Pritzker goes off on Jacobson
Tuesday, Oct 27, 2020 - Posted by Rich Miller
* WIND’s Amy Jacobson prefaced her question at the governor’s press conference today with a short speech on bar owners who don’t trust the state’s science. And then she claimed that “people in each county want the breakouts for each county” for contact tracing to see the info for themselves. Gov. Pritzker said counties are required to publish that information and said the state was working on aggregating it in one place. He then gave a short speech of his own to the far-right talk radio host…
I would just say back to you, Amy, that, you know, I would appreciate it if you would spend a little more time promoting people wearing masks, promoting people doing the right thing in this very difficult time when people are dying and getting sick, and a little less time sort of ginning up the idea that this is a hoax or giving people a platform for the idea that this is some sort of conspiracy. I just want to point out every day - no, you asked question after question, let me answer you - question after question is always about trying to find some thing that might have been done wrong along the way. And the reality is we’re all trying very hard to get this right. All across the country, every state is fighting this right now. Can you not see that? COVID is rising everywhere. Let’s not try to find the loopholes here and there, but instead find ways that we can promote safety and health.
* That ain’t her job, but check out the response from the station…
Thoughts?
- Downstate Rube - Tuesday, Oct 27, 20 @ 5:17 pm:
I see the fair tax ads every ten minutes on YouTube. I have yet to see a mask ad.
- Christopher - Tuesday, Oct 27, 20 @ 5:17 pm:
I never heard of “AM 560″ or the “Morning Answer” until just now. Amy Jacobson I’ve heard of because of her past lines of questioning. Sad that choose obstruction rather than promoting safety and good health like the Governor is suggesting.
- Roadrager - Tuesday, Oct 27, 20 @ 5:18 pm:
I think Amy and Dan should be doing remotes from the restaurants refusing to follow the state’s orders. Pack the places every morning, five days a week, with Amy and Dan right inside along with them. Sure, they’ll have to pay a fair number of them to pretend they have a robust listenership, but losing money for perceived reach has never put Dan off before.
Own those libs, you two. Up close and in person, daily.
- Pundent - Tuesday, Oct 27, 20 @ 5:20 pm:
I’m sure Jacobson feels that she accomplished something by getting a reaction from Pritzker. I’m glad he did it. I’m tired of “journalists” advancing Covidiocy under the guise of reporting. Pritzker is right. We all have a responsibility as citizens to do the right thing. If anything Pritzker has been far too tolerant of these minority Covidiots who are prolonging the devastating effects of the pandemic for the rest os us. And as a final note, what does his weight possibly have to do with any of this?
- NIU Grad - Tuesday, Oct 27, 20 @ 5:23 pm:
This is shock-jock buffoonery at its finest. Should Mancow start attending these briefings as well?
- WC Fields - Tuesday, Oct 27, 20 @ 5:25 pm:
JB is a rookie office holder who, I think, received a battlefield promotion in stature through all of this. He’s done a good job acting in the best interest of the public in the face of economic pressure to do the opposite. He’s stumbling to find the levers of executive power (a la being late to the party on liquor licenses) while also perplexed at the diversity of views on the “public good” (see: conspiracy theorist journalism). He’s consistently erring on the side of caution, WTH do you want out of a governor? Something that’s f’ing golden? And Morning Answer speaks for itself
- Oswego Willy - Tuesday, Oct 27, 20 @ 5:25 pm:
Never punch down.
Never tell a “reporter” (talk show host) how they should go about their job in a presser.
And even… even for the millisecond the Governor is right, spot on, “taking it to the questioner”… a Governor, the governor of the sixth largest state in America, made hay for a failed journalist, now talk show host.
Answer the questions blandly, without personal passion towards personal issues with the questioner, and move on.
And let me be even deeper in the weeds here;
We all are having bad days, I’m no governor, and as much as I respect the Governor and all he’s trying to wrangle, and I can tell the empathy, sympathy, the manner this Governor is trying to keep it all going… still… can’t punch down, tell a questioner their job, can’t allow the situation to turn into a way for a talk show host to make the give and take a caricature that the talk show host wants.
Those are my thoughts.
It’s over. Learn. Move on. Don’t let it happen again.
- Northsider - Tuesday, Oct 27, 20 @ 5:25 pm:
WIND: Garbage in, garbage out.
- Candy Dogood - Tuesday, Oct 27, 20 @ 5:26 pm:
Seems like she doesn’t need a press credential anymore as she is no longer practicing journalism.
- thunderspirit - Tuesday, Oct 27, 20 @ 5:28 pm:
I personally would like to be able to be so polite to someone who is “getting under my skin,” or more accurately, posing every question steeped in
Actually, scratch that — I wouldn’t. Which is no small part of why I don’t run for office.
- Moe Berg - Tuesday, Oct 27, 20 @ 5:28 pm:
It’s a no-win for Pritzker. There’s nothing he can say that will satisfy her.
All the right wing has to offer is magical thinking. How is Pritzker supposed to respond to someone who is not living in reality and operates completely in bad faith?
I’d pivot to “Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell have abandoned small businesses and their employees. We could have had the funds to help bar and restaurant owners reduce their operations and stay solvent, but Trump and McConnell said bailouts for big corporations only. Your issue is with Trump and McConnell, Amy, not me. I’m trying to save lives.”
- Al - Tuesday, Oct 27, 20 @ 5:29 pm:
I am guessing WiND news department is operating as a profit center rather than a public service. How Murdoch of them. Amy J has a great future on Russia Today or InfoWars. Alex Jones is always looking for high strung flakes to help him sell vitamins.
- DownSouth - Tuesday, Oct 27, 20 @ 5:32 pm:
Must agree with OW - or in more simple terms - don’t feed the trolls.
- Henry - Tuesday, Oct 27, 20 @ 5:40 pm:
Amy who?
- Socially DIstant Watcher - Tuesday, Oct 27, 20 @ 5:46 pm:
The thing about radio is, 97% of people listening to the radio can disagree with you, distrust you, and tune you out, but if you get 3% market share, you can run a very profitable station. Governors with 3% support don’t last long, but radio stations can and do. WIND doesn’t have even 1% market share, but what do they need to be profitable? That’s what’s driving them.
- Leigh John-Ella - Tuesday, Oct 27, 20 @ 5:48 pm:
I think it’s great that he finally stopped treating her as a real reporter.
She’s going to ask questions, so why take her questions seriously when they aren’t serious questions and she’s not serious in asking them.
He defined her agenda and shut her down. It needed to be done. I thought he handled it quite well.
Will they make a big deal out of it with some radio buffoonery? Sure. But they do that anyway.
- Doc Anonymous - Tuesday, Oct 27, 20 @ 5:49 pm:
Oswego Willy’s advice is thoughtful (as almost always!) and would certainly be sound in normal times. It may be sound now, too, as it has given that morning show some free publicity.
But we live in an age in which the guy at the top of the biggest heap, in DC, is punching down 100% of the time. With any luck he’ll be out of office soon. But in the environment he’s fostered (though he’s hardly responsible for all the partisanship in our country), I’m not sure that elected officials can afford to allow themselves to be punching bags. A governor cannot simply ignore it when people claim that his efforts to promote public safety are really some conspiratorial plan to punish his enemies, hurt parts of the state that didn’t vote for him, etc.
At least the implementation of new mitigation measures in Chicago may slightly temper those down here in Southern Illinois who keep arguing, ridiculously, that we are being punished while Chicago is left alone.
I will note in passing that both “One Ton Tyrant” (tweet by station) and “she looked good in a bathing suit in the distant past” (comment) ought to be out of bounds.
- Not a Billionaire - Tuesday, Oct 27, 20 @ 5:49 pm:
More restrained than I would be
- Pundent - Tuesday, Oct 27, 20 @ 5:54 pm:
Amy Jacobson is to press conferences what hecklers are to comedians. She’s no more of a reporter than stuttering John was on the Howard Stern show.
- Jibba - Tuesday, Oct 27, 20 @ 6:03 pm:
That Morning Answer post plus Amy’s editorializing are disqualifying. She is not a reporter. Having said that, OW has the solution. Answer her exact question concisely, don’t respond to her editorializing, and move on. Withdrawing credentials and punching down is deserved but petty.
- AlfondoGonz - Tuesday, Oct 27, 20 @ 6:08 pm:
Tune in for my call tomorrow morning.
I won’t be expressing pride.
- northside reformer - Tuesday, Oct 27, 20 @ 6:11 pm:
Jacobsen is no reporter but she has an audience that has gone full embrace of dumb
- walker - Tuesday, Oct 27, 20 @ 6:17 pm:
Her own station outed her by praising her for “getting under the Governor’s skin” — not for getting some worthwhile news
- CEA - Tuesday, Oct 27, 20 @ 6:18 pm:
I practically cheered when Pritzker called her out. I hope he doesn’t do it as a matter of course (cf. Heinlein, “Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and it annoys the pig”, and OW/DownSouth’s admonitions about troll feeding), but I give him props for saying the quiet part out loud when it needed to be said.
- Pot calling kettle - Tuesday, Oct 27, 20 @ 6:24 pm:
On the one hand, Amy wants to be treated like a journalist; on the other hand, she does not want to act like one…pick a lane.
If she is, indeed, a journalist, then it would seem that FCC standards apply: “…there are two issues related to broadcast journalism that are subject to Commission regulation: hoaxes and news distortion.” While the standards are relatively loose, Amy cannot claim to be a journalist and then distort the news in such a way that it can cause people harm. If she’s a journalist, she’s skirting the line.
- Jocko - Tuesday, Oct 27, 20 @ 6:25 pm:
As Mr. Rogers once said “Look to the helpers!”
Amy, you’re not helping.
- Bob Loblaw - Tuesday, Oct 27, 20 @ 6:32 pm:
There is zero doubt that COVID misinformation agents like Amy Jacobson have made this situation worse. It’s absolutely her job to inform people instead of consistently stoking conspiracy theories that prolong this misery and kill people. People call Pritzker a dictator based on the kinds of ignorant criticism she levels at him daily. If he’s a dictator why are all these places still open, serving people drinks and food with a side of COVID? What is my family supposed to do? We’ve been following the rules for months while people like her encourage everybody to go out and spread a deadly disease. My aunt died today, won’t get to go to her funeral. My parents haven’t seen their grandkids since January. But by all means, deference to the brave journalist “just asking questions.”
- Bruce - Tuesday, Oct 27, 20 @ 6:38 pm:
If data from contract tracing warrants shut down establishments that are too lax. Punishing all for probably sins of few that over serve.
- West Side the Best Side - Tuesday, Oct 27, 20 @ 7:10 pm:
I’d call tomorrow to tell them what I think of Jacobsen, but they’d have my number and would probably harass me forever.
- Gobbagool - Tuesday, Oct 27, 20 @ 7:12 pm:
He ain’t wrong
- Donnie Elgin - Tuesday, Oct 27, 20 @ 7:18 pm:
No fan of Amy- but the Governor looks petty in attacking her. Like all good politicians he should have deflected to one of his talking points
- SSL - Tuesday, Oct 27, 20 @ 7:52 pm:
She’s not very bright, but she’s playing him. He gave her what she wanted. Better to let her ask stupid questions, respond with “I respectfully disagree”, and move on. There’s a lot going on right now and you don’t need the distractions.
- Glengarry - Tuesday, Oct 27, 20 @ 7:53 pm:
I don’t blame the governor. Sometimes it just feels good to unload on a troll.
- Quizzical - Tuesday, Oct 27, 20 @ 7:54 pm:
560 is for reporters and commentators who don’t meet the journalistic and ethical standards of WLS.
- VerySmallRocks - Tuesday, Oct 27, 20 @ 9:10 pm:
Evidently nobody at WIND has had anyone get sick, hospitalized or died From COVID19.
- Springfieldish - Tuesday, Oct 27, 20 @ 10:37 pm:
The world needs Amy and WIND right now like it needs a root canal.
- Southern Skeptic - Tuesday, Oct 27, 20 @ 10:55 pm:
You’re either part of the problem or part of the solution. Amy is clearly part of the problem. The Governor is a huge part of the solution. Amy should try, just for once, to be part of the solution.
- Precinct Captain - Tuesday, Oct 27, 20 @ 11:12 pm:
Amy, no one is preventing you from having pool parties with murderers. We’re just saying it’s as terrible an idea now during a global pandemic as it was 15 years ago.
- @misterjayem - Tuesday, Oct 27, 20 @ 11:54 pm:
I never, ever think of Amy Jacobson or her station except when she’s mentioned on Capitol Fax.
I wish JB had just ignored her foolishness.
– MrJM
- HangingOn - Wednesday, Oct 28, 20 @ 12:14 am:
Back in High School, back when dinosaurs ruled the Earth, I came up with the term “motard.” I think it applies with WIND
- Chatham Resident - Wednesday, Oct 28, 20 @ 8:44 am:
He needs to also go off on other reporters who ask the same silly, childish questions ad naseum almost every day.
- Oswego Willy - Wednesday, Oct 28, 20 @ 8:50 am:
=== He needs to also go off on other reporters who ask the same silly, childish questions ad naseum almost every day.===
(Sigh)
Do you want an adult as your governor… or a Trumpian hot head that eventually no one takes seriously?
Yikes.
- Denise - Wednesday, Oct 28, 20 @ 3:19 pm:
Amy. Go back to the backyard swimming pool snooping routine. All of this is just tiresome. And terrestrial radio - how many listeners are left? I haven’t listened to it in many many years.