{"id":15780,"date":"2017-10-25T06:00:02","date_gmt":"2017-10-25T11:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.robertfeder.com\/?p=15780"},"modified":"2017-10-25T06:50:26","modified_gmt":"2017-10-25T11:50:26","slug":"robservations-sun-times-columnist-roomed-congressman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/2017\/10\/25\/robservations-sun-times-columnist-roomed-congressman\/","title":{"rendered":"Robservations: Sun-Times columnist roomed with congressman"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

<\/a> Mark Brown (Photo: Chicago Newsroom)<\/p><\/div>\n

Robservations on the media beat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Luis Gutierrez<\/p><\/div>\n

Let's at least give Sun-Times <\/a>columnist Mark Brown<\/strong> credit for disclosing forthrightly that he shared a hotel room<\/a> and rental car expenses with Luis Gutierrez<\/strong> while covering the Democratic congressman\u2019s trip to Puerto Rico last week. Brown called it \u201can admittedly unorthodox decision . . . to reduce the logistical difficulties of following [Gutierrez] around to hurricane-damaged locations on the island,\u201d adding: \u201cThat arrangement would not normally pass ethical muster from a journalism standpoint, but I thought it was the best way to get the story in this situation.\u201d Sorry, that doesn't make it right. The Sun-Times never should approve a deal like that with any<\/em> politician. If Brown couldn\u2019t get another room, then I\u2019d argue he shouldn\u2019t have gone.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Penny Pollack<\/p><\/div>\n

Penny Pollack,<\/strong> the influential dining editor of Chicago magazine,<\/a> announced her retirement Tuesday after 30 years with the tronc-owned monthly. \u201cPenny is a civic treasure whose name is synonymous with dining out in Chicago,\u201d editor and publisher Susanna Homan<\/strong> said in a statement. \u201cWe are lucky that her wit and insight have graced our pages for three decades.\u201d Pollack, 70, joined Chicago as a part-time dining assistant in 1987 and moved up to dining editor in 1994. Her final dining section will appear in the December issue.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

WLUP studio<\/p><\/div>\n

Cumulus Media has agreed to buy classic rock WLUP FM 97.9<\/a> and alternative rock WKQX FM 101.1<\/a> from Merlin Media, according to a filing<\/a> this week with the FCC. Since 2014 Cumulus has been operating The Loop and 101WKQX under a local marketing agreement with Merlin. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed, but reports pegged the deal at about $70 million. In Chicago, Cumulus also owns news\/talk WLS AM 890 and classic hits WLS FM 94.7. Merlin was formed by Randy Michaels<\/strong> in 2011 after his ouster as CEO of Tribune Co.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Dick Durbin<\/p><\/div>\n

Dick Durbin,<\/strong> the senior U.S. senator from Illinois and assistant Democratic leader, has come out squarely against the merger of Chicago-based Tribune Media and Sinclair Broadcast Group. \u201cThe combination threatens to do permanent damage to the American tradition of local broadcasting and will take a wrecking ball to the pillars of objectivism and diversity in local broadcasting,\u201d Durbin wrote this week in Crain\u2019s Chicago Business.<\/a> \u201cIt's true that Sinclair mandated its stations distribute its self-produced conservative content. But whether broadcast content is coming from the right or the left, my concerns focus on the fact that no single company should be able to decide what 72 percent of the country's news looks like.\u201d Tribune Media is the parent company of WGN-Channel 9 and news\/talk WGN AM 720.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Mary Nissenson<\/p><\/div>\n

Mary Nissenson,<\/strong> a Peabody Award-winning reporter who worked at CBS-owned WBBM-Channel 2,<\/a> the Chicago bureau of NBC News, and stations in New York and Miami, died Monday in Sausalito, California, TV Spy<\/a> reported. She was 65. Nissenson, who grew up in Highland Park and graduated from Vassar College and University of Chicago Law School, gave up a corporate law career to join CBS 2 in 1978 as chief investigator of its Factfinder unit. She later formed Foresight Communications, a Chicago-based production company. Complications from a face-lift in 1995 left her with chronic, debilitating pain and led her to establish the Triumph Over Pain Foundation, a pain patient advocacy group. In recent years Nissenson blogged as a media critic and commentator for TheWrap.com.<\/a><\/p>\n

Tuesday\u2019s best comment: <\/a>Sam Accardo:<\/strong> [Sean] Hannity is nothing more than a WH mouthpiece, and shouldn't even be mentioned in the same sentence with the great John Records [Landecker].<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Robservations on the media beat: Let's at least give Sun-Times columnist Mark Brown credit for disclosing forthrightly that he shared a hotel room and rental car expenses with Luis Gutierrez while covering the Democratic congressman\u2019s trip to Puerto Rico last week. Brown called it \u201can admittedly unorthodox decision . . . to reduce the logistical... Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15780"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15780"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15780\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15792,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15780\/revisions\/15792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}