policies that prevented US Agencies from communicating with other to prevent such acts.
> Clinton also ignored military sources asking for permission to move on Bin Laden (either to capture or kill) by continuing to golf while Berger tried desperatly to get an answer.
> Clinton's answer to terror strikes was often to fire a missle at an empty camp in Afghanistan or a pharmacutical company in Africa.
Now I'm not saying that Clinton did these things to purposefuly endanger the US. I'm just not the lefty, conspiracy thinking, radical hater that our "friends" on the left are. But Mark, isn't it reasonable to say that (even unintentionaly) our previous president paved the way for such a strike against our country?
Or did I misread you?
"Greater is an army of sheep led by a lion, than an army of lions led by a sheep" - Defoe
The hardcore left is First and Main, Nutcase City. Ann, while certainly right, is never irrational. You do yourself a disservice by equating her as such.
Envisioning when all that is Left is the Right.
With the linked article ending:
Sunday, the paper introduced a new slogan for the editorial pages: "A progressive, independent voice for the city that works."
I doubt the paper has avoided a lurch to the left. Progressive being the current euphemism for lunatic moonbat fringe since the general populous has already come to understand that at least within the Democratic and MSM sphere, that is what liberal means.
I think her previously open statement set off a firestorm that her fellow ideologues want to quench, but I think they still want to take the paper in the same direction, just with less blowback.
Are indeed usually much more conservative than your average Bostonian. Mayor Daley is good friends with GWB, and indeed Chicago tends to be more working class , rugged type of liberal, and socially conservative, given the city's strong Catholic and Christian community. I know, because I was a Chicago liberal before I went to college adn realized I was a conservative in the wrong party. But the S-T has long been the paper of the Left in Chicago, with the Tribune being right of center. Having said that, the Chicago S-T is far less left than say, the NYT or the LA Times. Generally the paper has spent just as much time blasting away at Democrats as well. Politics is ugly and corrupt in Chicago, but because its so saturated with Democrats it tends to have as many "blue dogs" as they do bleeding hearts. My only problem with it is that they're all gun grabbers, which is really where the liberal line is drawn in Chicago. My chicago Democratic friends are with me on God,and gays, but genreally not guns. (Although I've met plenty of proGWOT Dems in Chicago as well.) All in all, Illinois is more purple than its given credit for, since we do have a history of electing Republican governors of the state, which would have happened again if Judy Baar Topinka wasn't a RINO. I foresee when the Obama Phenomenom cools, Illinois will go back to being in play.
"We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren't punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That's war. And this is war."-Ann Coulter Thompson/Coulter 08
"The Tribune is just a mouthpiece for the current administration. The Sun Times is the only choice for Chicagoans who want to received unbiased news."