How low can she go? Yesterday Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, continuing in her campaign to be the unsurpassedly worst mayor in Chicago history (no mean feat), announced that she would only grant interviews on the occasion of her second anniversary as mayor to “journalists of color”. The Chicago Tribune reports:
Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Wednesday defended her decision to grant interviews on her two-year anniversary in office only to journalists of color, saying it was intended as an effort to confront the issue of what she described as a mostly white and male City Hall press corps.
But the move, revealed Tuesday by her office, was greeted skeptically by some in the Chicago media and beyond, with questions about whether excluding white reporters is a discriminatory act from a mayor who has had an often contentious relationship with reporters of all backgrounds.
The mayor’s claim that no “women of color” assigned to the City Hall beat is a lie. For example, of the three reporters assigned by WBEZ to City Hall, two are women—one Hispanic and the other Asian.
Some reporters cancelled their scheduled interviews in protest over the mayor’s decision:
Chicago Tribune reporter Gregory Pratt was among those disagreeing with the policy.
“I am a Latino reporter @chicagotribune whose interview request was granted for today,” Pratt tweeted. “However, I asked the mayor’s office to lift its condition on others and when they said no, we respectfully canceled. Politicians don’t get to choose who covers them.”
It’s unclear to me what the mayor is trying to accomplish at all. Every Chicago network affiliate has multiple black, Hispanic, and Asian anchors (in some cases a majority). Every Chicago network affiliate has multiple black, Hispanic, and Asian reporters. IMO veteran Chicago reporter Carol Marin reacted best:
Carol Marin, co-director of the Center for Journalism Integrity and Excellence at DePaul University in Chicago, also attacked the policy.
“It’s a very good lesson for our journalism students to learn,†Marin tweeted. “Public officials don’t get to pick their reporters. And reporters need to stand up for fellow reporters.â€
Refreshing.
Most politicians lie, she flat out tells you who she is, she’s down for the struggle, the only obfuscation she used was “Black and Brown”.
You think she has any more use for Asians than for Whites?
She was put into office by whites. I think she’s forgotten that. And I don’t think she has “any use” for anybody other than on election day.
The mayor is claiming that the press pool that the media sends to the press conferences is “overwhelmingly white,” and what she is trying to do is to reform the press corps. I don’t know whether the city hall beat is a high-profile plum job that is earned through time and experience. I’m not sure a lot of people care too much about municipal government in the first place. (In my brief stint working in television, it was the celebrities that drew the most interest)
The mayor thinks the press is hostile, the press things she ignores their questions or blows up at them. By rewarding non-whites with interviews to remediate the legacy of racism in the press, she’s gone on the attack. Apparently she did so through the auspices of her top media advisors, who are both white.
Wow, bizarre.
Its not a big mystery. She knows she’s incompetent and simply not up to the job. So she needs a diversion.
This is it.
The black passion for self-segregation in neighborhoods, schools and colleges, businesses, and politics is to be encouraged. It would be best if they, themselves, reinstituted Jim Crow.
As for the Whites who put her in power, screw ’em. A people gets the government they deserve, and good and hard (to mix sources).
That’s what they’re claiming.
I was in Chicago the last couple days on business. I have to tell you, like being on Mars after spending most of the last 5 years in FL and SC. I did see something I’d never seen. “All Gender Bathroom”
I really don’t give a rats ass what these crazy gender confused people think or do. But seriously, what’s the point of All Gender other than to stick it into peoples faces? Piss into a ceramic thing. Leave us alone. We leave you alone. Go in peace.