CHICAGO — It would be hard to overstate the sense of shock and dismay among journalists here, a day after Dave McKinney, former statehouse bureau chief for the Chicago Sun-Times, stepped down from the embattled yet feisty paper.
“I’m convinced this newspaper no longer has the backs of reporters like me,” McKinney wrote in his resignation letter to Michael Ferro, chairman of Wrapports LLC, the paper’s owner.
His departure, amid claims that Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Rauner tried to use his considerable clout to interfere with McKinney’s work, set social media abuzz. On Twitter and Facebook, journalists who worked with and around McKinney attested to his professionalism and integrity.
In interviews, former Sun-Times journalists also expressed concern about McKinney’s complaints of interference from top management, including Ferro, as he faced a company-mandated timeout that he likened to “house arrest.”
“Whereas we don’t have all the answers, we have way too many questions about what happened here,” says Susy Schultz, president of the Community Media Workshop. “I can’t answer all these questions, but it does seem like political influences have come into play. That’s the picture we get. Just by hinting at that, it sullies the Sun-Times.”
Eric Herman, a former Sun-Times reporter, said: “It’s kind of scary the way this played out. I think we depend on newspapers to be reliable and to have some measure of independence. We understand that independence is never 100 percent, but it has to be there. This whole episode calls that into question.”
And in a statement, the Chicago Headline Club said, “To pull a reporter off of his beat, and offer him what he considers a demotion following a political campaign’s objection to a story, weakens the institution of the free press. This is troubling alongside the decision by the Sun-Times to reverse its three-year, no-endorsement policy and endorse the politician whose campaign initiated the complaint.”
Like many of the people weighing in, this writer has no direct knowledge of l’affaire Rauner. Jim Kirk, Sun-Times editor in chief and publisher, who has praised McKinney’s professionalism consistently, rejected the idea that the paper’s editorial independence has been challenged.
“I call the shots,” Kirk said in a statement sent to numerous media outlets. “While I’ve been here, our ownership and management have never quashed a story, and they have always respected the journalistic integrity of this paper.”
It is true that companies and individuals appeal to the highest levels of newsroom management in an effort to bend coverage to their will—and that journalists pay close attention to how management responds. As an editor, editorial board member, and columnist at the Sun-Times for nearly a decade, I was privy to some of those discussions. Publisher John Cruickshank counseled balance, cautioning against taking the “hammer” to companies, or to individuals, without regard for all sides of the story. Later, I recall CEO Cyrus Freidheim inquiring about an editorial board position on a rate hike when pressed by an angry utility company executive. He, too, never mandated an outcome, respecting the journalistic process.
Herman, who now serves as managing director of ASGK Public Strategies, offers a poignant contrast to the ordeal McKinney describes. He covered the trial and conviction of the Sun-Times’ previous owner, Conrad Black (that’s Lord Black to you) imprisoned in 2008 for looting Hollinger International.
“I was told to go for it. Cover it aggressively,” Herman recalls. “The company had labor problems. I was allowed to cover those. John Cruickshank and [editor] Michael Cooke, to their credit, said go for it. It was utterly straightforward and without interference.”
While Schultz, who worked at the Sun-Times for 14 years, doesn’t believe this episode signifies any looming ethical crossroads for media as a whole, she said it could damage the perception of the media among young people who value integrity “because it speaks to them over the white noise.”
If Rauner is elected and brings heavy-handed tactics to the governor’s mansion, Schultz, for one, doesn’t want local media to toil under the threat of retaliation. If that is in fact his modus operandi, she says, “That’s something we really ought to know.”
Deborah Douglas is an adjunct lecturer at The Medill School and a facilitator with The OpEd Project. She served as an editorial board member, columnist, library director, and No. 2 in the features department of the Chicago Sun-Times.