The Rapists of Wrigleyville

Another woman has been sexually assaulted in the shadow of Wrigley Field. In a three minute report, ABC 7 News referred to the neighborhood as Wrigleyville. The Tribune is calling it Lakeview, even though the assault — at 3700 N. Lakewood — occurred just four blocks from The Shrine. The Tribune seizes every opportunity to link crime to U.S. Cellular Field, but makes certain that much more serious crimes are not associated with the baseball stadium it owns at Clark and Addison.

But the fact that rapists lurk in the shadows of Wrigleyville, waiting for female adherents of the alcohol-soaked culture up there to stumble home in the wee hours of weekend mornings, has everything to do with a neighborhood under the influence of Wrigley Field and with the Tribune Company's relentless promotion of the Bleacher Bum culture inside and outside of the stadium walls (See all the ongoing Metromix and Redeye coverage of Wrigleyville, for example).

But the Tribune's relationship to sexual assault is complex. This weekend's assault once again merited a front-page community alert from the Tribune's web edition, even if that alert was very careful to steer very clear of any mention of Wrigley. The Tribune routinely ignores sexual assaults in most of the rest of the city, especially neighborhoods where the women tend not to be Caucasian. You can bet, though, that if a sexual assault occurred that close to U.S. Cellular Field, we'd hear about it, and they'd find a way to tie it to the White Sox.

Truth in Advertising: The Wrigleyville Tribune

The Peace and Education Coalition has offered a $2,500 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the rapist who assaulted two girls in the Back of the Yards neighborhood this month, according to the Sun-Times and NBC5. But you won't read about that reward in the Tribune.

As we have documented many times, the Tribune often posts front-page community alerts on its website, sometimes accompanied by video reports and sketches of the suspect, for sexual assaults that occur on the North Side (especially Wrigleyville), but rarely, if ever, for sexual assaults that occur on the South Side. The Tribune covered the Back of the Yards attacks only after the second one occurred and residents called a community meeting. Had the Tribune given the first attack the attention it gives to attacks in Wrigleyville, perhaps the second would not have occurred. The responsibility for publicizing crime rests at least as much on the press as on the police.

The Tribune's emphasis is clear. It favors the North Side, and particularly Wrigleyville. Since some Tribune stories essentially consist of advertisements for Tribune properties, like Careerbuilder, the Cubs, and Wrigley Field, can we use truth-in-advertising laws to require the paper to rename itself more truthfully?

Hard to Shake Suspect Synergies

Mary Ellen Podmolik has a makeup story (you know, like a makeup quiz after you bomb the first one) in today's Chicago Tribune about some Super Bowl advertisers not owned by the Tribune Company. Better late than never, Mary Ellen. But remarkably, the piece is accompanied online by the WGN news segment that focuses exclusively on Tribune-owned Careerbuilder without disclosing the conflict of interest (WGN is also owned by Tribune). That unethical report has spread like a virus. It has now aired on WGN, CLTV, and Chicagotribune.com. Sometimes ethics just can't get the better of Tribune "synergies."

Silence for Chicago's Dispossessed

Residents of the Back of the Yards neighborhood are angry at police for failing to publicize the sexual assault last Saturday, Jan. 20, of a 16-year-old girl on 48th Street. They're angry because a 12-year-old girl was assaulted in the same area three days later by a suspect of similar description. They wonder why no one warned them about the predator the first time he struck.

But the police are not the only body responsible for warning residents about crime in their neighborhoods. The press is responsible as well. And the press is better equipped than the police to do the job.

As we have documented many times, the Chicago Tribune publishes front-page alerts on its website for sexual assaults in Lakeview and Wrigleyville, often accompanied by a police sketch of the suspect and a video. It will engage in all sorts of contortionism to avoid mentioning Wrigley Field, even when the assaults have occurred as close as two blocks away, but still manages to prominently place stories that focus police and community attention on this crime when it occurs in those chosen neighborhoods. It rarely ever covers sexual assaults on the South Side or West Side, even sexual assaults of children, until cases reach the courts, which means a suspect has already been apprehended.

The Tribune will pick up the story if South Side rapes appear to be serial, which is what happened in this case. The Jan. 25 Tribune story about the second assault was full of criticism of police and the local alderman, but typically empty of self-critique. The Tribune's crime coverage routinely shows favoritism toward affluent neighborhoods and routinely fails those of us "others" who don't represent the ideal Tribune advertising demographic.

Whoa. Something Like Progress?

The Tribune actually covered a sexual assault on the South Side yesterday. We're sure it's not related to our frequent criticism of the Tribune for seeming interested in that crime only when it occurs in an affluent neighborhood -- mostly Wrigleyville -- and involves a minority suspect -- mostly African American. We're sure our criticism did not motivate this story. That would be taking ourselves too seriously. The Tribune doesn't care about us and is pretty sure we don't exist, even though our server statistics do show that many of our most loyal readers sit in front of computers connected to tribune.com servers.

Those are probably just attorneys.

The story about a sexual assault near 74th and State does not seem to have merited front page status at chicagotribune.com like the Wrigleyville crimes, and it's only four paragraphs long, but hey, it's a story. Turns out women in minority neighborhoods do matter, unless this is a hegemonic gesture. We hope the story contributes to an arrest and conviction.


Another Razzie for Rick

The Oscar for Worst Defense of Tribune Ownership of the Cubs goes to Tribune columnist Rick Morrissey for this remark, in his Nov. 22 column: "Trust me, if the financially strapped Sun-Times owned the Cubs, the team would be down to three outfielders, a pitcher and someone in charge of making sure Barack Obama had good seats."

It's a moot point, as they say, since the Sun-Times was journalistically-responsible enough to not buy the Cubs. But if the Sun-Times had made that mistake, we also think they'd run the team better than the Tribune has. And not because the Sun-Times is "The Bright One." Just because even a monkey could outperform the Tribune. The year after a White Sox championship, the Cubs finish in last place? No one could humiliate their fans better.

Tribune Continues Selective Crime Reporting

The Tribune performed a wonderful service for the people of Wrigleyville today by reporting on the perpetator still at large in the rape of a woman in the 3500 block of north Wilton Avenue on Saturday. So far their coverage has included two stories, a composite sketch of the rapist and a video community alert. CLTV has been on the block with its cameras to interview a police spokesman. (Neither the Tribune nor CLTV mentioned the assault took place only 2 blocks from Tribune property at Wrigley Field, as we believe they certainly would have done had it occurred near US Cellular).

As we said, we believe the Tribune has performed a wonderful service by alerting Wrigleyville residents to the presence of a rapist in their neighborhood. We just wonder why a newspaper with "Chicago" in its name only performs this service for Wrigleyville residents.

There were 20 cases of aggravated criminal sexual abuse -- just one of a dozen categories of sex offense -- reported to Chicago Police from Sept. 5-Oct. 19, the period for which the most recent statistics are available. Those assaults took place on sidewalks, in streets, in residences, on school grounds, even in a hospital. Most of them took place on the South or West sides of Chicago. We can find no record in the Tribune archives that the Tribune covered any of them, much less warned citizens about a perpetrator in their area.

In fact, the only recent coverage of sexual assault other than the Wrigleyville rape in the Tribune derives from court reporting, a stage of the legal process that occurs after a perpetrator has been removed from the community.

If this concern sounds familiar, it's because we've raised it before. As in that case, black suspect in a wealthy, mostly white neighborhood. Is that what it takes for rape to be news?

You may think we're being facetious, Tribune, when we call you the newspaper of Wrigleyville, but it just flatly expresses the way people in "the rest" of Chicago feel about your selective reporting.

When Does the Tribune Cover Sexual Assault?

"Sex Assault in Lakeview" appears as a top story at chicagotribune.com this morning. A quick scan of the Chicago Police Department's crime database shows that sexual assaults are reported in Chicago almost every day. Quite often we have more than one a day: on March 20, March 17, and March 14, three cases of criminal sexual abuse, just one of 12 categories of sex offenses, were reported in various Chicago neighborhoods. On March 20, for example, incidents of criminal sexual abuse were reported to have occurred at a school on 74th Street (South Side), in a parking lot on 53rd Street (South Side), and in an alley on Mason Avenue (West Side). We've been unable to find any mention of those assaults in the Tribune archives. In fact, we found no mention in the Tribune of 16 incidents of criminal sexual abuse reported to Chicago Police from March 13-March 21, 2006. Why is the sexual assault in Lakeview front-page news at chicagotribune.com, but not the sexual assaults in other Chicago neighborhoods? Hard to say. The Lakeview rape occurred in the 600 block of Addison, just five blocks from Wrigley Field, right in the heart of Wrigleyville, the center of the Tribune's profit-generating Cubune culture. When the Tribune reports on certain crimes, does it have the effect of focusing the city's attention on those crimes? Does it have the effect of focusing police attention? Women in Lakeview need to know this creep is on the loose in their neighborhood, but how can anyone deny the same information to women in other neighborhoods?
This is bigger than baseball.