MEDIA WATCH: Walter's perspective calls out one of Rahm's lies... Will corporate media follow up on all those Rahm's been circulating for the past 17 months?
First, the good news. Then the rest. The good news is that some of the personalities in Chicago's corporate media (especially the radio and TV personalities) are finally listening to what the teachers — and the leaders of the Chicago Teachers Union — are saying. Maybe if you want to get heard in this town on TV over the din of plutocratic talking points and other babble, all you have to do is mobilize 10,000 people (May 23) and more than 18,000 people (Labor Day, September 2) like the Chicago Teachers Union and its allies have now done. Too bad that most poor people in this town get ignored, while the lies of wealth and power (viz, most of what comes from the mouth of our mayor and his minions) get amplified.
Walter Jacobson caught Rahm Emanuel in one of the thousand of so lies he's told about public education and teachers since returning to Chicago and becoming mayor (inauguration, May 2011), but most of the media coverage of Rahm in the corporate media, especially TV, has been adulatory — "in the tank" as reporters usually call it. Above, one of Rahm's scams on December 16, 2011 was an appearance at the Noble Street Charter Schools "Pritzker Campus" to promote the fraudulent claims that "Noble" was doing better than any other "non selective enrollment high school" in Chicago. The actual truth has been that Noble Street does a bit of selectivity in its recruiting, but is ruthless in its "de-selecting" of students who are going to bring its numbers "down." The result is that every year since Noble Street began more than a decade ago, kids have been kicked out (er., counseled out) of the Noble Street schools and dumped back into the general high schools. At first, when Michael Milkie was beginning his scam (worthy of Enron's corporate accounting tricks, but still not at that level of scandal), Wells High School was the only one getting the kids thrown in Milkie's Dumpster. Over time, as the "Noble Network" expanded, the kids were showing up every January at a half dozen schools. Last year, Substance heard from Wells, Kelvyn Park, North Grand and Steinmetz — all of which received kids who had been dumped by the "Noble" miracle Rahm's been touting. We'll keep our readers posted if and when Chicago's corporate media reports this bookkeeping trick, one of the oldest in the repertoire of charter school scams. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt. The rest of the news is that it will still be an uphill battle the next month or so for the facts to get sorted from the static and the attacks. As the union has been saying, "If you didn't hear it from CTU*, it's not true..." (*we add, "...or from Substance...".).
But once upon a time Walter Jacobson was close to enough teachers that he would check before he said anything about the teachers, the union, or the schools. For a time recently, he wasn't as accurate, but maybe he's getting back to the old form that people in the business — and the public — respected.
On September 3, 2012, Walter's Perspective, back on Channel 2, reminded us of the "old days." (They may not have been as good as some dream, but with three times as many reporters in the streets of Chicago — and the Defender and City New Bureau still in operation — the rules and lies of the rich and powerful were still more likely to be called out as the lies they were than in 2012.
Here is what Walter said:
"In the wide wide world of whoppers, the big big fibs of politics, Mayor Rahm Emanuel has just gone way way over the top — telling us he’s leaving the Democratic National Convention early to come home to host a party, because President Barack has asked him to host it, for some Democrats in Chicago to watch the convention on TV.
"Our famous mayor is cutting short his Rahmbo role at the convention; his big Rahmbo splash in Charlotte to host a little TV party in Chicago, because the president has asked him to?
"That’s what he says, and his press office says to believe him.
"Sorry, sir. No way.
"My guess is you told the president you have to get to Chicago to avoid a disaster in the public schools, that it’s better for you to prevent a strike in Chicago than to strike a pose in Charlotte.
"That, your honor is the truth. Why’s it so hard for you to tell it?..."
Comments:
By: Ann Cata
Walter Jacobsen and the need for reporters with ...
Walter and Bill were the two best anchors at CBS, Channel 2 in Chicago for years. Walter would always be critical and "say it like it is," in so many of his Perspectives. Substance News is correct. It took 10,000 teachers in red in May and then another 15,000 on Labor Day to set the record straight.
Public Education in Chicago is going via the way of the dinosaur if King Rahm gets his way. He wants to close another 100 schools, open up more charters (thanks to the Gates Foundations and their Millions earmarked for charters) and reduce the Chicago Teachers Union into nothingness. BUT, the educators, community organizers, parents and students have had enough of being pawns in this game of PRIVITIZATION OF PUBLIC EDUCATION TO MAKE THE RICH RICHER AT THE EXPENSE OF THEIR CHILDREN. It's about time some new reporter got some BALLS and spoke up against King Rahm and his continued lies. Just wish there were more reporters in the media that could see the forest beyond the trees.
By: Seth Leeds
Finding Substance news in a CPS bldg on a CPS computer
1. google substance news and george's name comes up second.
2. click on george's name on any article
3. read the article
or
4. click on home
5. voila! you can read substance!!!