CHICAGO — Dave McKinney, Springfield bureau chief for the Chicago Sun-Times, rocked the political and media world here yesterday—not by penning a hard-hitting story, as he has often done throughout his 19-year career at the paper, but by publicly resigning in open letter that questioned the paper’s editorial independence and accused top management of interfering with journalists’ work.
It’s a story that could have ramifications for the tightly contested gubernatorial race in Illinois, but poses more urgent questions for the Sun-Times, already in a state of transition under current ownership.
The winding path that led to McKinney’s resignation began nearly three weeks ago, when he—along with NBC 5’s Carol Marin and Don Moseley—reported on a 2005 lawsuit filed against Bruce Rauner, the GOP candidate for governor and a former investor in the Sun-Times’ parent company.
The article, published on Oct. 6, detailed the “hardball tactics” Rauner allegedly used in dealing with a messy corporate dispute. Behind the scenes, the story drew fierce push-back from the Rauner campaign, focused on McKinney’s wife’s role as a Democratic consultant. According to McKinney, the campaign sent “an opposition-research hit piece—rife with errors” to his boss demanding a disclaimer.
Despite the pressure, Jim Kirk, publisher and editor in chief of the Sun-Times, gave the green light to the story, no disclaimer attached. (In an earlier look at Rauner coverage, I called the story “intriguing,” and mused that a “hardball” approach might actually be useful for Rauner, if he’s elected and has to deal with political power brokers in the state legislature.)
The controversy, though, was just getting started. As media outlets including Crain’s Chicago Business have been reporting since late last week, McKinney was subsequently taken off the beat for a few days. In an Oct. 20 editor’s note, Kirk wrote that the paper conducted a review “out of an abundance of caution” to confirm, again, that firewalls were in place to separate McKinney’s coverage from the work of his wife, Ann Liston. The review found that the Rauner campaign’s claims were “inaccurate and defamatory,” and that, “Liston receives no financial benefit from any Illinois political campaign specifically because of the extraordinary steps she and McKinney have taken to establish business safeguards.”
McKinney, in his resignation letter, attributed his reinstatement to his decision to bring on a former federal prosecutor to represent his interests—itself a remarkable step. All of this was unfolding as the Sun-Times abruptly abandoned its policy of not making editorial endorsements to publish a glowing endorsement of Rauner. The editorial noted that the paper “has a little history with Bruce Rauner that affords us a special insight into the man,” from his time as a investor in Wrapports LLC, the paper’s parent company.
According to McKinney, when he was put back on his beat, he found himself still in shackles. On his first day back, he wrote, he had to fight to get a byline on a follow-up to the Rauner story. It was an indication, he wrote, that the paper had “failed an important test: It was not permitting me to do my job the way I had been doing it for almost two decades.”
But this complaint isn’t addressed to Kirk, whom he described as “an honorable man with solid news judgment.” Instead, McKinney addressed his open letter to Michael Ferro Jr., who teamed up with Rauner to set up Wrapports LLC in 2011. Though Rauner has sold his stake, Ferro and the third partner, Timothy Knight, remain there, as chairman and CEO, respectively.
McKinney clearly sees Ferro as behind the recent moves. In his letter, he asks, “Was all this retaliation for breaking an important news story that had the blessing of the paper’s editor and publisher, the company’s lawyer and our NBC5 partners?
And he adds:
Readers of the Sun-Times need to be able to trust the paper. They need to know a wall exists between owners and the newsroom to preserve the integrity of what is published. A breach in that wall exists at the Sun-Times.
It’s had a chilling effect in the newsroom. While I don’t speak for my colleagues, I’m aware that many share my concern. I’m convinced this newspaper no longer has the backs of reporters like me.
Ferro, who has not made any public statement about McKinney, could not be reached for comment for this story.
Rauner campaign manager Chip Englander, though, told the Daily Herald yesterday that “no one reached out to” Ferro. “While we disagreed with him on this matter, we are saddened to see Dave leave the Sun-Times,” Englander said. “We wish him the best.”
In a statement released yesterday, Kirk said he has always been in charge of editorial operations at the Sun-Times. “I disagree with Dave’s questioning the integrity of this newspaper and my role as editor and publisher,” he wrote. “I call the shots. 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.”
Kirk also wrote:
It is with reluctance that I accept Dave McKinney’s resignation. As recently as this Monday on our Op/Ed page, I stated that Dave is among the best in our profession. I meant it then and I mean it now. The pause we took last week was to ensure there were no conflicts of interest and was taken simply to protect Dave McKinney, the Sun-Times and its readers as we were under attack in a heated political campaign. We came to the right result, found the political attacks against us to be false and we stand by our reporting, our journalists and this great newspaper.
One Sun-Times staff reporter, who talked to CJR on the condition of anonymity, said the news of McKinney’s resignation hit the newsroom hard. “When we had our photographers laid off, it was a horrible day,” the staffer said. “But this one tops it, because this has to do with journalism ethics.”
Marin, who shared a byline on the Rauner story and also writes political columns for the Sun-Times, declined to talk about the nature of her relationship with her bosses at the paper. But she called McKinney “the gold standard of journalism.”
“It’s a huge loss for not having him in the newsroom,” Marin said. “People like him and respect him, and it’s a very hard news to hear that he’s not with us anymore.”
You can read much more about the episode from Whet Moser, Robert Feder, Michael Miner, Crain’s Chicago, and NBC5 Chicago’s Ward Room.
Rui Kaneya is CJR’s correspondent for Illinois and Indiana. A former investigations editor at The Chicago Reporter, Kaneya was a recipient of the Investigative Reporters and Editors Minority Fellowship and the Robert R. McCormick Tribune Minority Fellowship in Urban Journalism. He has received numerous journalism awards, among them the Watchdog Award for Excellence in Public Interest Reporting from the Society of Professional Journalists and the National Association of Black Journalists’ Salute to Excellence National Media Award. Follow him on Twitter @ruikaneya.