Chicago media is getting rid of what it needs the most

June 8, 2015Media, PoliticsScott Smith

Last week, a new report from The Knight Foundation said a lack of local news and information was the biggest cause of declining turnout among millennial voters.

Meanwhile, these three things happened in Chicago media:

* The Chicago Tribune laid off ten people from its newsroom
* The Sun-Times cut its Homicide Watch editor
* WBEZ canceled The Afternoon Shift, cutting two hours – or half – of its local programming

I’ve often heard the phrase “cutting into bone” when describing particularly painful layoffs and it’s hard not to see the above that way. Especially when you consider the Knight Foundation’s findings.

(Full disclosure: One of the people Tribune cut is someone I’m friendly with, I’ve had an op-ed published on Homicide Watch and I’ve been on Afternoon Shift a bunch of times – including its last show – and became friends with its host, Niala Boodhoo, as a result. I’m not exactly a disinterested party here but I’m trying to keep my argument separate from all that.)

In the case of Tribune, the average person probably doesn’t recognize most of those names. Copy editors, image techs and associate/planning editors aren’t exactly star columnists or even as familiar to readers as reporters with a byline. But you’ll notice them when they’re gone. They’re the folks that keep bad grammar and typos out of the copy, ensure the photos look front page-worthy and decide what gets covered when and how. If you want quality local news coverage and not just filler, they’re the people that make it happen.

Yet it’s often easy to think those cuts can be made without damaging the organization. Your average copy editor doesn’t have a big Twitter following so the outcry will be limited to those in the know on a couple media-focused blogs. Everyone who’s left will be asked to “do more with less.” The mistakes will slip by and everyone will hope no one really noticed.

But hey, at least the the three nationally syndicated columnists who published transphobic nonsense still have a spot on the op-ed page.

With the Sun-Times, you’d think a person whose entire job is to track the names and faces behind the numbers of murders in Chicago would still have a job. But no. How do you not have a spot for that guy in your Chicago newsroom in 2015? Especially with all the evidence that the CPD has previously played a shell game with the true murder count?

When you have something no one else has it puts you at an advantage but only if you realize what you have and know what to do with it. How does the editor of Homicide Watch seem less crucial to a news organization trying to create an engaged, loyal, paying audience than a strategy of Buzzfeed knockoffs with content scraped from social media and other news publishers? Publishers with deeper knowledge and pockets have tried and failed at the latter. Even something like Circa which attracted the best and the brightest, eventually learned that technology and distribution won’t matter unless a unique content strategy underpins it.

As for WBEZ, the Afternoon Shift‘s mission was to feature voices other than the usual slew of bold-faced names, pundits and academics. It was a two-hour show that devoted itself to issues like segregation, crime, jobs, arts and how all these topics interrelate. Award-winning bartenders were juxtaposed with authors, sports figures with community activists. A typical recent show looked at whether local doctors understand nutrition, Illinois’s state budget cuts, NASA’s plan to launch a flying saucer and the Blackhawks. It was unique, it was local, it was entertaining and it informed the public – the latter is a mission critical aspect of public media. It’s all the kind of thing listeners are willing to support with money.

Admittedly, I’m a novice about public media’s overall business model. Perhaps a strategy that creates more shows like Sound Opinions, Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me and This American Life – shows that can be syndicated throughout the public media universe – and fewer that only appeal to a purely local audience make more sense for WBEZ’s bottom line. And hey, those are good shows! But in just a quick perusal of their financial documents (page 4 of this doc is a good summary), it seems membership contributions, community service grants and other program-specific underwriting drives 70% of revenue. (As a comparative, Wisconsin Public Radio is 59% listener/grant/underwriting-supported.) That all seems driven by local programming, which WBEZ says it’s committed to in shifting staff from The Afternoon Shift to The Morning Shift (though the length of the show won’t change as of now and firing Niala, the show’s host, a journalist with several years experience reporting on Chicago and the Midwest, seems misguided, at best).

But again, maybe the health of the organization overall is in better shape if you’re less dependent on those three buckets so local programming isn’t a great bet for the future. How that delivers on a public media mission and less on a capitalistic one will be for them to figure out.

On the whole, it was a damn awful week for people who believed in the value of quality local news. Discussing it this way gives me no thrill. I want vibrancy in local media.

Now, back to that Knight Foundation report and a quote from the release about it:

“The report highlights that young adults care about their cities and have many concerns that local government can address, but these potential voters lack the information, habits, and social cues that would prompt them to engage and participate in local elections,” said David Mermin, partner at Lake Research Partners.

Chicago recently had a mayoral runoff election. It was historic. Never in the history of Chicago elections did something like this ever happen. The two candidates could not have been more different. Stakes, financial and otherwise, were real. Both candidates cranked up their get out the vote efforts…

Turnout averaged 40%.

I’m generally an optimist, even about the state of journalism and media. This week put me back on my heels a bit. In large part because I work in media so this is a direct concern of mine. But it’s one thing for me to be worried about the future of my friends. At this point, I’m worried about the future of democracy.

UPDATE: My friend Mike Fourcher has a response to the above. I don’t see my argument as “If only someone would provide good local news, people would care” so much as it is “Your audience says they need something and you’re choosing not to provide it.” And if you give an audience what they’re asking for they’ll probably see you as valuable and your chances of survival are better.

“Winter apocalypse” image by Quinn Dombrowski. Used through Creative Commons license.

Sorbet

April 13, 2015UncategorizedScott Smith

The other day I realized I’d written a grand total of three posts here this year and two of them had to do with death. This realization came after reading a friend’s status update lamenting a case of writer’s block. I’m not sure if I’m blocked per se, but the motivation to write here has been missing. Or at least not what it was. So I’ve been trying to figure out why.

I’ve rarely been prolific here, especially in the last couple years. I’ve mostly written when there’s something longform I need to get off my chest. Other than that, this space has mostly been a repository of live readings, announcements and a few bits of ephemera.

This never particularly bothered me before. I enjoyed the notion that I only wrote here when I really felt I had something to say. (I have a couple of drafts started in background but never finished them to my liking.) Twitter was the steam valve for everything else. But lately it’s been mostly jokes and work links from me there.

I’ve wondered if this particular dry spell could be attributable to work. The creative itch, the ability to tackle larger issues…much of that gets taken care of on a daily basis there; it really is great to be participating in a newsroom again. But as much as I’m helping guide that process, the real writing is handled by others.

And yes, I’ve been busy. The first event in the reading series I’m producing – it’s called The Frunchroom, you should come! – is this week. It’s one of the big to-dos on my #40in15 list. Then there was the parade and everything else. But everybody’s busy.

So I’m back to where I started.

I’m not entirely sure how much my friend Mark’s recent death is tied into all this. But quite a bit, I’d wager. The raw emotion of the experience is certainly why I didn’t have it in me to write my annual post about Abigail and I sharing a birthday week (he passed away in between our birthdays). And he was one of my favorite writers, particularly in the past year as he tackled some of the headier issues in Chicago politics. My better moments of intelligence came from discussions with him. I miss all that.

I’ve wondered what my first post back from that will be. And it’s probably kept me from writing – the need for it to be just right. But it won’t be so…

I’ve hesitated to discuss this in this space. It’s personal and I don’t tend to write like that here or do these kind of deck-clearing, head-clearing posts either. But at some point I realized until you do that, the fear is going to get the better of you. And you’re never going to get back to why you did it in the first place. And by you, I mean me.

So the above is a bit of a mess. That’s fine. It’s enough that it’s here at all. The publish button as an act of defiance.

An obituary and a celebration of Mark W. Anderson

March 5, 2015Uncategorizedceltic crossings, mark w anderson, obituary, ward roomScott Smith

My friend Mark Anderson died this week. This is the unedited version of the obituary that will run in the Chicago-Sun Times. I will link to their version when it’s posted. UPDATE: Here it is.

We’re also trying to raise money to defray the cost of his end-of-life expenses. More information about that – along with samples of his work, memories from friends and any updates – are posted here.

As mentioned below, we will celebrate his life at Celtic Crossings (751 N.Clark, Chicago) at 230pm on Sunday March 8th. If you knew Mark personally or through his work, you’re invited to attend.

—

Journalist, thinker and survivor Mark W. Anderson, 51, of Chicago, IL passed away on March 2nd, 2015 at Midwest Palliative & Hospice CareCenter, Glenview after a yearlong battle against both cancer and Chicago machine politics. Though the cancer spread, the Machine is said to be in remission. Born December 11th, 1963 in Chicago he had several jobs, including one at a travel agency that introduced him to various parts of the European continent, before finding his place as a financial writer at Morningstar and other companies, bringing a creative verve to a dry topic. He later went on to form his own small communications firm.

Both a student and teacher of Chicago history and tavern culture and a lover in equal measure of rock, jazz and moments of quiet reflection, Anderson graduated from Columbia College with a B.A in journalism in 2005. He is best known as a writer for NBC’s Ward Room. In the tradition of Algren, he wrote of the faults of his beloved city but always believed in its capacity to be better. Through his writing and activism, he played significant roles in the elections of at least one Chicago alderman and a member of the Illinois House of Representatives. He is survived by his wife, Sarah, and several acts of journalism that reverberate to this day.

In keeping with his wishes, Anderson’s body was cremated. His spirit will be present in a celebration of his life at Celtic Crossings (751 N.Clark, Chicago) from 230-630pm on Sunday March 8th. It will be as he was: full of kind words, colorful stories and occasional vulgarities.

UPDATE: The following comes from Scotty Carlson.

Random memories of the late Mark W. Anderson, Columbia alum, Ward Room fighter, veteran of the Columbia Chronicle, and my friend:

– It’s 2003-2004 and I’m taking History of Journalism. Manders is the oldest student in the class, probably by about 10 years. He takes notes on a laptop every day. Other classmates, with notebooks and pens, think it’s a weird thing to do.

– It’s later that year. I’m a news editor on Columbia College’s Chronicle newspaper; Manders is an associate editor. Somehow we find out we’re both Beatle freaks. He gives me a printed copy of an email that his friend forwarded. His friend worked for Eric Idle’s touring concerts. The email is from Eric Idle, written on George Harrison’s home computer, regarding George’s health shortly before he passed.

– It’s 2009. We’re at Manders’ house in his front room. I bring two recent vinyl acquisitions — the Japanese pro-use pressing of ABBEY ROAD and a bootleg of GET BACK — to listen on his famed stereo. We sit in front of his speakers, not saying a word. Just smiling and listening.

– It’s 2010. Our friend and mentor, Jim Sulski, has passed away. Manders is the one — and the only former comrade of the Chronicle — to let me know. We go to Sulski’s funeral together. On the car ride home, we tell each other neither of us would have had the strength to go by ourselves.

– It’s 2013. Over the years, we’ve fallen out over stupid reasons, but we still keep in touch. I’m spending a month interning at the Grateful Dead archive. The archivist presents me with a tour program from the 1983 tour. I snap a pic and send it to Manders. He replies: “What’s funny is, I still have that very tour program, from my second set of Dead shows ever. I remember buying it at a little booth the first time I was at Alpine in 1984.”

– It’s late 2014. Mark emails me about his health issues and having to sell his beloved vinyl collection. He needs Kinks albums. I Dropbox him 6 gigabytes — everything I have. I tell him I’m coming back home for Christmas and want to see him. We try to schedule coffee. It’s the last time I hear from him.

Rest in peace, Manders.

Beware the bubble of your own understanding

February 14, 2015Mediadavid carr, deathScott Smith

David Carr died this week. He was a media reporter for the New York Times, a former alt-weekly editor, a man in recovery from addiction, a father, a husband, a defender of the good, a champion of the great.

Rather than idolize him, I tried to idolize his work and his approach: be open to the new, skeptical of the conventional wisdom and crucifying of the fatuous. He brought down the barbarians in the Tower with a single (meticulously reported) article. Few of us will be as good as he, but I hope it’s enough that we try.

I’m as guilty as anyone for occasionally thinking the world as it exists through my eyes is as it is for everyone. So after an evening watching colleagues in the media memorialize and celebrate Carr in specific, loving memories on Twitter, I wondered how many people I knew, knew him.

I asked some friends on Facebook:

Non-media people: How does David Carr’s death resonate for you, if at all? He was a giant in this field and an idol of many but I’m trying to get outside the bubble to truly understand it. I have thoughts on this but would rather hear from you.

(Granted, this is still a biased sample but far more helpful than asking the same question on Twitter which overindexes for media types.)

Here were some of the responses.

“Lived in DC and read the Washington City Paper when he was writing for them. Still, I had to be reminded who he was.”

“His name was familiar enough that I would have guessed he was a columnist or editor for the Times, but I didn’t know him for anything specific.”

“I vaguely remember an interview with Fresh Air. I think it was him, and if so all I took away was he’d had a drug problem. I used to be more up on these factoids.”

A few folks who are active in media even chimed in:

“I guess I am a media person, but have no idea who he is/was”

“I had heard of him, but hadn’t really followed his work or identified it as his work”

“Chiming in from the goofball community – never heard of him”

“Had to Google him. And I consider myself to be pretty savvy when it comes to media & media personalities”

“Maybe I don’t count as a non-media person, but Night of the Gun was a rad memoir. I didn’t connect his NYT personality with the writer of that memoir until I saw a documentary on the NYT a while ago.”

Thirteen people responded. Six of them in media, seven who aren’t. All said they either didn’t know him, sort of knew some of his work but didn’t know him or had no idea.

I somewhat expected this response but it was really surprising to hear this from people within media (though they’re all outside New York).

This isn’t to minimize Carr’s impact though I debated publishing this because it might come off as such. To be clear, he shaped or changed many accepted narratives. His work was crucial to understanding media in the 21st century.

But as we as a society become more fragmented in our media choices and assume the world at-large mirrors the conversation in our social feeds, it’s worth fact-checking that from time to time, even anecdotally.

To return to the Tribune example, he saved the paper from an awful fate. In many ways, they’re still rebuilding from the damage Zell and Michaels wrought both within the Tower and with its constituencies. If you believe in the need for a vigorous watchdog press, thousands of people in the Chicago area were helped by his work without even knowing it. For this reason alone, many more people outside media circles ought to know David Carr’s name.

Carr’s writing offered a reminder that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts and the points in-between are often the key. Checking assumptions is crucial. You have to go out and look for truth because it is usually hidden by those who’d rather you didn’t find it. These values were never more apparent than when he turned his own considerable reportorial skills on himself, fact-checking his memories from when he was in the thrall of addiction.

Even those close to you see the world very differently. It’s important to ask them how from time to time. I’ll try to remember that.

Photo by Eddie Cordel via Creative Commons

#40in15

January 18, 2015Uncategorized#40in15, productivityScott Smith

Photo credit: Flickr user Palo via Creative Commons

I turn 40 this year.

After rushing into an ultimately failed first marriage, I no longer get particularly hung up on where or who or what I’m supposed to be at a certain place in my life. While I’m not consumed by an existential wave of self-reflection, I have to acknowledge my 2014 went off the rails a bit, if for good reasons: deaths in the family, dog fighting cancer, armed robbery, etc. Now that we’ve turned out of the skid (great new job, healthy dog, etc.) it seemed a worthwhile endeavor to make sure 2015 had a magnetic north.

So I made a list.

The overall vibe I was going for was somewhere between basic weekly achievements and shoot-for-the-stars goals that would require some advance planning. It wouldn’t be the sum total of what I’ll accomplish this year. I wouldn’t include any goals related to my job, for instance. My ongoing fight against the forces of high blood pressure wouldn’t merit a mention aside from the efforts to work out more.

Some of these seem ridiculously easy (listening to new records, for instance) but I’ve found it’s easy to forget to do them even if they provide the spark to do more. Some are already in the planning stages and some (especially the activity goals) are grouped into one related topic.

I’m sharing them here because it makes it real. I won’t be posting updates unless they’re worth it. Though I suppose the whole point of making this list is to make my 40th year full of things worthy of discussion.

Health/productivity goals
1. Read six books
2. Work out three times a week
3. Listen to 12 new records and watch 12 new movies
4. Take an ongoing class in krav maga (or something similarly physical)
5. Re-learn Spanish

Family/house goals
6. Have a dinner date with Erin once a month
7. Paint our back porch stairs
8. Refinish the kitchen counters
9. Travel to England with the family
10. Go on a family road trip
11. Financial goal #1
12. Financial goal #2
13. Have a father/daughter outing with AG once a month

Creative/professional goals
14. Get published in a book and write a book proposal
15. Write 100 blog posts
16. Subscribe to at least one new magazine/newspaper
17. Read at six live events, including one I’ve never performed at and one that requires me to memorize a piece
18. Subscribe to the Beverly Review
19. Launch a South Side reading series
20. Learn to play the ukulele
21. Publish a piece in the Chicago Reader
22. Get on Chicago Tonight‘s Week In Review
23. Appear on a national TV show

Service goals
24. Join a board
25. Volunteer at a new organization
26. Launch a scholarship fund
27. Help a friend achieve one of their own year goals
28. Start Operation: Hydrate (more on this later)
29. Establish an ongoing recycling program in our house
30. Make an ongoing contribution of my mind, hands and time to the fight against youth gun violence in Chicago

Activity goals
31. Make a cocktail for every season
32. Buy and consume a bottle of Lagavulin (not all in one sitting, may be shared)
33. Pitchfork Fest, Hideout Fest or Riot Fest – pick one and go this year
34. Visit six Chicago museums: The National Museum of Mexican Art, Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, Driehaus Museum, Hull House and International Museum of Surgical Science, Museum of Holography, Museum of Contemporary Photography
35. Visit five Chicago bars: Cuneen’s, University of Chicago Pub, Twin Anchors, Schaller’s Pump, and Glascott’s Saloon
36. Visit five Chicago restaurants: Superdawg, Palace Grill, Nuevo Leon, Tufano’s, Gale Street Inn
37. Visit five historic Chicago places: South Shore Cultural Center, Pullman, Fourth Presbyterian Church, Union Stockyards Gate, Glessner House
38. See five bands live, including one I’ve been putting off for too long
39. Either finish The Wire and Battlestar Galactica or don’t but make a decision for crying out loud
40. Buy a new suit and a tux

Photo: Flickr user Palo via Creative Commons

And now, back to the news

December 8, 2014Mediacramer-krasselt, news, touchvisionScott Smith

Next week, I’m starting a new job as editorial director of Touchvision, an independent video news startup. It’s based in Chicago, but national in its reach and point of view. Our work can be viewed on mobile, tablet, desktop or television – anywhere there’s a screen. I’ll oversee the creation of our news product, make sure it has a compelling, relevant, distinct voice and get it in front of the right audience. Like most jobs of its type, it’s both creation and distribution. It’s a fantastic opportunity and I’ll be there with a couple of old friends, which is always a plus.

Not having started there yet, it’s a bit premature to talk in detail about what Touchvision does and where it’s headed other than to say we create straight-ahead video news as well as features. But this video about a young woman who’s a dancer with the Joffrey Ballet gives a sense of the possibilities.* It tells a beautiful story with strong emotion at its core and reveals something about the world.

I really liked working at Cramer-Krasselt. It’s full of smart people who do great work and they tolerate a lot less BS than other places – especially agencies. I learned a great deal about how big international brands launch new ventures and conduct their business. When I turned in my notice, colleagues told me they appreciated what I do and will miss having me there. Everything you could ask for from a job.

And there’s no denying we’re in a difficult period for the larger media world and, more specifically, the business of journalism.

But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t eager to be a part of it again. As much as I wanted/needed the experience of working in an agency environment, this is one of the most exciting times ever for news. It’s what I know best and what I love. And when I’ve had the most fun.

I’m incredibly excited. Can’t wait to get started. The thought of being in a newsroom again makes me a little dizzy.

That’s probably a good sign.

* It probably goes without saying but just in case it doesn’t: I didn’t have any involvement in the creation of the Joffrey piece. But I really dig it all the same.

Image by Theo Curmudgeon. Used and adapted via Creative Commons license.

My top 10 favorite moments at Chicagoist on its 10th anniversary

October 23, 2014Chicago, Mediachicagoist, old, writingScott Smith

Chicagoist – a site I succinctly describe to the uninitiated as “a news and culture blog about Chicago” – launched about ten-and-a-half years ago under editors Margaret Lyons and Rachelle Bowden with the backend marketing and infrastructure support of the Gothamist network (which at the time was just two sites). The site’s just getting around to celebrating this milestone tonight and I’ve been in full throwback mode all day. (I’ve been tweeting reflections and stories on Twitter under #Chicagoist10).

It may seem unremarkable now but at the time there were few sites trying to talk about the news the way the average twenty/thirtysomething person talked about the news. In Chicago, there was Chicagoist, Gapers Block (the older brother competition who always made us try to work harder), Eric Zorn’s blog and a handful of others mostly focused on specific topics. Chicagoist and Gapers were the only two group blogs I recall that tried to cover the whole city. (Red Eye, Chicago magazine, Time Out Chicago and the dailies were still very focused on their print products.) We didn’t always succeed in our efforts to cover all of Chicago, in part because Chicagoist had a downtown/North Side bias running through it for its first couple of years. This angered native Chicagoans (and oddly some transplants, too) but it also meant the site had a voice, the voice of someone moving into the city for the first time and discovering it. And as the site grew older that voice become more authoritative and it grew into its aspirations without losing the barroom skepticism that ran through it in the early days.

I started there as a music and movies writer, a few months after the site launched. This was my first audition post. (It is nothing special.) I left as a co-editor in 2007 to go work at Time Out Chicago. Chicagoist was an incredible training ground for writers who wanted to develop. Many of us wrote for free. We weren’t really editing each other early on. SEO and social-driven audiences were non-existent. So the site was often a mix of in-jokes, minor happenstances and hobby horses. I can’t count the number of times favorite movie quotes of mine became headlines. But it was also a chance to figure out who you were as a writer. And get better at it. Or to create a newsroom environment even though we all worked remotely. We even managed to throw the occasional event or five. It was legit to say that blog had a community around it. I still read the comments in those days.

It was also a time when there were few alternate sources of news and viewpoints on the same. Again, unfathomable if you’ve grown up in a media ecosystem, post-2010. When the dailies or other media sources did something dumb, sexist or short-sighted, we wrote about it. I know how trite this sounds now, but it was what made me proud to write for them. Scroll down to the “Special thanks to” section here and you can see all the folks who made the site what it’s been.

I owe most of my current career to getting my start there. So do many others. It’s also where I met my wife. So in some ways, I owe it everything.

Here are ten of my most memorable moments – nine good ones and one when I got a little over my skis.

10. The Dave Matthews poop bus stories
All the Chicagoist writers had their way with this legendary story of a DMB tour bus dropping its toilet after-products into the Chicago River. I took particular glee in it. We retired the topic here but it still gets referenced whenever fecal matter is involved.

9. Interviews and festival coverage
We started doing coverage of summer music festivals in 2005 when Lollapalooza returned. The first year we were still small so I just ran around Lolla with a digital camera, a notebook and a tape recorder. Other local sites would follow the wall-to-wall model as the music festival scene took off with Intonation and Pitchfork. But Chicagoist still does it best years later even as social media has changed the way live events get covered.

Chicagoist is also where I learned to interview people whether they were bands, filmmakers, authors, a friend of mine who was a ballerina and a burlesque dancer. Most importantly, I interviewed the guys behind Filmspotting (nee Cinecast), a show I guest-co-hosted a couple of times, which remains a highlight of my life in media.

Speaking of interviews…

8. WBEZ’s decision to drop jazz
It’s ironic how hard I went after WBEZ here since I’ve ended up appearing on its airwaves many times since as a panelist, which would not be possible without this switch. After I did this post, its VP of comms asked me if he could respond so we ran this Q&A.

7. The Get Well Roger project
When Roger Ebert first became ill, the staff crowdsourced a simple photo project: People uploading and tagging photos of themselves giving the thumbs-up.

6. That time I kinda fucked up
I hated Tucker Max. Still do. I count as a career highlight the time I was editor of Playboy.com and told his publicist we would never cover him as long as I was editor (which didn’t last long but still). But I didn’t do my homework on this one and the whole reason for it – Tucker Max supposedly operating a site under a pseudonym – was taken down hard in the comments (deservedly so) by people with more awareness of him than I had at the time. The rest of the post is sort of useless (though still true) without it. But he was in an ascendant period here and it felt important to talk about that. The world would eventually tire of his shenanigans.

5. Ctrl-Alt-Rock 1 and 2
We threw two local band showcases thanks in large part to the booking prowess of Jim “Tankboy” Kopeny. Ctrl-Alt-Rock was the name coined by our sports writer Benjy Lipsman. The first packed the house at Schuba’s. The second was at Double Door and was one of the last things I did with the site before leaving for Time Out Chicago. The second is my favorite because I convinced Jim we should book the Reptoids and a little band of U of C students no one had heard of called The Passerines.

4. The Double Door is closing hearing in which nothing happened
Everyone freaked out because the Double Door might close. An online petition was launched. I went to to the hearing. The response to the loss of a great rock club forced the two sides to come to an agreement. I wrote this post because I sat in a courtroom for hours and wanted to make it worth something.

3. Guilting Pitchfork/Intonation into letting people bring in their own water
It is always ridiculously hot during Chicago’s festival season. The fest that would become Pitchfork Fest had a stupid policy of not allowing people to bring their own water. But their reaction to questions about it was what really irked me so I wrote this. Two days later the fest reversed its decision and allowed people to bring in their own water, a rule most summer festivals here now follow.

2. Questioning NBC 5’s ethics
I don’t know why this bothered me so much. Maybe because our site had a more stringent ethics policy for food reporting than a major television affiliate.

1. The Richard Marx letters
It’s pretty much standard for Richard Marx to go after someone in Chicago media when they do something he doesn’t like. My errors were minor to non-existent depending on your read of this. This was the first time I heard from a legitimately famous person I wrote about and it was a little weird. Justin Kaufmann and I later immortalized those emails in this live Schadenfreude sketch:

No one waits in line at Hot Doug’s for a hot dog

October 2, 2014Chicago, Uncategorizedeverything great about chicago, hot doug'sScott Smith

One of the worst things about Internet culture in the last five years is its tendency to mock the unfettered joy of others. Someone’s always there to remind you there is some atrocity you should be rending your garments over instead of just…being…in-between the decisions that keep you up at night.

All this brings me to the line at Hot Doug’s.

Let me make this clear because it seems to have escaped notice: Hot Doug’s is not, at its core, about hot dogs. And people do not wait in line at Hot Doug’s because they are interested solely in consuming a hot dog.

Hot Doug’s is both simple and complex. Simply, they are encased meats. Here’s where it gets complicated: I have never, during a visit, spent more time dining inside Hot Doug’s than I have waiting outside in its line. I would argue this is true for most people. So what happens in the line is as important as what happens when you sit down to eat.

This is why people who are selling their spots on Craigslist for hundreds of dollars are missing the point entirely.

I don’t blame people who have never been to Hot Doug’s for thinking a long wait in line for a place is bullshit. In any other case, I’d agree with them. But I’ve waited in line at Hot Doug’s for an hour in ten degree weather and been happy to do it.

We live in a world that is trying to eliminate any shared physical experience. The movies, the theater and the line at Hot Doug’s feel like the last semblances of humanity’s group project. (There is no line at Kuma’s. You put your name in and find a space of your own to wait.)

I’ve never had a bad experience in a Hot Doug’s line. Every time I expected someone would, for example, ignore the signs about keeping the doors in the vestibule closed on a winter’s day? Never happened. People want to be in that line so there’s a shared sense of responsibility.

Here’s why people waite in line at Hot Doug’s:

– Because the guy that owns the place has been standing longer than you (until this week, anyway). And he’s standing there to take your order. With a smile. And a warm greeting. And a reminder that you should just get the small drink instead of the large because it’s free refills.

– Have you ever had to wait for a table at Hot Doug’s? I haven’t. Do you know why? Because Doug Sohn and his team are wizards. I placed my order and miraculously – every time! – there’s a table waiting for me and however many friends I came in with. Doug knows exactly how long to make small talk with you and everyone else in line to make things run smoothly.

– Doug Sohn is the only person in Chicago to incur a fine for selling foie gras. Not Charlie Trotter who made it a thing. The little guy who owns the sausage stand on the corner of Roscoe and California. However you feel about foie gras aside, here is an example of an average guy telling grandstanding politicians to take a flying leap and getting pasted on the chin for it.

– If you are in line at closing time, you get a seat.

– The specials this week include salsa verde wild boar sausage with chipotle dijonaise, jalapeno bacon and smoked gouda and escargot and guanciale sausage with parsley-garlic butter and camebert cheese for nine bucks each and if you want gourmet food on that level anyplace else in Chicago it will cost you three times as much.

– This:

People waited in line at Hot Doug’s because all of this matters. And they voted with their feet. They said they wanted this to remain and were willing to put in the time necessary to make it happen.

So you, guardian of the free time of others, who mocked those folks who were waiting in line at Hot Doug’s?

They had more fun than you.

This Sun-Times headline is more false than controversial

September 30, 2014Mediaaurora, chicago sun-times, faaScott Smith

There’s a debate to be had about whether this Sun-Times cover is overly incendiary or whether its tone is or is not befitting the front page of a newspaper. But you could go back and forth on that and neither side would be right or wrong. Meanwhile, the New York Post would be all “How you doin‘?”

What’s not really debatable is how factually incorrect this cover is.

The issue comes down to the phrase “Here’s the reason….” It’s essentially saying “This guy did it.” Does current evidence seem to point to him as the culprit? Yep. But he hasn’t been convicted. A newspaper should probably keep its powder dry until that happens.

But even still, it’s false. Let’s say for the sake of argument you as the editor are comfortable saying he did it because of the Facebook post he left and his lawyer essentially admitting he did.

He isn’t the reason the fire happened. A person isn’t a reason. Those are two different things. We don’t yet know what the reason was that he (for argument’s sake) did it. So the word use is poor. Maybe the reason was mental illness. Maybe he was drunk and high on drugs and didn’t have all of his faculties about him. Maybe he was absolutely in his right mind when it happened but had a grudge against someone.* We don’t know yet. The reasoning behind it is still unknown. None of this is revealed by printing his photo.

And not to further split hairs, but the reason the flights were canceled is because the FAA doesn’t have a backup system in place for when the Aurora flight control tower is disabled. Capacity became an issue. The fire was a huge contributing factor, for sure. But it wasn’t the reason. At best it was one of two.

So nevermind the language’s potential consequences or whether he should be treated with kid gloves in copy. The headline, as written, is incorrect. And that’s why it shouldn’t have been printed.

I get why it’s on the cover and even why it was framed around the flight cancellations. It’s a huge story that reminds me of the air traffic controller subplot of “Breaking Bad.” The drama of it is cinematic in scope but affects the way many people lived their lives over the past few days. Contrast this with the current Joliet murder trial that’s grisly and twisted but ultimately doesn’t affect the average person. This story plays well on the front page and has relevance.

But at some point, the front page of a newspaper has to not sound like the boozed-up guy on a barstool at O’Hare who missed his flight to Cleveland.

* Many news outlets have reported that this man was recently told he would be transferred to Hawaii. In the minds of many, this became cause and effect. But this seems like one of those fascinating details that, at first, seems to provide a reason but later turns out to be a McGuffin. Would the move to Hawaii mean he would be separated from family? Did it come with a demotion in title and salary? Does he hate coconuts? There’s so much more to this story but the flash of it seems irresistible.

Our Man In Chicago

Work. In progress.