I had a very long moment of déjà vu when I saw the front page of yesterday’s Trib with a giant article (including giant photo) about a new West Side campus for Chicago State University.
Then I remembered that I wrote about that more than two months ago. And again six weeks ago.
Memo to the Trib: Splashing a two-month-old clip job on the front page under a “Tribune Watchdog” hammer is a less than compelling advertisement of your investigative chops.
Save for a hop and skip through meeting minutes from 18 months ago (kudos for finding those on CSU’s site, by the way), the Trib’s article presents nothing new. Worse, it's got no news hook. The $40 million for a West Side CSU was fresh in mid-July when Gov. Pat Quinn signed a massive capital bill that included the funds. Yesterday, not so fresh.
Perhaps the frisky canines at the Trib would be better served by finding their own stories instead of rehashing ours. Until then, feel free to check us out any time you're wondering what the Trib will be investigating in November.
Discuss
THOMAS WESTGARD, 09-01-2009
What makes it really galling is that these big corporations have lobbyists in Washington, asking for federal tax dollars. The claimed justification is their investigative reporting, which of course is limited and shoddy. Look at Fran Spielman's reporting for the last two weeks in the Sun-Times on the Olympics - every second story reads like a press release from Daley himself, which is exactly what I think is happening. These big papers are too cozy and too tightly integrated with the other big powers that be, the ones they're supposedly watchdogging.
GEOFF DOUGHERTY, 09-01-2009
Amen, Thomas.
M SHAP, 09-01-2009
You beat the Tribune, put together a solid story, and should be happy about that. But I have trouble following you when you seem to say that because you got to it first, the Tribune should cease from publishing their own story if they can't dig up a new wrinkle? While credit is certainly due (and I find it reprehensible when reporters take credit for work that isn't theirs) since you broke the story and they're rehashing the details, but I hope you're not advocating that they hang their heads having been beaten and don't inform their readers about the issue.
PETER SACHS, 09-01-2009
M Shap:
Absolutely not. It's one thing to report on the same story and end up with a similar result if the stories are written at the same time -- say, if the Tribune covered the capital bill two days after the fact.
But their story suggests nothing has happened in the last six weeks, when in fact Hendon has been privately discussing possible locations for the new campus. The Tribune could have focused on issues related to how (if at all) the public is being involved in that selection process. That's what we'd call a second- or third-day story that takes a deeper look at the issues. But instead, the Tribune was content to, for the most part, rehash old news.
LOU GRANT, 09-02-2009
My thoughts on this here: http://www.chitowndailynews.org/blogs/Media_Insider/Sachs_story_could_have_used_pictures_CTDN_site_needs_more_photogs,32082