Chicago Tribune Journalism Offshoring Scandal Ends

-By Warner Todd Huston

For months the Chicago Tribune has been suffering the slings and arrows of local critics for having hired a web-based company called Journatic (pronounced Jer-naa-tik) to write many of its small, “hyper local” stories for its Trib Local newspapers.

Critics lambasted the stories after it was discovered they were written by writers in the Philippines for 35 cents per piece — people that had never even heard of the Chicago suburbs they were writing about. Another big reason the Trib was so mercilessly mocked is because the stories often carried fake bylines with American names instead of the names of the Filipino writers that really wrote them.

It seemed to be a matter of integrity, to be sure. Stories written by foreigners but with fake American bylines seemed too much like calling a computer troubleshooting call-center in India and getting a thick-accented phone tech claiming to be “Linda in Omaha.”
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Chicago Tribune Journalism Offshoring Scandal Ends”


Publius Now on Chicago Tribune’s ChicagoNow blog Network

-By Warner Todd Huston

As of today, the Chicago Tribune has agreed to include my blogging among its growing network of Chicago area bloggers. It will be Publius Forum on ChicagoNow.com!

I know, I know, here I beat up on the Old Media nearly every day yet here is one of the nation’s biggest newspapers is adding me to its online news community!

Hilarious, I think!

So, look for Warner Todd Huston (that’s ME folks) on the Chicago Tribune’s ChicagoNow.com network.

http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/publius-forum/


Chgo Trib Wants ‘Reform,’ Yet Endorses Machine Candidates

-By Warner Todd Huston

On Dec. 27th, the Chicago Tribune sternly scolded our Illinois political class saying that we need “reform” in Illinois. The Trib announced that with all the past corruption they’d had “enough.” And they promised to launch a “pre-primary push to elect better” politicians.

Well, who could disagree with that? Illinois has one of the most corrupt, most indebted, least transparent, most inbred political scene in the country. It is rife with corruption on both sides of the political divide and we are ripe for change. So, yes, we all can agree with the Chicago Tribune that we need to clean up this political cesspool. The “Chicago Way” that has now invaded Washington D.C. should be eliminated back here at home.

So, hear, hear, Chicago Tribune. We agree. You are a fast friend to the weak and downtrodden. A champion of the common man. A paragon of reform, etc., etc.

Yep, all that horn tootin’ was great, Trib. So, let’s see how you did with picking candidates to endorse
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Chgo Trib Wants ‘Reform,’ Yet Endorses Machine Candidates”


Chgo Trib: Bush Was as ‘Socialist’ as Obama

-By Warner Todd Huston

In another Obama loving column, Chicago Tribune writer Steve Chapman took pains to assure readers that Barack Obama is no socialist, calling the charge a “fabrication.” To prove that Obama’s attempted take over of the nation’s healthcare and his actual take over of the financial and auto sectors isn’t a step toward socialism, Chapman countered that President Bush, “a conservative hero,” did it too.

Obama, it’s true, has done things that involve enlarging government — bailing out banks, taking over General Motors, proposing a “public option” for health insurance and spending $787 billion to stimulate the economy.

But it was George W. Bush, a conservative hero, who tossed a federal lifeline to financial institutions and automakers, as well as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. He also signed the 2008 stimulus package, which was billed as a tax cut but was nothing more than a handout of $168 billion the government didn’t have.

It is amazing to compare the Bush bailout package to Obama’s policy of actually taking possession of business by government as if they were one and the same. But even more ridiculous is to claim that Bush is a “conservative hero” in the context of bail-outs and finances as if it were a true statement.
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Chgo Trib: Bush Was as ‘Socialist’ as Obama”


Old Media’s Shoddy Work

-By Warner Todd Huston

This is just a small example of the shoddy work seen in the Old Media, but the Chicago Tribune uncorked an amusing bit of sloppy writing today in a story about Obama’s White House looking to change the way coffee and water is served there.

After regaling us about new coffee cups Obama’s administration wants to buy, the Bush cups not being sufficient, Sarah Gantz writing for the Trib unleashes this one (my bold):

The cold-drink equivalent of coffee at White House meetings has traditionally been bottled water. But the practice of distributing individual bottles is being phased out for a less wasteful method of water consumption.

“We’re also taking steps to minimize the use of plastic bottles,” Glunz said, by replacing the plastic with pitchers and cups.

Traditionally been bottled water? What “tradition” are we talking about? The practice of one president, and just the last one at that?

Naturally we all remember when Abe Lincoln tried to get rid of the plastic water bottles. The whole establishment was in an uproar. After all, George Washington himself started that tradition of drinking water in plastic bottles.

“Traditionally,” indeed.

Chi.Trib: Labeling One Group ‘Conservative’ But Not IDing the Liberal One

-By Warner Todd Huston

We have here a classic case of liberal bias in the Old Media. It isn’t as dramatic as may others that we have seen since The One came onto the national scene, but it is the sort of bias that has been endemic in the Old Media for a very long time. In a February 1 story in the Chicago Tribune, we find the old trick of naming a think tank as a source, but not mentioning that it is a liberal think tank, yet also citing a second group that is, however, labeled as a “conservative” think tank.

This sort of bias is very common in the Old Media. How it works is that the liberal think tank is cited as a source for some statistic or claim but that think tank is not labeled as a liberal group. This way the reader sees the liberal group’s advice or stats as unbiased or straight. Then the media will give a counter claim by the conservative think tank. But the conservative group is labeled as a conservative think tank so that the reader is led to be wary of that group’s stats or advice because they are biased.

In this way, the Old Media outlet in question can claim they’ve been “balanced” and were giving “both sides” of the story while still leaning the story to the left and attempting to discredit the right. It’s a typical smoke screen of leftward bias that is an old stand by for the liberal media establishment.

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Chicago Tribune Stopped Working With Prosecutors, Forced Arrest of Ill. Gov. Too Early

-By Warner Todd Huston

Looks like we can possibly thank our meddling media for another possibly bungled investigation, this time over the selling of Barack Obama’s Senate seat by Illinois Governor Rod Blagojavich. According to the Wall Street Journal, the Chicago Tribune was working with Fitzgerald’s office on the investigation but decided to stop doing so in favor of printing the sensational story they were sitting on. This forced the arrest early so that the paper wouldn’t blow the whole investigation.

The story everyone thought they knew was that Fitzgerald moved when he did to stop a crime about to be committed. But, the WSJ reports that this isn’t the case. Apparently the WSJ found that members of Fitzgerald’s team wanted to let things roll for a little while longer so that they could catch the actual selling of the Senate seat with Governor Blagojevich, his facilitators and who ever was going to try to buy the seat all on the tape at once. But, the Chicago Tribune informed the prosecutors that they wouldn’t wait any longer to put off publishing their story on the investigation. Once the Trib reported on the investigation, it was over for Fitzgerald and his folks for the investigative phase of the case.

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Chgo Trib: ‘Higher’ Home Foreclosures Report Ignores Most Paying Mortgages Just Fine

-By Warner Todd Huston

This is the kind of sensationalistic reporting that just makes all “news” agencies look like scaremongers. A recent Chicago Tribune report on homes in foreclosure in Illinois focuses on “higher” rates and says alarming things like, “Illinois foreclosures were up 49.55 percent.” These numbers the Trib bandies about seem shocking. Up 49.55 percent? WOW! But this same report doesn’t quite report the whole truth. The fact is that 9 some percent of Illinois homeowners are paying their mortgages just fine and are not in foreclosure. With a 90 some percent success rate, these “higher” rates of foreclosures seems to be no story at all.

At least the headline is honest — for a change. The brief report is titled “1 in 510 Illinois homes in foreclosure.” One in five hundred is a drop in the bucket, it is sure. But, the story itself seems to try for sensationalistic, scare numbers instead of fully fleshing out the factual news here.

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Chgo Trib: Internet Makes Politics ‘Obnoxious’

-By Warner Todd Huston

The dead tree media, the dinosaur media, the Old Media has spoken. It’s officially worse than ever! The Chicago Tribune has pronounced political discourse worse than ever before and it’s all because of that “obnoxious” Internet. So, you folks reading this should know that the Trib blames these rancorous times on you. Of course, what the Trib and its “experts” suffer from is My-Lifeitis, that well known sickness that afflicts those that imagine that today is worse than it’s ever been, that only in their lifetimes have things become so bad. In other words, they are historically illiterate.

Now, before I get into the Trib’s somewhat blinkered analysis of today’s political climate — or as the Tribune prosaically says, the “more polarized political environment” — I have to ask one thing of the Trib: Are you guys just now noticing that the Internet tends to stir the pot? Where have you been the last ten years?

Now, that said, let’s dive into this silly story.

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