Reporters: Self-Criticism in Chicago

Newspaper editors normally do not suffer criticism—or critics—gladly. They tend to get even unhappier when the criticism comes from members of their own staffs. Nevertheless, a group of Chicago reporters and photographers have been publicly lambasting their own papers ever since the 1968 Democratic Convention—and getting away with it.

Their vehicle is the Chicago Journalism Review, a candid monthly critique of the city's press. It grew out of a feeling by many newsmen that their editors and publishers have been too cozy for too long with the city's dominant politicians and businessmen....