MEDIA WATCH: Why was a photo of Bill Daley illustrating a story about remarks by Michael Brunson?
Every now and then, the Chicago Sun-Times plunges its readers through the Looking Glass and into a world where the Mad Hatter would be right at home. Between the early editions (on line) of the Sun-Times story about the September 25, 2012 meeting of the Chicago Board of Education, the Sun-Times managed to substitute a photograph of a Black man who did speak to the Board with a photograph of a white guy who wasn't even at the Board meeting.
By the time the Sun-Times published the story about Michael Brunson's comments at the September 25, 2012 meeting of the Chicago Board of Education, the photograph illustrating the story was of Bill Daley, who followed Rahm Emanuel into the White House as "Chief of Staff." But Daley was not at the September 25, 2012 meeting of the Chicago Board of Education. In fact, Bill Daley has never attended a meeting of the Chicago Board of Education. Without explanation or apology.
To be precise.
At the September 25, 2012 meeting of the Board, Chicago Teachers Union Recording Secretary Michael Brunson spoke and suggested that the two sides, after months of acrimonious negotiations and a seven-day strike, should calm down and work together. That was the story It went along with the story that Brunson had asked for the school closing list — commonly known among union leaders as the "Hit List" and Board President David Vitale said that no such list existed while the guy who had been compiling the Little List that Wasnt' There ("Portfolio" Chieftain Oliver Sicat) slumped down in his seat behind the railing, not perking up until it became clear that nobody was going to blow the whistle (yet) about Sicat's latest Hit List.
That's what happened.
But by the print editions of the morning of September 26, there was a huge picture of Bill Daley, the banker who took Rahm Emanuel's spot as White House "Chief of Staff" with the story about Brunson's comments. Daley wasn't there, and it is to this day unclear what he was doing barging into the story.
Except that the Sun-Times is owned by a bunch of Hedge Fund guys close to Rahm, and that's how the "news" comes to exist in Chicago in 2012. The white guy's picture is inserted into a story about something said by the Black guy (who is not in any picture, despite the fact that the Sun-Times had two reporters there when the actual story took place).
By: Bob Busch
1,000 words from the 11th Ward
Mistake my eye. That picture was deliberate. I think the 11th ward has had enough of Mr Emanuel.