The sensational news of the week regarding Daily Herald endorsements involved one we took back, our decision to rescind our endorsement of Burt Minor in the Republican primary for the Illinois House in the 42nd District. That decision was the product of extensive interviews, research and debate by our Editorial Board. We explained our reasoning Read More …
Tag: Slusher
Remember this about the news: It changes
Some random thoughts on timely news-related topics: It is surely of questionable value to assign much credit or blame to a political figure based on ephemeral economic conditions. For me, the standard for this axiom is a quote from then-Gov. George Ryan that I recall but have not been able to track down nearly 18 Read More …
The suburban angle on silverfin
The status of Lake Michigan is not a peculiarly suburban story, but with dozens of suburban communities relying on the lake for drinking water, the predictions of a coming global water shortage crisis (referenced in the Daily Herald as far back as our 2006 series “The Oil of the 21st Century”) and the prospects for Read More …
Politics, profanity and the daily news
Let’s be clear. Donald Trump is not the first U.S. president to give responsible public media fits trying to figure out how to provide accurate quotations or descriptions within the context of a publication intended for the entire family. Bill Clinton’s intern shenanigans and Richard Nixon’s White House tapes — whose published form fixed the Read More …
Sex, violence and what really gets readers’ attention
There is an axiom regarding the newspaper business that says sensational news and sensational headlines attract newspaper readership. Like most axioms, there is some truth to this. In the age of the internet and the tyranny of the mouse click, the allure of the dramatic story cannot be discounted. But it can be overestimated. We Read More …
Emphasis on ‘productive’ in this shared sense of community
We most often use the word community in a geographic context, identifying the sense of shared identity that comes from living in a particular town or region. But we also know that the term has other dimensions, an important one being to refer to groups of people with a particular shared interest. Facebook and other Read More …
Old mantra still valid for New Media
(Read in the Daily Herald) Useful. Different. Relevant. Time was, those were the three most important words in the Daily Herald newsroom, as close to a collective mantra as a body of committed skeptics is likely to embrace. Our success depended on our ability to provide information and entertainment that aspired to those three standards. Read More …
From Brussels terrorism, the too-frequent deliberations on an iconic image of tragedy
(My most-recent Daily Herald column.) Nearly every afternoon’s meeting of news editors concludes with a review of options for the next-day print edition’s most prominent Page 1 picture. On Tuesday, March 22, the day of the terrorist bombing in Brussels, the selection was especially difficult. Editors sifted through a variety of dramatic images, all showing Read More …
Some deceptions to watch for as primaries approach
Read column at Daily Herald website It should always be affirmed at the outset that for most elections, most candidates behave with dignity and a sense of responsibility. But at the same time, many don’t. So as the campaign leading to the March 15 primary ﴾and Feb. 29 early voting﴿ gets under way in earnest, Read More …
Book Review: The Wright Brothers by David McCullough
How do you make two self-effacing, quiet Ohioans who do almost nothing in the prime of life but work on a wild dream interesting? Give them over to David McCullough and let him tell their story, that’s how. As with everything else of his that I’ve read, McCullough manages through the simple description of events Read More …