So I was concerned when I encountered this blog on the RedEye Website:

Feh.

I know that “word on the street” is kinda a generic term. But you would have thought a media behemoth the the Chicago Tribume might have done , I dunno, a GOOGLE SEARCH before naming this thing. Perhaps they did, but thought “Pft! What’s a lightweight like the Journal Star going to do? Let ‘em sue.”

Hmmm … now that I think about it, it does kinda suck that the Journal Star would name a weekly column about local politics “Word on the Street” when there’s been a newspaper in Peoria for decades called the “Word.” Well, first, it was “West Bluff Word,” but now it’s called “The Community Word.”

So, I guess the PJS wouldn’t have a leg to stand on if they complain to the Chicago Tribune, after all.

But I wouldn’t advise Word publisher Debbie Adlof to sue the Journal Star. She might win and end up owning the damn thing. With shares selling for 6 cents each, that’s not a good thing.

Kass isn’t worthy of rinsing out Royko’s bear glass. Sure, Kass has done some great work on the corrupt administration of Mayor Richard M. Daley. It resembles the work Royko did on Daley’s father, the legendary “Boss” Richard J. Daley. But the resemblance is superficial. Royko didn’t pick sides. He didn’t consider it his job to protect Daley’s foes.

Kass, by contrast, once wrote a column castigating downstate voters for preferring John Schmidt over Lisa Madigan in the Democratic primary race for Illinois attorney general. Sure, Lisa is the daughter of Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan. It doesn’t matter that Madigan has been pulling strings to get his daughter elected over a man with tons of legal experience. These silly fools, Kass said, don’t realize that Schmidt is backed the evil Daley administration, and Madigan is Daley’s rival for power. Anyone who gets in Daley way can’t be all bad.

Kass seems to using his column to do Lisa Madigan’s dirty work.

Let’s look at one story that has come out about Lisa Madigan and her father in recent months. It was revealed that the sons of a judge who got favors from Madigan wrote large checks to the Lisa Madigan campaign. One of these sons is a producer of “white power” music. Kass, the Trib’s page 2 columnist, did not write about this page one story. Royko would have been all over it.

On Friday, Kass’s column was about the role of Lisa Madigan’s Republican opponent, Joe Birkett, in the Rolando Cruz prosecution, and Birkett’s support of attorneys charged with obstruction of justice and conspiracy. For those who don’t know, Cruz was tried three times the 1983 murder of 10-year-old Jeanine Nicarico of Naperville, Ill. While Cruz was on death row, another man confessed to doing the crime alone and DNA evidence backed up that confession. Birkett fought to keep Cruse on death row despite the overwhelming evidence of another man’s guilt.

There is nothing wrong about writing about Birkett’s behavior. I question why Kass writes about Birkett’s dirty laundry, but not about the fascinating stuff happening in the Lisa Madigan campaign. It’s a sin of omission.

I find it amazing that Kass gets away with this unethical and obvious favoritism, but Bob Greene got shown the door because of his sex life. Which hurts readers more, columnists carrying water for the politicians they favor, or a columnist having consensual sex with a non-politician they wrote about exactly once?

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A spokesman for the bureau’s Chicago office said agents did not give the now-disgraced former Chicago Tribune columnist special treatment because of any influence he may have had as a media star.

So who was accusing Greene of using influence with the FBI? The Sun-Times story doesn’t name names. But Green’s detractors — many of them journalists at rival publication who lack Greene’s celebrity or commercial success — have been openly speculating that Greene sent the FBI after this woman as a way to intimidate her. No so says the FBI:

“What influence?” Special Agent Ross Rice quipped to a reporter. “You guys would probably get less response from us. No offense.”

None taken.

If the there serious allegations that Greene exercised influence, that the Sun-Times and the Tribune should have reported it, not speculated about it in a story. If the Tribune knows, and it should, it has an obligation to report it. But the Tribune gave up the ghost on the public’s right to know a long time ago by keeping important details about this case from the public. The Sun-Times isn’t distinguishing itself with its reporting about it either, preferring to let columnist Neil Steinberg, who has his own ethical problems, speak for the paper. Steinberg, in a Salon.com article, accused Greene of scouring “trailer-parks” to get information on child abuse cases. It is a racist and class-based slur on child abuse victims that would probably lead to Steinberg’s departure from the Sun-Times if more Chicago residents were aware of it. Steinberg also wrote the anonymous “Bob Watch” column in the Chicago Reader than regularly criticized Greene.

Fornek’s story has objectivity problems that a fresh-out-of-college copy editor should have caught. Fornek refers to Greene as a “now-disgraced former Chicago Tribune columnist.” That Greene is a former columnist for the Trib is a matter if fact. The exact details of the incident that led to the departure are a matter of conjecture, thanks to his and the Tribune’s reticence to reveal all the details. Whether Greene is “disgraced” is a matter of opinion, and opinion has no place in a news story. Well, it has no place in most newspapers. I have learned over the years that small newspapers tend to take objectivity more seriously than big city papers.

The Trib’s Crystal Yednak and Jim Kirk double-teamed to write a very matter-of-fact article about the same subject. The story ended with prepared quotes from publisher Scott Smith that repeat the company line that Greene’s firing had nothing to do with sex, but about an ethics violation. It is a contention that is getting harder and harder to believe as more details are revealed. An incident of consensual sex with a person above the age of consent with a person who was the subject of a column ten years ago is, by itself, an ethical violation so serious, it required termination of employment. It just doesn’t pass the smell test and there isn’t any reporter worth a byline who believes this is the whole story.

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