78 Comments - From the 'Dale to HP - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 12:50 pm: Amen. Well put. - Matt McGrath - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 12:53 pm: Amen. - Precinct Captain - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 12:54 pm: ==The best news out of this is that maybe, finally people will once and for all stop treating that editorial board seriously.== Sadly, this is highly doubtful - Pot calling kettle - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 12:55 pm: ==The best news out of this is that maybe, finally people will once and for all stop treating that editorial board seriously. == I’ll believe it when I see it happen. I’m generally an optimist, but I have a hard time seeing the Trib Ed Board changing its ways. There was no meaningful walk back, more of a “nothing to see here…” - OneMan - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 12:57 pm: The reactions were and continue to be entertaining. I kind of hope some folks on twitter and Facebook would stand up and say the folks they work or worked for had some responsibility for the state of CPS, but alas no. They just decided to rant on (for days) because the problem is obviously the Trib editorial board. - Qui Tam - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 1:02 pm: The best that came out of this is that Mr. Jay Em coined the new nam de plume “Katrina McQuery” for Kristen McQuery. - Wordslinger - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 1:03 pm: Consistently childish, ignorant and hysterical. But still, in the double-down, she tried to justify her original despicable rant by claiming that without Katrina, there would be no charter schools in New Orleans. Again, with the lunacy. First of all, that’s nonsense. For crying out loud, in Louisiana they give public money to private schools that teach “The Flinstones” as history. I don’t think it took Old Testament retribution to get charter schools anywhere else in the country. Secondly, death and destruction is worth a few charter schools? That’s insane. And so is the big brain goof who signs off on that stuff and puts it in the laughably self-described World’s Greatest Newspaper. - thunderspirit - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 1:04 pm: And they’d've gotten (well, continued to get) away with it too, if it hadn’t been for you meddling kids! (Er, readers.) Can’t disagree with the sentiment here regarding the Trib board OR Chicago, but I can’t say I’m holding my breath for either one to happen. - William - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 1:08 pm: Tribune bashing. *YAWN* - Oswego Willy - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 1:09 pm: Great take Rich, especially the reality of paying attention to the Tribune Editoral Board. To the Post, I made my comment about Ms.cQueary’s article, and even her history, the good and the bad, and even the lack of her own self-awareness. In that part, I’ll let that comment stand alone, no revisions, no additions. The reaction(s) of McQueary, Dold, even Kass refused to go that one step; “Kristen, apologize already” or even better if McQueary ate it, owned it, moved on from it. “I did it, I was wrong, I am sorry” None of that happened, but the doubling down of the ever friendly and well-liked McQueary was as troubling in the long term than the post publish editing his and disguised one the blowback began. Words matter. This isn’t new, or insightful, heck, it’s quite remedial. The fact that words were used so flippantly and casually without realizing what they mean, even if you find her pleasant or fun, really speaks to who Kristen McQueary, in work, and her views of how politics, governing, and even suffering matter to her, and how she wants those thoughts read by you. You can’t blame the readers for the sentence structures you write, and you can’t blame the words for meaning what they do. McQueary will move from this, hopefully learning her words and thoughts matter to the readers more than they should mean to her bosses. Freedom of speech doesn’t guarantee freedom from criticism. Blaming those critical of her work probably says more about her not accepting the criticism. Rich’s take is an important angle. The power in the Tower of the Trib is ours to give, not theirs to assume. - Excessively Rabid - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 1:09 pm: On a recent visit to Portland, I was told that writers at the once-reputable Oregonian are now paid by the click. Maybe the same is true of the Tribune editorial board. If so, she made out like a bandit - no wonder she’s trying to keep the kerfluffle going. - Oswego Willy - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 1:12 pm: “than the post publish editing of the original and disguised changes once the blowback began.” Apologies - Wensicia - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 1:13 pm: ==finally people will once and for all stop treating that editorial board seriously== I’d be happier if the Tribune would stop taking these Rauner sycophants seriously. Dold and his peeps need to go. - VanillaMan - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 1:15 pm: Market-ethics lowers societal standards so low, a Chicago Tribune, bankrupted and as thoroughly discredited as a supermarket gossip tabloid announcing exclusive photos of Queen Elizabeth II and Elvis boarding a UFO, feels that it can give an Illinois State Government, ran like a cheapened flea market booth out of a Chevrolet Monte Carlo trunk by a junk yard governor, advice. - William - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 1:16 pm: Two quick notes. 1. Posting this today is in fact keeping it going. 2. Rich may want to drop cigarettes and the Tribune! - AC - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 1:19 pm: Kristen “Dr Strangelove” McQueary did a wonderful job raising everyone’s awareness of the type of work the Tribune editorial board is producing these days. - Buzzie - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 1:21 pm: Throughout history there have been, and will be, people who will trade their dignity and honor for financial and personal gain. - Strangerthings - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 1:23 pm: I am just happy to see someone finally willing to point out how immature it is of Chicago and CPS to expect the state to be happy to bail them out like our doing so would be some kind of gift to us of allowing them to continue to exist as they are. Let them sort it out. If they can’t the city will just have to take their lumps. - Runbikeswim - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 1:26 pm: Im not sure what was worse? The original, the non-apology, or the fact that this saw the light of day. This type of “journalism” is something that gets bantered about in the news room or even as a running piece between emails, but never to a paper like the Trib. I agree with you Rich, I hope this wakes people up to the “editorial board” and their message. I’m actually surprised more people haven’t been calling for her position on the board after this. - Abe the Babe - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 1:28 pm: It will be interesting to see how the tribbies spin the inevitable next tax increase. For Quinn, it was “Quinn’s 67% tax increase” (3% up to 5%). Rauner, assuming its goes up to 4.75%, will probably be “Rauner Trades Business Reforms for 1% increase in revenue” “ - Michelle Flaherty - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 1:31 pm: an edit board should be home to a healthy debate of a diversity of opinions, not group think. - Oswego Willy - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 1:32 pm: One last point, from the Twitterverse; @Trib_ed_board: If you would like to respond to Kristen McQueary’s latest column, email ctc-tribletter@tribpub.com so it is read by the appropriate editors. The fact the Edit Board wanted to stifle anyone and everyone from commenting their own thoughts, be it through Facebook or Twitter, Instagram or email chains, that speaks to how the Trib wanted the fervor to die down, and control negativity through their own email address, to corral negative thoughts from the public. Terribly sad way to run a “newspaper”. - Not it - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 1:32 pm: Where was the editor when this got approved? Bad judgement all around. - Apocalypse Now - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 1:40 pm: Ok, the headline got everyone’s attention and almost all the commenters are in a dither about her use of Hurricane Katrina to make a point. If people read the article, there is very little, if anything, she wrote they shouldn’t agree with in the column. I get it. You don’t like the sobering message, so beat up the messenger and the headline. Talk about a state of denial. - From the 'Dale to HP - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 1:41 pm: So, Strangerthings, should the state not have bailed out East St. Louis, Cairo, or North Chicago? - Team Sleep - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 1:43 pm: Michelle - but how many ed boards are actually run in that manner?! - Oswego Willy - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 1:44 pm: ===You don’t like the sobering message, so beat up the messenger and the headline.=== What’s sobering, connecting a tragedy that resulted in over 1,800 deaths as a wish? Are you thick… or just softheaded? No guessing. - From the 'Dale to HP - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 1:45 pm: Apocalypse Now, you sound like Walter from “The Big Lebowski”. But let’s be clear: any good points the Trib (may have) had were lost because of a distasteful metaphor that called for destruction along with death and displacement of people (specifically minorities). - Michelle Flaherty - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 2:02 pm: Team, Zero. Most editorial boards now consist of the same people making news decisions. Shamefully unobjective. - Apocalypse Now - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 2:05 pm: =What’s sobering, connecting a tragedy that resulted in over 1,800 deaths as a wish?= Let’s be just a little bit honest. Do you really think she wanted a storm like this to hit Chicago? I get it. It wasn’t the best headlined to get her message out. If you can’t see the message and understand its implications for the long term financial health of the State and Chicago, just bury you head in the sand a little deeper and things in your world will look better.. - Michael Westen - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 2:08 pm: My reaction is I wonder when the Trib editorial board is going to own up to their own share of the responsibility. They endorsed George Ryan and Blagojevich, and they were Mayor Daley’s #1 cheerleader his entire time in office. While Daley was running the city into the ground, they were on the sidelines chanting, “Go Rich Go.” But now it’s everybody else’s fault. - Gary - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 2:08 pm: I think reporters above the age of 40 or 50 are the only ones who pay attention to these editorial board opinions anymore. - Norseman - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 2:09 pm: Now repeat stress relief mantra nos. 32, “I release all expectations [about quality commentary from the Trib] that are leading to feelings of stress” http://alwayswellwithin.com/2014/10/12/calm-stress-response/ - Oswego Willy - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 2:10 pm: === =What’s sobering, connecting a tragedy that resulted in over 1,800 deaths as a wish?= Let’s be just a little bit honest.=== Um, that IS honest. Also, why did McQueary change her words? Nothing after being envious of Katrina’s death and destruction seems at all honest. While you think my head is buried in sand, NOLA was buried in its own ruins. That’s honest too. - Wensicia - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 2:12 pm: “Do you really think she wanted a storm like this to hit Chicago?” As stated in her original column, yes. Of course, not a hurricane, but something that would be just as devastating to thousands of people. Who do you think would suffer the most from her (metaphoric) financial storm? The same class of people who suffered in New Orleans. - Demoralized - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 2:13 pm: ==Do you really think she wanted a storm like this to hit Chicago? == Are you really that dense? The conversation had nothing to do with the fact the Chicago has problems and everything to do with her use of Hurricane Katrina to make a point. It shouldn’t be that hard to get that it was inappropriate. - The New Megyn Kelly - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 2:14 pm: I read McQueary’s insults and non-apologies as an audition as yet another blond Fox News reader or a new Illinois Policy Institute flack. - Chicago Cynic - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 2:14 pm: I had friends from around the country going nuts on FB about this. I explained who she was and how she has increasingly gone off the rails in recent years. Those who knew her previously in her early journalism career were surprised but I wasn’t remotely. And you’re right, I just can’t explain how the smart people on that edit board can so consistently be so wrong and say it so badly. - Wordslinger - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 2:26 pm: AN, spin yourself silly. First off, it didn’t start as “hyperbole.” That was the flinch after the reaction. “I’m hoping for a real storm.” Are those words, in that order and context, difficult for you to understand? Secondly, the whole thesis was ignorant and wrong. Katrina did not “give a rebirth,” to New Orleans, whatever that means. Much of the city is still destroyed, much of the population displaced never to return, 10 years and $50 billion federal dollars later. Third, comparing fiscal problems to real death and destruction, comparing one’s predicament in the Ivory Tower to people scrambling for their lives on rooftops, is just sick in the head. - ihpsdm - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 2:40 pm: People still write for newspapers? How cute. - Rich Miller - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 2:45 pm: ===Do you really think she wanted a storm like this to hit Chicago?=== “That’s why I find myself praying for a real storm.” - truthteller - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 2:57 pm: Bad as it is, the Tribune drives much of the political narrative in the state, one that blames alleged government excess and high taxes for the state’s problems. If you can’t identify the problem- Illinois has one of the nation’s most regressive tax structures, one of the lowest income tax rates which is constrained by a constitution that demands a flat rate, a low medicaid reimbursement rate, and is near the bottom in state aid to education- then how do you fix it? Governors and legislators intimidated by the false narrative are too timid to raise the revenue needed Our biggest problem is that we don’t pay our bills, not that we spend too much for education, health care or other vital services. The Tribune is a major contributor to our number 1 problem - Precinct Captain - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 2:58 pm: ==- Wordslinger - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 1:03 pm:== Reflecting her ignorance, the Recovery School District–America’s only all-charter school district–was created in 2003, two years before Hurricane Katrina. - Shoe Searer - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 3:01 pm: ==Let’s be just a little bit honest.== The troubling thing is that he and others are being honest. Emotion is the only response, and they will be damned if someone tries to roll away the fainting couch. It was hardly a controversial piece. She basically did the lite calorie, step up to the line then scurry back version of the arguments on whether the good that follows catastrophe X justifies catastrophe X, a la post-WWII Japan. I’d actually be more comfortable if they just came out and admitted that they hate the Tribune and its politics so much that they pounced because they could, because someone forgot the New Rules on what can be discussed. - dupage dan - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 3:07 pm: My mother, who grew up destitute in rural, dust bowl, Iowa during the depth of the financial meltdown of the 1930s was wont to say, “what this country needs is another depression”. Was she callous and indifferent to the hardship and devastation that was visited upon so many? Did she not care about the thousands who were displaced - wandering the countryside looking for some food and a job? Was she inured to the heartbreak of lives lost (including some in her own family)? Hardly. It’s called a metaphor. And my mother, a professor of art therapy who spent her entire adult life working thru the angst and pain she endured during that time and passing on the knowledge and wisdom she accrued during those difficult times to many students yearning for understanding about how to survive such a calamity. But, I’m sure there’s a sharp sarcastic retort out there that will land on this page dismissing this. That’s ok. My mom also taught me how to own what is mine and ignore the rest. - Obama's Puppy - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 3:08 pm: Forever let her be known as KATRINA McQuery. - Illinois death spiral - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 3:13 pm: Anybody that can’t understand what happens when you borrow to the hilt, then watch as interest rates go up, is either niaeve or foolish. Just what do you think will happen when Chicago’ (or Illinois) debt service (payments) rises to the point that repayment consumes half of the entire budget? Why do liberals not understand that there are limits to borrowing? More importantly, why can’t they understand the consequences of borrowing more than can be repaid? - @MisterJayEm - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 3:19 pm: As Rich noted in his initial post, a literal reading of McQueary’s original work is 100% consistent with the output of the Tribune Editorial Board. Those who are pretending that this was a work of high-satire or clever metaphor are willfully ignoring that simple fact. – MrJM - Oswego Willy - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 3:30 pm: - Illinois death spiral -, Read McKinney in Crain’s. He goes through all the governors, all the mistakes. ===Why do liberals not understand that there are limits to borrowing? More importantly, why can’t they understand the consequences of borrowing more than can be repaid=== Keep this in mind while you read, you’d be surprised at the “liberals” you’re referring to here. - whetstone - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 3:36 pm: Thanks, Rich. When this made the rounds I tried to explain to outsiders/people who don’t read the edit board that this was different in degree, not in kind. I do think McQueary honestly thought people would read the column metaphorically, but was completely unaware that in the wake of the storm, a number of powerful people expressed not-metaphorical relief at what the storm had done. Given her shock at how the response, that bubble doesn’t seem to have popped. - Chicago Cynic - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 3:38 pm: A lot of the defenders of McQuery cite the words in the edited Trib piece, not the original. Since the intellectually dishonest editing of the piece violated all sorts of journalistic ethics, it’s impossible to just click a link and get her original words. So they say, “of course she meant it as a metaphor since she said so.” Except as Rich points out, she didn’t. She said she wanted a real storm. That’s not Trib bashing or bleading heartism or avoidance of the problem. It’s just that you, dear conservatives, didn’t ACTUALLY read the original column entitled “In Chicago, wishing for a Hurricane Katrina.” So riddle me this. If it was perfectly fine for her to write what she did, why surreptitiously edit the headline and key sentences to change it?” - whetstone - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 3:38 pm: Oh, and: a lot of NOLA’s economic recovery can be attributed to the massive federal aid dedicated to it, which really began reaching the city as the housing bubble popped. McQueary ignored that, likely because such a recognition is ideologically impossible at the Trib edit board, but it’s bordering on dishonesty not to factor it into the city’s “rebirth.” - Hawkeye in Illinois - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 3:39 pm: This will probably not enhance Kristen’s chances of joining the PAR Hall of Fame. She was humorous and even sometimes rational at The Southtown so not sure how her leap to the Trib caused her to “act in the extreme” as someone said. - Illinois death spiral - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 3:50 pm: How liberals can ignore the fact that democrats have held a super majority and thus been in total control for more than 25 years is bewildering. Never the less, but some inexplicable principal (denial) it’s all George Bush and the Republican’s fault. Grow up. - Oswego Willy - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 3:54 pm: ===How liberals can ignore the fact that democrats have held a super majority and thus been in total control for more than 25 years is bewildering.=== Speaker Daniels and President Phillip might disagree. Read McKinney, k, do yourself a solid, how about learn instead of mouthbreathing what you want to believe as true. Also, dragging W. in, you’re only a victim of you what to be. We’re not in your lawn either. - @MisterJayEm - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 4:00 pm: “Since the intellectually dishonest editing of the piece violated all sorts of journalistic ethics, it’s impossible to just click a link and get her original words.” Kim Bellware of HuffPo had the foresight to capture the original: http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/Katrina-Chicago_Tribune.pdf – MrJM p.s. If you’re on Twitter, you should follow Kim: https://twitter.com/bellwak - crazybleedingheart - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 4:00 pm: Poor Kristen just got confused by Rahm’s terrible-taste Chicago Fire Festival and thought everyone, everywhere was cool with forking some $$ over to the profiteers in order to script disaster as success and stand around under some banners congratulating themselves on grit. Too bad for her that other people, other places, aren’t so easily flim-flammed. - crazybleedingheart - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 4:05 pm: New Orleans just need some false-flag “arts” group (Crescent City Moon?) to start accepting city cash in exchange for ham-handed censorship and “messaging” about the city. Then its “rebirth,” Chicago-style, will be complete. - crazybleedingheart - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 4:12 pm: (I digressed not to minimize the nihilist racism of either the column itself or the Ed Board’s entire oeuvre, but to point out how broad and deep this cynical, offensive, ahistorical “crisis/opportunity” narrative has been running. We’re all supposed to admire Rahm using tragedy for his own ends - and the Trib clamors for still more - meanwhile, the only “opportunists” in time of crisis are properly called PROFITEERS — while people of color and women made their biggest gains during The Great Prosperity.) - Tournaround Agenda - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 4:16 pm: Perhaps she should become Kristen O’Leary. - Tournaround Agenda - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 4:16 pm: Or Katrina O’Leary. - Enviro - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 5:10 pm: It should be noted that the success of the charter schools in New Orleans is not good. Of some 1,151 New Orleans Recovery School District high school students who took the 2014 ACT, only 12.3 percent met the minimum English and math standards. - IrishPirate - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 5:16 pm: Could this be the Tribbies making a point? http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2015/08/18/ronald-mcdonald-statue-decapitated-outside-broadcast-museum/ - Anonymous - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 5:27 pm: Has the Trib released the number of canceled subscriptions? - MyTwoCents - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 5:31 pm: Unfortunately I’m not surprised that Rep. Sandack was on Twitter defending the editorial. - DuPage Grandma - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 5:32 pm: This is the 10th Anniversary of Katrina, a horrific event that has left scars on its survivors. What does McQueary do as a memorial? She told them they were lucky and she wanted a natural disaster like theirs. It was an insensitive, crass column. Those making excuses for it should be ashamed. - sal-says - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 5:37 pm: == Chicago needs urgent, revolutionary change. == The Chicago Tribune needs urgent, revolutionary change. There. Fixed it. /no s - sal-says - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 5:43 pm: A wonder that @chick & Dold are still employed in IL and not on Raunner’s staff. - Arthur Andersen - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 5:46 pm: And our “own” MrJM was all over this as the dirty laundry spilled out of the hamper, altering many of us to the link he posted above. Well done sir! - Wordslinger - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 6:22 pm: AA has that right. I’m not into tne twitter, but my kids turned me onto the rumpus the next day. When the Planet Earth was appalled and wondering what the heck is in the water in Ilinois that makes you misanthropic and bat-stuff crazy, Mr.JM was on the spot defending the rest of us and assuring six billion plus that the World’s Greatest Newspaper is just a sandbox for the lunatic fringe, and not reflective of the good people of Illinois. Mr.JM, salud, til the last dog dies. - Oswego Willy - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 6:39 pm: If you’re not checking in on MrJM’s Twitter, you are seriously missing out. It’s fun, pithy, pointed, his tweets are what Twitter is all about. Check out his link to his Twitter. It’s worth it. - IrishPirate - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 6:46 pm: https://twitter.com/MisterJayEm - Wensicia - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 6:50 pm: ==Mr.JM, salud, til the last dog dies.== With emphasis! - Amalia - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 7:19 pm: opinion column should not equal irresponsible opinions can be printed. the editorial page is supposed to be for grown ups. why print such garbage? her pieces are becoming increasingly ridiculous, making the Tribune editorial page editor look just plain dumb. - Carhartt Representative - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 7:37 pm: This was not a bunch of Chicagoans jumping on the Tribune. This was a much bigger deal in New Orleans who couldn’t believe that anybody would write something in such bad taste. I don’t consider these people to be using a “Fainting Couch” since so many of them had first hand accounts of what they experienced that would make a veteran crime reporter’s skin crawl. For the people who lived through Katrina, this is still a very open wound. - Wordslinger - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 8:02 pm: – the problem is obviously the Tribune editorial board.– Did they not endorse Richard M. and Emanuel at every election? - Anonymous - Tuesday, Aug 18, 15 @ 10:45 pm: McQueary needs to temper her words regarding a New Orleans rebirth and take a look at what some parts of New Orleans look like 10 years later: http://www.weather.com/travel/news/seph-lawless-new-orleans - old time independent - Wednesday, Aug 19, 15 @ 12:45 am: Sad as it might be, she does a much better job than John McCormick who thinks that page is his own personal blog…. Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.