Mayor Lightfoot’s latest foray into press criticism
If Mayor Lori Lightfoot wanted to change the subject from the major problems plaguing the city of Chicago, deciding to grant interviews only to journalists of color on her second anniversary in office was a brilliant way to do it. Her refusal to talk to white reporters generated a flurry of controversy, which reached an absurd pinnacle when Fox News demagogue Tucker Carlson called her a “monster” who bore a resemblance to Nazis.
The mayor said she had “been struck since my first day on the campaign trail back in 2018 by the overwhelming whiteness and maleness of Chicago media outlets, editorial boards, the political press corps, and yes, the City Hall press corps specifically.”
Shutting out white journalists for a day was meant to draw attention to what she laments.
No one would like to see more diversity in journalism than journalists. Although we’ve come a long way as a profession to seek out diverse voices, Lightfoot’s words serve as a reminder to newsrooms to do a better job of recruiting, coveting and promoting this talent. If Lightfoot thinks she hasn’t spent enough time talking to nonwhite or female reporters, we applaud her readiness to strive for better.
But to suggest that she can’t get a fair shake from those who happen to be white or male is quite a reach. The editorial boards of the Tribune and the
Sun-Times, which she criticized, endorsed her over Toni Preckwinkle in the 2019 runoff election, seek her out routinely for comment and perspective, and write about city issues from a wide platform.
Even the National Association of Black Journalists board, while commending her for highlighting the issue of newsroom diversity, said it “does not support excluding any bona fide journalists from one-on-one interviews with newsmakers, even if it is for one day and in support of activism.”
We can’t help suspecting that Lightfoot’s gesture was mostly about her resentment of the scrutiny reporters and commentators of all backgrounds have brought to bear on her record and her policies. Being mayor of Chicago often means a bombardment of criticism, far more than she encountered before making her entry into politics. And she would not be the first politician to figure that she could divert attention from her failures by attacking the news media.
For her part, Lightfoot might be better off
focusing on the serious problems that concern Chicagoans in every neighborhood. The most urgent is rampant gun violence: Homicides rose by more than 50% last year and have stayed at a horrific level this year. The Chicago Public Schools barely averted a strike by teachers this school year and was exasperatingly slow in resuming in-person classes.
She has fallen short on the police reforms she promised — a failure made more painful by the fatal police shootings of 13-yearold Adam Toledo and 22-year-old Anthony Alvarez, both during foot chases. She resisted releasing video of the botched 2019 police raid on the apartment of Anjanette Young, who was forced to stand naked and handcuffed for more than 40 minutes pleading with cops who, as she told them, had the wrong place. Lightfoot also said she didn’t learn of the raid until December 2020 — but emails proved she was informed of it more than a year earlier.
We’re always open to constructive advice about how to improve journalism. But the mayor has bigger matters that are more deserving of her attention.