Is Kirk obnoxious jerk toward his staff? Maybe Chicago Tribune will tell us

The Chicago Tribune did wind up publishing a story in their not-quite-as-fat-as-they-used-to-be Sunday editions about Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., but not the one that many people were led to expect.

KIRK: Killed criticism? Or delayed it?

For what the newspaper wound up publishing buried on Page 14 of the front section was an Associated Press story that turned up in other newspapers across the state – one about how Kirk’s campaign manager engaged in tactics meant to cut off an anticipated Tribune story.

IF WE’RE TO believe the Kirk people, the Tribune was threatening to expose a story that would show how obnoxious and bordering-on-tyrannical the senator could be toward his staff.

Supposedly, he verbally harassed four people who worked for him. Which led the Kirk people to come up with affidavits from those staffers saying they never said the things that the Tribune was supposedly going to report they said about their boss.

Kirk people even went so far as to accuse a Tribune reporter of harassing the senator’s 79-year-old mother in efforts to gather information for this story that we have yet to see.

As it turned out, the Kirk people turned to the Capitol Fax newsletter, which on Friday published details provided by Kirk meant to undermine the story and portray it as some sort of personal vendetta by a particular reporter (whom I must admit to not knowing personally, even though there are some Chicago Tribune people whom I do know).

THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES published their own account – one that included a response by Chicago Tribune management that basically said they stood by their reporter’s reporting without elaborating further.

That caused the Associated Press to pick up on the Kirk peoples’ tactic and make it news – which is what the Tribune published on Sunday.

I don’t know how odd this particular tactic ought to be regarded as – because it isn’t odd for someone to try to undermine a story they have concerns about.

Story on hold? Or spiked?

During my time as a reporter-type person, I have had enough political people try to intimidate me into not writing something (a bit of advice to those who want to bully, it usually motivates me all the more to write something). Or maybe they scream to my editor in hopes she/he will give them what they want in order to make the rant go away!

IT ALSO ISN’T odd for someone to want to hurt a news media outlet with a potential story by peddling it somewhere else – usually somewhere where they think it will be written up more sympathetically.

Meaning the person who had hoped for some sort of “exclusive” story winds up having that ego-perk undermined.

Kirk people said they timed their response out of the belief that this “story” would be in the Tribune on Sunday – which it wasn’t. Although for all I know, it may wind up in the Monday paper and you may have read it before you even saw this commentary.

Personally, the tactic strikes me as being petty – and probably reflects poorly on the Kirk people. Because coming up with that many statements from people saying they didn’t say what the newspaper may have said they said makes me wonder if they bullied their staff into “taking back” their thoughts.

WHICH MAY WELL play into the theme of the alleged story (I haven’t seen it yet, so maybe it doesn’t exist).

Could this be from someone who just wants to garner support from those people who will believe anything they’re told – so long as it starts out as an Internet rant? Which usually is the path toward collecting information that is total junk!

My own opinion is that a story claiming a political person engages in tyrannical behavior isn’t that newsworthy – most people who run for office have over-bloated egos and think (on a certain level) that no one ought to be questioning them. It seems to me to be more the material for an item that the Chicago Sun-Times' Michael Sneed would write.

But after reading how much the Kirk people don’t us to read this, it makes me (and I suspect many others) want to see the end result to figure out for ourselves what the big deal was.

  -30-

Change isn’t always for the better, or worse. It just sometimes happens

The faces of the two major metro newspapers that are the skeleton of much of the information we get in the Chicago area are on the verge of changing significantly in coming months, and I’m trying to figure out if it’s evolution – or degradation.

The kind of people who are all too eager to see newspapers wither away because they think the Internet will offer sufficient replacement for information are enjoying this – they want to believe it is evidence that the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times will soon die off.

THEY’LL ALSO CLAIM that this is all natural in the way that people change with the passage of time – accept it!

But I can’t help but think many people don’t really get what is happening with the changes; the fact that the Chicago Tribune will drop use of the Associated Press and that the Chicago Sun-Times plans to have all the editors of its suburban newspaper publications centrally located on the banks of the Chicago River.

Personally, I’m not bothered by the fact that the Tribune is dropping a wire service – although I’ll be the first to admit that my personal bias (I’m a former United Press International newsperson and bureau manager who thinks that AP is overrated) may be coming into play.

Many newspapers are overly-reliant on AP wire copy to fill their pages. Yet the Tribune is the newspaper that has the largest (by far) staff to write stories, and also subscribes to so many other wire services that they’re still going to have a plethora of copy to pick from when putting a paper together.

I’M SURE THE massive AP ego that thinks it is all important is hurt. But I honestly don’t see the loss. In fact, the part of this move that I don’t comprehend is that the Los Angeles Times (also a Tribune Co. newspaper) feels the need to keep the wire service – even though they use it less than the Chicago Tribune does.

So I don’t believe all the reaction that has arisen on the Internet to this move – the idea that the Tribune will be sold off to a new owner who will immediately renew a subscription.

I fully expect that whoever owns the newspaper in the future will see that the pages get filled without all those wire service bugs (ie., AP) in the paper, and will see the expense as one that could be done away with.

If anything, it is the other move that I find more troublesome – the restructuring of the Sun-Times and all of its sister newspapers. Although I concede that it really does nothing more than take the actions of recent years to the next step.

FOR THE SUN-TIMES and the suburban newspapers have been sharing stories to the point where the bulk of the Sun-Times these days is filled with suburban briefs. Those suburban publications have the feel of suburban-zoned editions of the Sun-Times.

It’s like we don’t have to read anything like the Post-Tribune of Merrillville, Ind., or the Herald News of Joliet because if they come up with a worthwhile story, it will run in the Chicago Sun-Times as well.

Now, the editors of those suburban papers will be working out of the Sun-Times offices downtown. The reporters will still be in the suburbs, but there won’t be newsrooms. A lot of suburban reporters are going to feel incredibly isolated from their publications – which never does any good.

It all has the feel of the Chicago Sun-Times using its suburban publications (some of which have a century-plus of history in their communities) to prop itself up – such as trying to perpetuate the nonsense that the Sun-Times has a larger circulation figure than the Tribune.

PERSONALLY, IT FEELS like a mismatch and that the assets being shifted to downtown will wind up not fitting in.

Of course, considering how Sun-Times leadership always likes to talk about the need to shift to an emphasis on digital sources for information, perhaps they’re not really concerned about the mish-mash they’re going to create.

Because I suspect that when it comes to news media organizations, there are too many people who look to Newsweek – which published its last edition, but plans to continue to exist as a website – and are trying to think happy thoughts.

I wonder how long such a website can continue. Just as I’m curious to see how long the DNA Info and Reboot Illinois websites can survive economically – even if they do manage to create worthwhile news reporting.

THE SAD PART is that too many people don’t realize how inferior, or third-hand, the information is that they’re getting free-of-charge from other websites that don’t have their own newsgathering resources.

Let’s not forget the Chicago News Cooperative, which did very high-quality reporting and commentary during its two-plus years of existence – only to have it wither away because people weren’t willing to pay what it was worth.

  -30-