Parade? What Parade?

On Oct. 28, an estimated 1.75 million people crowded Chicago streets to celebrate the World Series Champion Chicago White Sox in a ticker-tape parade. It's the largest public gathering in the history of Chicago, and if you study the film, you won't see a single Cubs logo in the crowd. The next day, Oct. 29, the Tribune ran a front-page story, originally headlined, "Can Sox Win More Hearts, Minds?" that overlooked those 1.75 million people at the parade. It didn't mention them at all. Instead, the Weekend-edition story by David Greising and Bonnie Rubin questioned whether the Sox could ever be as "big" as the Cubs, based on some mysterious criteria of "bigness." Hmm. Being "big" must have something to do with being constantly promoted by the media empire that owns you.


Photo courtesy of jcinchicago.

Where Have All the Reporters Gone?

Oct. 26 was a day that the dreams of millions came true. Paul Konerko caught Juan Uribe's throw and 88 years of waiting came to an end. Across the South Side of Chicago, thousands of people poured into the streets. On South Halsted, the street swelled with cars honking and pedestrians cheering, waving flags, banging pots, setting off fireworks. They were white, black, Hispanic, Asian, and they were, for those blissful hours, united. I know. I was there. And callers to radio talk shows reported similar scenes on Western Avenue and Kedzie. But where were the cameras? Where were the notebooks? Where were the news helicopters? Nowhere to be seen.

Chicago's establisment media focused on the ballpark at 35th and Shields and on Jimbo's across the park. There were thousands celebrating there, too, but police had limited the size of the crowd by sealing off the area for miles around. Police had closed all the offramps on the Dan Ryan, from the Eisenhower Expressway to 47th Street. They closed all Bridgeport streets for several blocks around the ballpark. No one could get into Bridgeport except on foot. So our city's media witnessed only the severely confined celebration at the ballpark, and they missed the celebration that erupted across the South Side.

This wasn't just a baseball story, this was a civil rights story. When in the history of Chicago have people of all colors joined together on the streets of the South Side to peacefully celebrate a common victory? I'm going to say never. It would have been grand if our media saw fit to document the event. In their defense, they didn't know where to look. Most of them had never been down here before.

Pot-Smoking Black Folk at the Playoffs, Oh My!

The day is Oct. 3, 2005. Thousands of easily frightened rich white people are flying into Chicago from all over the country, but especially from the East Coast, to see the White Sox play the 2004-champion Boston Red Sox in the American League Division Series. What greets our nervous tourists on the front page of the Tribune? A story about squalor, poverty, and drug-use by -- gasp! -- curiously stereotypical African American characters who live near U.S. Cellular Field. Way to frighten the tourists, Trib. By the way, what happened to all the poor people of color who used to live in squalor in Wrigleyville? Are they keeping up with those rents or did you clear them all out?