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. "News management, news manipulation and assaults on the integrity of the working press," said the Review in its first issue, "are commonplace in this tight little city." Editors go along "through conspiracies of silence." Many newsmen, the journal added, are also guilty: "They learn not to rock the boat or they cultivate cynicism—the hardboiled, hard-drinking kind that is supposed to make Chicago newspapermen so colorful." The Review hopes to change that by promoting "a professional consciousness among our fellow newsmen—to let them know that their battle to stay 'pure' is not a lonely, hopeless fight."
Daley Takeover. The Review, whose fifth issue is due this week, depends on articles and tips from newsmen with personal knowledge of their papers' omissions, distortions or other misdeeds. Though many of the articles are signed, none of the contributors have complained yet of pressure from their bosses to keep quiet. The Review is edited by Daily News Education Reporter Henry De Zutter, Sun-Times Urban Affairs Specialist Christopher Chandler and American Education Reporter Ron Dorfman. All three contend that their careers are still prospering.
Discussing coverage of the convention disorders, the Review noted approvingly that editors "nervously let their reporters set down uncomplimentary facts about the police and the mayor." But post-conventian coverage was something else. After out-of-town newsmen left Chicago, the Review claimed, "Mayor Daley was permitted to take over the media. Our own editorialists told us that we didn't really see what we saw under those blue helmets." The Review charged that the American had interviewed Police Superintendent James B. Conlisk about the disorders, then let him edit the resulting story.
According to the Review, when the Walker Commission sought reporters' accounts of events, Larry Mulay, general manager of the City News Bureau, censored his own reporters' memos to the commission, including one man's claim that a policeman "calmly kicked [a] photographer in the groin and walked on." Explained Mulay: "We have to work with the police, and we depend on them for information all year long." The Review chided the Tribune for assailing all the "anonymous statements" in the Walker Report, then quoting "unimpeachable" (but anonymous) sources and "men of unquestioned integrity" as the basis for its own story claiming that the report had been rewritten under the direction of former Attorney General Ramsey Clark.