Christopher Schroeder

Tag: Chicago Public Media

  • Some Vital Signs

    Some Vital Signs

    Chicago Public Media could be showing encouraging signs of life.

    It recently announced the release of a new website about Chicago for its residents. This space, which reportedly reflects a passion for this city and confronts its fractured communities, is based upon a central public media belief that some “civic infrastructure” cannot come from, and depend upon, the marketplace.

    This site at the moment is basic. It features slick testimonials about the city, a donation link, and a contact form link for those who want to contribute to its development.

    The most exciting element is the link to its rationale, which explains that CPM hopes to offer “trusted local information, communication knowledge, civic and cultural resources, and new opportunities for participation” from its “trusted organizations” — the Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ. Like these, this new space will be driven not by profit but by the public media mission, and will consider its members not as “number[s]” but as “neighbor[s]”.

    This proposal suggests an awareness of its challenges. However, the proof obviously will be the ways these principles are converted into practices.

    The world has obviously changed, and these changes seem to be accelerating. CPM exists in a world for example where fewer people read newspapers and listen to the radio, and do these if at all online.

    At the same time, the last few years have been challenging. CPM seemed unprepared for instance to integrate the newspaper and to compensate for the predictable federal funding loss.

    Perhaps more challenging has been the inconsistency between its assertions and its actions in small and big ways. Most if not all of these efforts to confront such inconsistencies have been frustratingly ineffective and resulted in maddeningly inadequate responses if any at all.

    Public media are essential, especially in this disinformation era (McQuade 2024, e.g.). Chicago Public Media must retain the best of its previous purposes, such as providing reliable information and curating news stories, and reconfigure its contributions for a fluid future.

    That could go far in restoring my confidence in, and restoring my reduced financial contributions to, this important Chicago institution.

  • So Long Sun-Times

    So Long Sun-Times

    I’ve discontinued my Chicago Sun-Times subscription, and am disappointed about doing so.

    The final factor was its required “Premium Edition” fee, which for those who had this fee waived is in fact a price increase. These editions are generally useless cash-grabs, and sometimes filled with AI hallucinations. Moreover, this fee is still not required by its cross-town competitor.

    I had switched my daily delivery subscription to the Sun-Times after it was acquired by Chicago Public Media. Since then, I’ve observed a reduction in its quality, such as fewer op-eds and less unique content, that only increases its contrast with its hedge-fund-owned rival.

    I’ve also asked for clarification of inconsistent and inaccurate price-increase processes, missed delivery promises, and subscriber-supporter differences, which are often unclear or even ignored. These issues become even more confusing given that the print newspaper is freely available in .pdf on its website.

    These observations and others, such as the increased content overlap between the Sun-Times and WBEZ or increased sponsor spots on the radio after the predictable federal funding loss, have initiated a seeming commercialized convergence, and produced a cross-platform credibility problem. The limited responses to my often ignored queries from a long-time donor have been less than reassuring.

    I realize that these conditions are part of larger concerns, such as a widespread performative progressivism. Regardless, I think these challenge the primary public media purpose, and its promise of facts and reason for its communities.

    I wonder in other words whether Chicago Public Media is the innovative institution that it describes itself as, and that I’ve long imagined it to be.

    I know that it will continue despite decreases in my modest financial support. I just hope that its leaders can restore my confidence in it as a crucial contributor to an informed Chicago and a functional American democracy.

    Such beliefs are perhaps more important now when hope for our future is harder to find.

  • Where Do You Go From Here?

    I discovered this week that my seven-day Chicago Sun-Times delivery subscription rate had increased by more than thirty-three percent in one month.

    The Sun-Times rep couldn’t explain such a substantial increase, which she insisted had been shared in an email that I couldn’t locate even in my spam folder. She also couldn’t explain how this cost connected to the monthly WBEZ donations that I had been making for many more years than I had been a Sun-Times subscriber.

    Moreover, this increase was discovered in the same week that WBEZ announced its first on-air WBEZ fundraiser of the year, and the first without federal funding. Both are owned by Chicago Public Media, a nonprofit media company that acquired the newspaper in 2022, which made it “the largest nonprofit local news organization in the nation.”

    At that point, I had switched my newspaper subscription from the Chicago Tribune to the Sun-Times in support of public media. I’d generally prefer to have public media funded by the government as it is for example in Canada and elsewhere, which although problematic seems more reliable, but I recognize the political realities in the United States.

    One problem is that this new Sun-Times seven-day delivery rate is three times higher than the same Tribune rate at least for new subscribers. Another is that anyone can obtain the entire Sun-Times print version in electronic form through its website without spending any money.

    In other words, those of us who support Chicago Public Media, and prefer print newspapers, are spending a minimum of three times more than at least some Tribune subscribers. In exchange, we receive what everyone else can consume without any cost.

    A bigger problem is that the Sun-Times and WBEZ content seems to have decreased. Reports I initially hear on the radio for example or read in the newspaper will now reappear in the other form in what seems like a relatively recent overlap.

    Even worse is the way that new CPM leaders seemed unprepared for the present reality. They both seemed surprised by the federal funding loss, which is irresponsible given how often it had been threatened over the years, and have offered no coherent vision or detailed mission for its future, including one that explains the part that donors play.

    I don’t envy anyone in American public media whose existence depends upon the largesse of public. At the same time, I believe that the present state of public media in the United States could offer an opportunity to reimagine a more independent model, one that is both visionary and inspiring.

    If Chicago Public Media did that, they would also suggest that they will be good stewards of our support, which could reassure current donors and motivate new ones.