On Friday, the International Olympic Committee told Chicago to get lost as the organization picked Rio as the site of the 2016 Summer Olympics. Of course, the city became the fodder of comedians' jokes, as Leno said on his show Friday: “Chicago never wins anything in October.” (he should talk – so far, his new, nightly prime-time "comedy" strip hasn't won anything in the 9 p.m. time period since opening week. If anything sucks as much as Chicago's baseball teams, it's Leno's low-rated show... at least they will be back in the spring... as for Leno...)
As I stated in this blog before, Chicago is not exactly a model city when it comes to – well, anything. Before the beating of a Fenger high school student was videotaped and later shown around the world, we were known for the murders of Dantrell Davis and Robert “Yummy” Sandifer, and “Beirut on the Lake” - thanks to “Council Wars”, the racially divisive battles of Chicago City Council in the 1980's. Anyone who thought the Olympic defeat was the most embarrassing thing to ever happen to Chicago, you weren't around after the death of Mayor Harold Washington in 1987 and the chaos that ensued the night aldermen installed Eugene Sawyer as his replacement. Somewhere along the line, the South Side of Chicago has become a punching bag for any right-wing pundit you can think of.
The media coverage of this Olympic bid was an outright embarrassment. The cheerleading by local media was to the point where it was nauseating. A promo produced by WMAQ-TV in support of the bid was so contrived and hokey, it was laughable (they could've hired Ellen DeGeneres to partake in the "dancing".) And when we lost, the media were trotting out stupid sports analogies comparing the Olympic loss to Bartman and the Cubs. Excuse me, didn't the Bulls and the White Sox win championships over in the last 20 years? What bullshit. The local media loves connect this to the Cubs because the media are losers themselves. Hell, why bother inspiring kids in the ghetto to be the best they can be? I guess being a winner in Chicago is overrated – no wonder the murder rate is so high.
And not only that, the media refused to give equal time to distractors of the bid – except for a few minutes Tuesday night when Olympic protesters were arrested for damaging an Olympic banner in Daley Plaza. Yeah, that's your “equal time”.
But what do you expect when your local media cheerleaders are owned by big conglomerates? This is what Big Media passes off as “localism”. Look at your local news races – one strong news station, one sort-of-strong one, and three weak sisters. ABC-owned WLS-TV is so far ahead of the local news competition, it isn't funny. It's that bad. Remember when these races were exciting?
Don't forget, this is a market where a news reporter went swimming in a suspect's pool, hired a trash-talk TV host to do commentaries on the nightly news, employ slanderous sports columnists, make employees pay for their expensive lunches and parties, have idiot radio personalities who wear out their welcome and somehow get another job, and bankrupt newspapers who feel its important to give an editorial to trivial matters than other pressing issues. I mean, what other city has a newspaper who talks about Dancing With The Stars ON ITS EDITORIAL PAGE? No wonder we didn't win an Olympic bid. Chicago is run by too many morons, in politics and in the executive suites. And your local media outlets reflect that. How many snafus have occurred on Chicago newscasts this year?
I know I've said it before, but the people who run Chicago media are lazy, greedy, corrupt, and stupid – much like the city itself. Chicago media is nothing more than a freak show, and now the world knows it.
It was reported the prime-time ratings for the broadcast networks last week – after years of decline – have improved from a year ago. Even network television had a better week than Chicago did.
T Dog Media Blog Archive: The joke's on us
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