Christopher Schroeder

Tag: Chicago Sun-Times

  • 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.

  • More From Moore

    More From Moore

    I can appreciate that Natalie Moore was able to watch both Prada movies with her mother but question the relevance of her most recent column.

    The sequel might have coincided as Moore suggests with a new Media Insight Project report, but it offers less about the future of media in the United States than she suggests. Rather, the movie relegates journalism, “Capital J” or not, to the setting for a continuing story that was started in the first movie.

    Corporate raiders might appear in the second to dismantle legacy publications, but the “page views” emphasis for example predates Andy’s return as the new features editor. Rather, the movie focuses primarily upon the relationship between Andy, who in her time away has become an award-winning journalist, and her former and future boss Miranda.

    This relationship, which occupies the center of this story, says more about time and aging, and the effects of these upon working relationships among women. Andy, who now trusts learned her instincts and advocates for herself, discovers that the world could be less vicious than she otherwise believed. Miranda in turn finds in Andy a former and perhaps future version of herself, someone who if they can collaborate will enhance both Miranda’s legacy and her life.

    This focus is not only established by the new working relationship between Andy and Miranda, but it is reinforced by the newfound friendship between Andy and her erstwhile rival Emily. Emily, who is working for Dior at the start of the movie, agrees to use her boyfriend Benji to buy the company and unbeknownst to Andy to install her in Miranda’s position, which Andy and Miranda subsequently prevent by finding yet another buyer, which nonetheless doesn’t prevent Andy and Emily from becoming friends.

    In this and other ways, this sequel is more about corporate relationships than the future of journalism, which makes this op-ed seem more like a vanity opportunity that allows Moore to reminisce about her mother and her career without offering much of substance to readers. This condition becomes even clearer in contrast with the only other op-ed in that Sunday newspaper.

    That reveals a larger concern, one that is actually about the future of journalism in Chicago. The Sun-Times seems to have generally reduced its op-eds, and some days offers none to its readers. Such circumstances can only increase the pressure for more from Moore, and from her editors and publisher.