NBC Chicago — Separation: A State without Chicago

 Get a load of this, this was uploaded to NBC Chicago's YouTube channel. A documentary about a movement for the rest of the state of Illinois to separate themselves from Cook County & Chicago. Legitimate gripes is for example continued control over Illinois by the politicians of the Chicago area.

Might be more to it than that certainly complaints about quality of life, taxes, even mentions of Chicago being less of a goldmine than a financial disaster. Perhaps the divide depicted in this documentary are between the rural and small towns of this state and a big city like Chicago. [VIDEO]

Question to be asked here, how can we make Illinois a better state?

BBC announces the death of Queen Elizabeth II

 

[VIDEO] Wanted to share this piece of history. How this was announced on the state TV network for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Perhaps we can see how other Commonwealth Realms that count the reigning British Monarch as their head of state announced the death of Queen Elizabeth. However, we'll just look at the mother country of Great Britain.

I can only imagine how it was in 1952 when King George VI, the Queen's Father was announced on the emerging  communication method of TV. And then all the news reports of her own ascension to the British throne.

Subscribing to streaming services

 Just at random I subscribed to a number of streaming services over the holidays.

Right now I'm watching the 2008 HBO miniseries John Adams on HBOMax. Actually this is a cool series for history nerds as it's set during the colonial era of American history. The series shows John Adams defending British soldiers against charges of murder in the Boston Massacre, to his service during the American revolution - and just so you know he wasn't just a founding father, he was a lawyer also, and ultimately to when he's elected the 2nd President of the United States. We don't see much of Adams we might see more of Thomas Jefferson or even George Washington in popular culture. [VIDEO]

Another series I'm following is a mini series about a man I often liked to refer to as OUSTED governor Rod Blagojevich. Blagojevich's federal sentence was commuted by then President Donald Trump in 2020 and thus he was released from prison. We see what Blagojevich does now that he's out of prison and there is certainly a lot of focus on his political career and how he rose so quickly.

Let me tell you a little secret - actually it's no secret. To become a state representative to a Congressman to the Governor of Illinois the fifth largest state in the union it certainly helps to be the son-in-law of a Chicago alderman who's known as a kingmaker. Of course there is coverage of how Blagojevich became OUSTED governor, he was arrested during his second term as governor by federal authorities for essentially attempting to sell then President-elect Barack Obama's old U.S. Senate seat. He was later impeached and ousted or removed from the governorship.

And he was convicted of charges related to his December 2008 arrest and served time in federal prison before being released from custody last year. The mini-series which you can find on another service I have recently subscribed to Hulu is called Being Blago and I noted that on this blog last year.

It's one of those Illinois related media projects that I wanted to share with you in addition to a WBEZ podcast about Rod Blagojevich. Hopefully in the same vein as I had reviewed the Better Gov't Association's podcast about former Speaker Michael Madigan.

Anyway I hope you all are having a happy holidays so far. We got one more to go, which is New Years! Be safe out there! 

CapitolFax: Rewriting history

Rewriting history https://t.co/fYPcfkzozc

— Rich Miller (@capitolfax) October 29, 2021

This post is actually about our former Gov. Rod Blagojevich. He was impeached and removed from office in 2009 because of a corruption scandal and later served time in federal prison until President Donald Trump commuted his sentence.

Bob Wallace R.I.P.

 

[VIDEO] I guess I could consider myself a Bob Wallace fan, however, I was late to the party. My memories of Wallace doesn't date to his time on Chicago's local CBS affiliate, but as the host of Chicago Works produced by the Mayor's press office if you have cable channel 23 on your TV.

I consider channel 23 the city's propaganda arm and it's not something that has been regular viewing for years. One couldn't help but see Mayor Richard M. Daley in his soundbites on the channel, though more often than not with Bob Wallace you see some of the great things happening in our city.

I remember one report which is a bit of a negative one, there are some apartment building on the south side and Wallace with a city building inspector were literally disgusted over some raw sewage. So we saw some not so great things, but at least Chicago residents saw a city that was concerned over the welfare of those living in not so great apartment buildings.

Robert Feder reported that Wallace had passed away after contracting coronavirus. He was 80 and it was cool to see a retrospective of his work at WBBM-TV from 1970 to 1991 as you see above. It surely was very interesting local TV from back in the day. And you get to see NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt in action also.

R.I.P. Bill Campbell

This was in the news last Thursday the passing of longtime ABC 7 Chicago/WLS-TV personality Bill Campbell. Campbell was an alumni of both Harlan High School and Bennett Elementary School. He was 70, back in 2017 it was noted in the press then that he had suffered a stroke and there was a GoFundMe established to support his convalescence at the time.

He is noted as an alum of Bennett School even in the comments section to this post by Robert Feder and in some fb groups for Bennett-Shedd.

Bill Campbell, who served as director of editorials and community services over a 32-year career at ABC-owned WLS-Channel 7, was best known for his long run as host and producer of the weekly public affairs show “Chicagoing.”

The longtime Evanston resident died Wednesday at a Symphony Care Network nursing home in Chicago after a long illness, according to his family. He was 70.

Friends generated a GoFundMe page to help defray medical costs after Campbell suffered a stroke in 2017.

Born on Chicago’s South Side, Campbell was the son of a chemist father and visual artist mother. After graduating from John Marshall Harlan High School and Carleton College in Minnesota, he worked as a staff assistant to the administrative assistant to Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley and director of communications for the Chicago Urban League.

He joined ABC 7 in 1978 and spent his first 10 years at the station writing and delivering on-air editorials — expressing the views of station management on critical issues of the day — which he taped on location.

Free expression: How is credibility determined?

I found this article from Reason magazine with regards to a non-profit news outfit in Colorado that is basically under attack from an aide to the Governor of Colorado. It's not that the news published by this publication was inaccurate. It was merely an attempt to portray this publication as non-credible.

Earlier this month, writer Derek Draplin reported that Polis had established a new office—the Office of the Future of Work—to research the state's changing economy and workforce and make policy recommendations to the governor's office. Draplin published the article in The Center Square, a nonprofit media outlet.

The factually accurate story (read it here) quotes Polis praising the creation of the office, as well as a Colorado GOP spokesperson mocking the creation of yet another regulatory bureaucracy with "undefined goals, broad powers, and a name straight from the brain of George Orwell."

The Center Square offers its state coverage up for free reprints by other media outlets as long as they are appropriately credited. This is not an unusual arrangement; as advertising revenue bleeds away from local newspapers to the internet, small newspapers don't have the manpower to cover many state or national stories on their own anymore.


But when two small Colorado newspapers, the Kiowa County Press in Eads, and the Chronicle-News in Trinidad, published the story, they heard from Conor Cahill, Polis' spokesman, who asked them to take the articles down.

Cahill did not challenge any of the facts presented in the story. He, instead, objected to them having run news stories from The Center Square because he does not see them as an objective source of information. The Center Square is a product of the Franklin News Foundation, which offers state-level journalism and opinion pieces focused on fiscal responsibility and transparency. It used to be known as Watchdog.org but relaunched earlier this year under the new brand.

Cahill's argument is that donors to Franklin News Foundation may come from libertarian or conservative backgrounds, and the fact that writer Draplin is also an editor at The Daily Caller, a right-leaning outlet, apparently taints everything The Center Square writes, even if the story is completely accurate. After the editors refused Cahill's request and The Center Square reported what had happened, The Denver Post and even the Associated Press picked up the story.

I published a "Free Expression" page for this blog during the past week and learned from someone who posted a "wet noodle to see if it sticks" that it needs something controversial to really gain some traction. Well the page at first is only designed to inform, but as with most websites it's a work in progress.

I suppose the argument here as far as free expression is whether or not The Center Square is a credible publication. What makes Center Square less credible than say the NY Times or the Chicago Tribune?

Let's go further is this blog with the information shares - even if it's from other credible sources - any less credible than the NY Times or Chicago Tribune?

Also does this mean a government official such as the aide to the Colorado Governor have the ability to determine what outlets are credible? Should a government official tell those outlets who use articles written by smaller outlets to remove them from their publications in order to essentially undermine their credibility?

So many questions here....