How Chicago Tribune compromised its own standards to score a political point
This has made national news, so the Americans reading this, at least, may have heard about it. But in the likely case you haven't....
On Thursday, Chicago Tribune reporter and Editorial Board member Kristen McQueary wrote an editorial wishing that Chicago would get a Hurricane Katrina. Because, you she wrote, the hurricane ultimately made the New Orleans' government better.
That's what it took to hit the reset button in New Orleans. Chaos. Tragedy. Heartbreak.
Residents overthrew a corrupt government. A new mayor slashed the city budget, forced unpaid furloughs, cut positions, detonated labor contracts. New Orleans' City Hall got leaner and more efficient. Dilapidated buildings were torn down. Public housing got rebuilt. Governments were consolidated.
An underperforming public school system saw a complete makeover. A new schools chief, Paul Vallas, designed a school system with the flexibility of an entrepreneur. No restrictive mandates from the city or the state. No demands from teacher unions to abide. Instead, he created the nation's first free-market education system.
Hurricane Katrina gave a great American city a rebirth.
The editorial has since been slightly revised to (somewhat) soften the language, but you can read the original version here.
In both versions of the editorial, she explained that she was inspired by a visit from New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu. This year will make a 10-year anniversary of the disaster, and Landrieu has been talking to editorial boards of various media outlets (including Tribune). So her view was based on Landreiu's account of what things have been like.
Naturally, when you bring up a natural disaster that killed thousands, permanently displaced thousands more and caused untold damage, people were not going to react well. Chicagoans and current and former New Orleanians have been pretty swift in their condemnation, and honestly, can you blame them? My own initial reaction could be summed up as "what the fuck is this fuckery!"
McQueary's subsequent attempt to clarify what she meant has, if anything, made it worse. That editorial could be summed up "I'm sorry your feelings got hurt, I really am, but I was trying to make a point there - and I stand behind it."
But even if you set aside, for the moment, the fact that McQueary used a natural disaster to make what amounts to a political point, her premise doesn't really hold up.
During my visit to New Orleans, I bought copies of the city's major newspapers - Times-Picayune and New Orleans Advocate. I wound up getting my hands on three issues of the Gambit, NOLA's alt weekly newspaper, and Antigravity, the alternative monthly. What I read about New Orleans' political situation only scratched the surface, but even I could tell that things have been anything but smooth under Landrieu's administration. Consider the fate of the city's former public hospital, whose redevelopment turned into bureaucratic nightmare. Or concerns about police shortages. Or the fact that, from what I understand, the charter school system McQueary was originally supposed to be a temporary post-Katrina measure, and that it because de facto permanent under what could be charitably described as questionable circumstances.
This map alone haunted me - and that's just as small part of the Katrina collection
But this is just coming from a guy who visited NOLA for a few days and read a few newspapers. I wanted to see what journalists that actually cover the city full-time would make of this.
TImes-Picayune's response was very neutral - they described what happened, noted the fact that the article has been added, gave a link to the original and edited versions, and that's about it. New Orleans Advocate went a bit further, arguing that that things weren't quite as rosy as McQueary made it sound.
At the threshold of the 10th storm season since Katrina, it would be too much to say categorically that New Orleans is “back” from the worst urban catastrophe in modern American history.
After a decade of recovery, the metro area is still smaller by at least 70,000 people.
St. Bernard Parish is still missing a third of its former population; Plaquemines Parish and New Orleans, about 20 percent each.
The city’s physical and economic recovery has been distressingly uneven, as a drive from Lakeview to the desolate Lower 9th Ward will demonstrate.
Despite signs of prosperity, New Orleans remains a low-wage city divided between haves and have-nots. Inequity is apparent and, by some metrics, worse than before the storm.
The Gambit's reaction was a mix of horror and bemusement, with editor Kevin Allman offering to meet McQueary for a cup of coffee and have a civil conversation about what things are like in New Orleans.
In a follow-up post, Allman elaborated a bit.
Unmentioned: billions of dollars in federal recovery money and insurance payouts, which had a lot to do with what progress we've made; bootstraps and volunteerism only goes so far. Dumping that kind of money into Chicago, even without a tragedy, would probably perk up things there as well.
Thing is, politicians go before Chicago Tribune Editorial Board all the time. And each and every one of them is trying to spin something. But when, say, Rahmn Emanuel goes up before the Editorial Board, they don't just take him on his word. They question his economic projections, crime statistics, etc. Why wasn't the same scrutiny wasn't applied to Landrieu?
As anybody who has been reading the Tribune for any length of time knows, the paper has certain editorial biases. The Trib has hated labor unions for pretty much as long as labor unions existed. They have supported charter schools for decades, and seem willing to give charter schools the kind of leeway and benefit of a doubt public schools never get in their editorials. I have joked many times before about the fact that Tribune would only say anything bad about a charter school if it's caught defiling child's corpse.
Using a real-life tragedy to make a political point is bad enough. It wasn't quite as bad as the Russian government using the spectre of fascism to demonize the Ukrainian government, but are still using a tragedy that has very personal, very visceral meaning to millions of people, the sort of thing we Chicagoans would never be able to fully understand.
But if you must use it, at least do a bit of homework. Tribune's editorial board is full of smart people who are prefectly capable of deep, thorough research. Try to understand a complex situation, see what Chicago can learn from it.
But they didn't do that. Instead, they relaxed their own editorial standards just because a politicians said something that agreed with their views.
On behalf of all journalists who ever got their checks signed by the Tribune, I would like to extend a sincere apology to all New Orleans residents past and present.
At this point, I doubt they'll get it from the Tribune Editorial Board.
On Thursday, Chicago Tribune reporter and Editorial Board member Kristen McQueary wrote an editorial wishing that Chicago would get a Hurricane Katrina. Because, you she wrote, the hurricane ultimately made the New Orleans' government better.
That's what it took to hit the reset button in New Orleans. Chaos. Tragedy. Heartbreak.
Residents overthrew a corrupt government. A new mayor slashed the city budget, forced unpaid furloughs, cut positions, detonated labor contracts. New Orleans' City Hall got leaner and more efficient. Dilapidated buildings were torn down. Public housing got rebuilt. Governments were consolidated.
An underperforming public school system saw a complete makeover. A new schools chief, Paul Vallas, designed a school system with the flexibility of an entrepreneur. No restrictive mandates from the city or the state. No demands from teacher unions to abide. Instead, he created the nation's first free-market education system.
Hurricane Katrina gave a great American city a rebirth.
The editorial has since been slightly revised to (somewhat) soften the language, but you can read the original version here.
In both versions of the editorial, she explained that she was inspired by a visit from New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu. This year will make a 10-year anniversary of the disaster, and Landrieu has been talking to editorial boards of various media outlets (including Tribune). So her view was based on Landreiu's account of what things have been like.
Naturally, when you bring up a natural disaster that killed thousands, permanently displaced thousands more and caused untold damage, people were not going to react well. Chicagoans and current and former New Orleanians have been pretty swift in their condemnation, and honestly, can you blame them? My own initial reaction could be summed up as "what the fuck is this fuckery!"
McQueary's subsequent attempt to clarify what she meant has, if anything, made it worse. That editorial could be summed up "I'm sorry your feelings got hurt, I really am, but I was trying to make a point there - and I stand behind it."
But even if you set aside, for the moment, the fact that McQueary used a natural disaster to make what amounts to a political point, her premise doesn't really hold up.
During my visit to New Orleans, I bought copies of the city's major newspapers - Times-Picayune and New Orleans Advocate. I wound up getting my hands on three issues of the Gambit, NOLA's alt weekly newspaper, and Antigravity, the alternative monthly. What I read about New Orleans' political situation only scratched the surface, but even I could tell that things have been anything but smooth under Landrieu's administration. Consider the fate of the city's former public hospital, whose redevelopment turned into bureaucratic nightmare. Or concerns about police shortages. Or the fact that, from what I understand, the charter school system McQueary was originally supposed to be a temporary post-Katrina measure, and that it because de facto permanent under what could be charitably described as questionable circumstances.
This map alone haunted me - and that's just as small part of the Katrina collection
But this is just coming from a guy who visited NOLA for a few days and read a few newspapers. I wanted to see what journalists that actually cover the city full-time would make of this.
TImes-Picayune's response was very neutral - they described what happened, noted the fact that the article has been added, gave a link to the original and edited versions, and that's about it. New Orleans Advocate went a bit further, arguing that that things weren't quite as rosy as McQueary made it sound.
At the threshold of the 10th storm season since Katrina, it would be too much to say categorically that New Orleans is “back” from the worst urban catastrophe in modern American history.
After a decade of recovery, the metro area is still smaller by at least 70,000 people.
St. Bernard Parish is still missing a third of its former population; Plaquemines Parish and New Orleans, about 20 percent each.
The city’s physical and economic recovery has been distressingly uneven, as a drive from Lakeview to the desolate Lower 9th Ward will demonstrate.
Despite signs of prosperity, New Orleans remains a low-wage city divided between haves and have-nots. Inequity is apparent and, by some metrics, worse than before the storm.
The Gambit's reaction was a mix of horror and bemusement, with editor Kevin Allman offering to meet McQueary for a cup of coffee and have a civil conversation about what things are like in New Orleans.
In a follow-up post, Allman elaborated a bit.
Unmentioned: billions of dollars in federal recovery money and insurance payouts, which had a lot to do with what progress we've made; bootstraps and volunteerism only goes so far. Dumping that kind of money into Chicago, even without a tragedy, would probably perk up things there as well.
Thing is, politicians go before Chicago Tribune Editorial Board all the time. And each and every one of them is trying to spin something. But when, say, Rahmn Emanuel goes up before the Editorial Board, they don't just take him on his word. They question his economic projections, crime statistics, etc. Why wasn't the same scrutiny wasn't applied to Landrieu?
As anybody who has been reading the Tribune for any length of time knows, the paper has certain editorial biases. The Trib has hated labor unions for pretty much as long as labor unions existed. They have supported charter schools for decades, and seem willing to give charter schools the kind of leeway and benefit of a doubt public schools never get in their editorials. I have joked many times before about the fact that Tribune would only say anything bad about a charter school if it's caught defiling child's corpse.
Using a real-life tragedy to make a political point is bad enough. It wasn't quite as bad as the Russian government using the spectre of fascism to demonize the Ukrainian government, but are still using a tragedy that has very personal, very visceral meaning to millions of people, the sort of thing we Chicagoans would never be able to fully understand.
But if you must use it, at least do a bit of homework. Tribune's editorial board is full of smart people who are prefectly capable of deep, thorough research. Try to understand a complex situation, see what Chicago can learn from it.
But they didn't do that. Instead, they relaxed their own editorial standards just because a politicians said something that agreed with their views.
On behalf of all journalists who ever got their checks signed by the Tribune, I would like to extend a sincere apology to all New Orleans residents past and present.
At this point, I doubt they'll get it from the Tribune Editorial Board.