Walking on ironic sunshine
Monday, Mar 16, 2009 - Posted by Rich Miller
* All of these articles and editorials are running in conjunction with “Sunshine Week”…
* Quinn promises more openness in state government
* Illinois ranks 32nd in public info on Internet
* All governments flourish in the light
* Survey: Illinois behind the times in making info available online
* Government can create confidence with greater transparency
* Palmyra couple: Trustees don’t play by rules
The problem? Not a single one of them mentions that “Sunshine Week” is being sponsored in Illinois by a special interest group which advocates on behalf of newspaper publishers. They even have a nifty online souvenir shop.
So much for “sunshine.”
* Meanwhile, the Sun-Times shows how difficult it can be to extract info from the government…
When it comes to figuring out how taxpayer dollars are spent on big state road projects, it’s wise to be prepared for a runaround. Take the massive reconstruction of the Dan Ryan Expy., which ended in 2007.
The Better Government Association, partnering with the Chicago Sun-Times, asked the Illinois Department of Transportation to provide a list of contractors and subcontractors who worked on the project, which wrapped up on time but at a total cost of $975 million — about $375 million over budget.
Here was IDOT’s initial response: “The department is not in possession of a list of contractors and subcontractors used in the Dan Ryan Expressway projects and is under no obligation to create or prepare a new record (in this case, a list) pursuant to the Illinois Freedom of Information Act.”
In other words: no go.
* And the Tribune reports on new revelations about how Chicago’s foie gras ban really passed…
One of Daley’s most powerful allies suggests that the mayor could have nipped the council’s foie gras passion before it ever bloomed into a target of widespread scorn. In Tribune reporter Mark Caro’s new book, “The Foie Gras Wars,” Ald. Edward Burke (14th) says Daley flatly declined a chance to do that.
“I asked him,” Burke told Caro. “I said, ‘Rich, do you want us to stop this? And he said, ‘No, let it go.’ ”
Daley spokeswoman Jacquelyn Heard said she told the mayor about Burke’s account and that he could not recall any such conversation. “The mayor was like, ‘What? I don’t know what he’s talking about.’ ”
It’s not the first time Daley has scoffed at suggestions he lords over what some have called a “rubber-stamp council.” Never mind that aldermen have been more faithful to the current Mayor Daley’s agenda than any council was during his father’s reign as chief executive.
* Kathleen Parker blames the print media’s demise on media bashers…
Unfortunately, the chorus of media bashing from certain quarters has succeeded in convincing many Americans that they don’t need newspapers. A new study by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press found that fewer than half of Americans—43 percent—say that losing their local newspaper would hurt civic life in their community “a lot.”
Only 33 percent say they would miss the local paper if it were no longer available.
A younger generation, meanwhile, has little understanding or appreciation of the relationship between a free press and a free society. Pew found that just 27 percent of Americans born since 1977 read a newspaper the previous day.
So, we should stop exercising our First Amendment rights to criticize the media and then newspapers will be just fine?
I don’t get it.
- Pat collins - Monday, Mar 16, 09 @ 11:26 am:
Actually, Sunshine week would hurt papers.
The easier it is to get info off the web, the less I need a paper to get that data and interpret it for me.
Now, of course, in these tough economin times, such ease of access also makes it easier for fewer people to get that data, and synthesize it for a large group of media…..
- Central_IL_farm_boy - Monday, Mar 16, 09 @ 11:39 am:
A lot has been published (electronically!!) recently both on the future of newspapers and perceived impacts on society _when_ newspapers fail. This is the best essay that I’ve read on the subject:
http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2009/03/newspapers-and-thinking-the-unthinkable/
- Carol Knowles - Monday, Mar 16, 09 @ 11:49 am:
It is unfortunate that the data for Illinois is not accurate. Illinois has a wealth of expenditure data available to the media and the public on the Illinois Comptroller’s web site at www.ioc.state.il.us and at the Comptroller’s Openbook web site which compares state contracts with campaign contributions http://www.openbook.illinoiscomptroller.com/
- You Go Boy - Monday, Mar 16, 09 @ 11:52 am:
The demise of newspapers, or near demise, is like most things: some good in it, some bad.
Good: More trees saved
Bad: Unemployment in logging industry jacks up
Good: Spotted Owl saved from extinction
Bad: Spotted Owl explosion threatens darter snail
Good: Landfills helped by fewer newspapers/ads
Bad: Recyclers head to unemployment line…
And so it goes. The “demise” is not because of media bashing. Media folks are due bashing just like the rest of us. Bottom line, why would I pay $.75 for something I can get free? I would say I fear investigative reporting will fall off and cause great joy among the dirtbag element, but the papers didn’t do such a bang up job on the run up to the Iraq war or the financial meltdown. Medicinal marijuana may ease our angst over all this anywhooo….
- Ghost - Monday, Mar 16, 09 @ 12:00 pm:
=== A younger generation, meanwhile, has little understanding or appreciation of the relationship between a free press and a free society.====
This reflects why the newspaper industry is dying, they completly miscomprehend how the younger generation gets its news. First, this conclusion assumes that the free press resides only in newspapers. Second it assumes that if your news does not come from a news paper, then your not getting the news. The younger generations tend to get their news online from various news sites and blogs. If anything I would bet the the younger generation discuss current news in forums and blogs engaging the idea of free discussion of news event more so then past generations. The younger generation voice cries out thousands of times a day from twitter commentaries, to blogs to forums. They embrace the true free speech that is supposed tobe encmpassed in the idea of a free press. They are the modern free press. papers just failed to keep up.
- Rich Miller - Monday, Mar 16, 09 @ 12:08 pm:
Ghost, to that I would add: I never buy “dead tree” papers, but I get most of my news from online versions of newspapers.
Parker is clueless.
- A Citizen - Monday, Mar 16, 09 @ 12:10 pm:
It’s all Rich’s fault - His Fax edition consumes only a few pieces of paper yet this electronic blog forum, if in print on paper, would consume near a hundred paper pages a day. Why is he contributing to the demise of newspapers and by logical extension the eradication of parakeets and their cages in people’s homes?
- Can't Say My Nickname - Monday, Mar 16, 09 @ 12:19 pm:
IDOT needs to at least give the press the skinny on the United Services of Chicago contract. This was Blago’s special contract given to Eddie Read.
- Yellow Dog Democrat - Monday, Mar 16, 09 @ 12:34 pm:
Rich -
That puts you in a rapidly-growing plurality.
That same poll found only 41% of Americans get their news from newspapers regularly, while 31% of Americans regularly get their news online.
- Smitty Irving - Monday, Mar 16, 09 @ 12:34 pm:
Sunshine Week? How about the Illinois Press Association find out how many of the 6,000 + units of government even have a website? How many post their minutes? Financial Reports? Audits? How many have a portal to file an FOIA request?
- Amuzing Myself - Monday, Mar 16, 09 @ 12:38 pm:
Kathleen Parker illustrates EXACTLY why newspapers are failing. Like the newspapers and their poor business model - or lack of any business model at all - Parker cannot read the market even she is a part of. The market has changed, and when the market changes and businesses don’t adapt, they die. It’s not really any more complicated than that.
There’s no indication in what I read of her article that she has a clue about sites like this one, Drudge Report, or any electronic media that has in fact adapted and attempts to reach the current generation of young professionals and families.
While I would not welcome the addition hit on my own wallet, if my local paper no longer offered it’s online version for free, I’d probably have to buy a subscription. There’s a small chance I would just do without, but odds are, a lot of people right now are just enjoying for free what they would likely pay for if the businesses were smart enough to realize it and market it the right way.
Even better, newspapers could focus their efforts on advertising to pay for their web sites and online activities and gradually phase out the print versions, undoubtedly saving thousands, if not millions in overhead costs to staff an enormous printing operation and physical delivery service.
Just a thought.
- vise77 - Monday, Mar 16, 09 @ 12:41 pm:
While Parker often is clueless, I think her point is more about the “daily grind” of reporting one finds more often at the big, evil MSM than at blogs that merely offer fiery commentary, but little original reporting–that is, her main point is about original reporting vs mere punditry. She also seems to find it distasteful that people would cheer the demise of the MSM, as though those pundits then would have as much to talk about or comment upon. You linked to RedState earlier, a blog I read with some frequency–I think most weeks pass without that blog, or its linked sites, offering anything that would pass for original reporting.
The distribution of news is not the main point Parker is talking about in this column.
- Yellow Dog Democrat - Monday, Mar 16, 09 @ 12:57 pm:
BTW, I don’t know why Parker blames everything on talk radio. There’s no way to draw that conclusion.
I think Pew has earlier research on whether people “trust” newspapers. This is really about technology and economics.
- IDOT'er - Monday, Mar 16, 09 @ 12:58 pm:
The Dan Ryan project was basically a give-away project to minority businesses real and fake.
- wordslinger - Monday, Mar 16, 09 @ 1:02 pm:
Daley lives for silly stuff like a foie gras ban. It sucks all the oxygen out of the room, an no one pays attention to anything else.
Burke, too. Why do think he introduces a goo-goo, progressive, kum-bi-yah ordinance every month?
- George - Monday, Mar 16, 09 @ 1:06 pm:
The problem is that the newspaper model used to work - it was able to collect all that advertising revenue because it was the only source of daily information for folks.
When radio came, it was the only source of visual information for folks.
When TV came, it was the only source of detailed information in the world of 10-second soundbites.
Now, newspapers are no longer the source of daily, visual, or detailed information. Actually, non-traditional online sources have surpassed newspapers in depth, visual-ness(?), and immediacy.
Because of that, the newspaper model of old simply can’t work anymore. Advertising with a newspaper doesn’t carry the same impact that it used to. You aren’t competing for space (with dollars per square inch) for the only source of information people read on a daily basis.
On the other hand, I just don’t know if Web advertising works as well either, at least when it comes to the display a static ad on your web page format.
Advertising itself just isn’t as effective as it used to be.
- George - Monday, Mar 16, 09 @ 1:07 pm:
That post brought to you by Pepsi.
- EmptySuitParade - Monday, Mar 16, 09 @ 1:42 pm:
The IL Press Assoc. is a lobbying group that pushes for higher legal notice rates, bulk rate display ads, special deals on deliver trucks — aka Trib trucks on Lake Shore Drive— and once in a great while more news.
If the pols were smart they would abolish paid legal notices. Let the govt spend that $ on web sites
- James the Intolerant - Monday, Mar 16, 09 @ 2:17 pm:
Daley doesn’t think, and apparently doesn’t have to, answer questions from the press. Whenever he is asked a hard question about the Sanchez trial the press conference is wrapped up. Except for a few exceptions, Chicago press never presses Daley on anything, it is disgusting.
- Marianne North - Monday, Mar 16, 09 @ 2:27 pm:
It wasn’t that long ago when I was crying as I was reading the Chgo Trib the morning after 09/11 on the #8 Halsted bus on the way to work. I almost never watch TV. I read the online versions of the Trib, NYT and LAT but I miss reading the newspaper via paper. I’m a visual learner and I think my memory is better when I read items printed on paper.
- VanillaMan - Monday, Mar 16, 09 @ 3:53 pm:
I believe in sunshine. There are very few times in history when getting information out was not a good idea. How many times have we learned afterwards how a political event went down because the players could hide out?
I know this is an extreme position to take, and very well is a naive one during wartime, or during extreme situations. But citizens will not behave like adults if they are continually treated like children.
As Stan Laurel famously said, “Honesty is the best politics.”
- Plutocrat03 - Monday, Mar 16, 09 @ 4:02 pm:
Sunshine would be a great thing.
Imagine a database which could call out a project and list each and every vendor who was paid on that budget line….. with a description of the ownership…
Want to bet there is such a report available for the political cognoscenti?
Wouldn’t it be a hoot to compare that database to the donors to the political war chests?
- Carl Nyberg - Monday, Mar 16, 09 @ 4:43 pm:
Does Kathleen Parker believe in free market competition?
BTW, what percent of U.S. communities are served by a local paper that does quality local journalism?
- Chanson - Monday, Mar 16, 09 @ 5:31 pm:
We subscibe to two newspapers and read several other online news sites, blogs and other online newspapers both foreign and domestic. However, I have almost completely stopped watching local, network and cable news. It is stale, repetitive and so poorly done that the meaning of many stories is lost. About sunshine of another sort: all of you living in towns where burning of yard waste is banned, enjoy the beautiful weather with your doors and windows open.
- Smitty Irving - Monday, Mar 16, 09 @ 5:54 pm:
Plutocrat03
==== Imagine a database which could call out a project and list each and every vendor who was paid on that budget line….. with a description of the ownership…
Want to bet there is such a report available for the political cognoscenti?
Wouldn’t it be a hoot to compare that database to the donors to the political war chests? ====
Nice idea - but a long way from reality. Someone would have to hire all sorts of computer programmers, and you’d have to enforce interagency / inter Constitutional officer cooperation. That said, we should keep shooting for it. Sunshine is the only way to smoke out the crooks.
- Squideshi - Monday, Mar 16, 09 @ 11:42 pm:
I already posted my thoughts over on Illinoize.
- Frank Sobotka - Tuesday, Mar 17, 09 @ 12:00 am:
Everyone whines about the ‘wouldn’t it be great if’ world, but how many have actually used the transparency sites that already exist?
Noone ever mentions the dangers of information without context, either. For instance, click on this link:
http://ffata.org/dbsight/search.do?s=FFATA&indexName=awardindex&templateName=PDF&q=ILLINOIS+PRESS+ASSOCIATION+INC&renderer=jsp&length=14
for proof the the Illinois Press Association is nothing but a tool of the US Army.
- Billy Dennis - Tuesday, Mar 17, 09 @ 2:01 am:
What is not to get, Rich? There is the press, and then there is the Uberpress, a group that includes Kathleen Parker. They are well-paid, well-connected and well-pampered. They think the 1st Amendment was written only for them. They KNOW that all of this depends on the continuation of the journalistic institutions to which they are affiliated. That’s why they defend the MSM, and bad mouth the citizen journalism and community-oriented media.
Feh.
Pingback Media: Some attention to detail – Peoria Pundit - Tuesday, Mar 17, 09 @ 2:42 am:
[…] * And the Journal Star is running a bunch of canned stuff about Sunshine Week. Illinois government doesn’t do a really good job of providing information. But here is a little sunshine about these articles: They are being sponsored the Illinois Press Association. Problem is, theIPS isn’t really an organization dedicated to journalism, as much as it is to the people who own printing presses. As one commenter at the The Capitol Fax Blog says: The IL Press Assoc. is a lobbying group that pushes for higher legal notice rates, bulk rate display ads, special deals on deliver trucks — aka Trib trucks on Lake Shore Drive— and once in a great while more news. If the pols were smart they would abolish paid legal notices. Let the govt spend that $ on web site. […]