{"id":7254,"date":"2015-03-25T11:00:48","date_gmt":"2015-03-25T16:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.robertfeder.com\/?p=7254"},"modified":"2015-03-25T11:14:25","modified_gmt":"2015-03-25T16:14:25","slug":"feder-flashback-the-day-chicagos-anchorman-took-on-the-press","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/2015\/03\/25\/feder-flashback-the-day-chicagos-anchorman-took-on-the-press\/","title":{"rendered":"Feder flashback: The day Chicago\u2019s anchorman took on the press"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"John<\/a>

<\/a> John Drury, Jerry Taft, Diann Burns and Mark Giangreco<\/p><\/div>\n

Over his 40-year career as an anchorman in Chicago, John Drury was never known as a controversial figure. His warm demeanor and unruffled delivery belied a sharp-edged competitiveness that viewers rarely saw.<\/em><\/p>\n

But one Saturday afternoon 25 years ago, the legendary broadcaster let his guard down and went on the offensive against critics in the print media. Editors of the Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times, Drury charged, were guilty of many of the excesses they attack in television news.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cNewspapers are always the first to point the finger,\u201d he told an audience assembled for \"An Afternoon with John Drury\" at the Museum of Broadcast Communications. \u201cSome of the criticism we get for doing the same things they do on a daily basis seems unfair.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Drury retired from ABC-owned WLS-Channel 7 in 2002. He died of Lou Gehrig\u2019s disease in 2007 at 80.<\/em><\/p>\n

Here is my Sun-Times column of March 26, 1990. (Posted with permission.)<\/em><\/p>\n

John Drury rips local newspapers for TV criticism<\/strong><\/p>\n

Chicago\u2019s most prominent television newsman has lashed out at the city\u2019s two major newspapers for sins ranging from exploitation to hypocrisy.<\/p>\n

\"John<\/a>

John Drury<\/p><\/div>\n

John Drury, principal anchor of WLS-Channel 7\u2019s top-rated 5 and 10 p.m. newscasts, told a gathering of fans at the Museum of Broadcast Communications: \u201cYou could take the Chicago Tribune or the Sun-Times and pick it apart on daily basis for some of the exploitative things they do and some of the things they do to increase circulation. They damn us for doing the same things they do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Drury\u2019s broadside against the print media, delivered March 10, followed a seemingly innocuous question about the silly stories aired on local newscasts during ratings sweeps months. This column obtained a tape of his remarks last week.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, just because we do hard news all the time doesn\u2019t mean we can\u2019t do something that\u2019s entertaining or grabs someone\u2019s attention. Newspapers do it all time,\u201d Drury told the museum audience.<\/p>\n

\u201cNewspapers are always the first to point the finger. But we learned it from newspapers \u2014 the crossword puzzles, the latest rock star, the feature magazines that sound like boxes of soap, like \u2018Tempo\u2019 and \u2018Now\u2019 and the rest of these things.<\/p>\n

\u201cNewspapers took the consultants that we were damned for using at one time, changed their newspapers and practiced something called \u2018market journalism.\u2019 In other words, you find out what the market wants and you give it to them, rather than the old-time journalism [which] was: \u2018All the news that\u2019s fit to print\u2019 and \u2018We\u2019re gonna tell you what we<\/em> think are the most important things in the world.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of that [criticism of television news] now is just newspaper stories, as far as I\u2019m concerned. They would like us to be pristine, and yet we have very few journalism reviews that look at newspapers. . . . They don\u2019t run their investigative stories in the middle of the summer when no one\u2019s reading newspapers and they\u2019re all away on vacation. They run them when they know people are at home or before an election. You put your best foot forward. If you\u2019ve got an investigative story, why wouldn\u2019t you hold it so the maximum amount of people will see it?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s only a one-way street. We get all this criticism. . . . I\u2019ve always felt that television criticism is one advertising medium criticizing another advertising medium, rather than a real constructive \u2018Let\u2019s make it better\u2019 [approach].<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of things that happen in television I blush at. And they should be noted. [But] some of the criticism we get for doing the same things they do on a daily basis seems unfair.\u201d<\/p>\n

Drury, 63, a respected 28-year veteran of Chicago television news, said in a subsequent interview that he has had no second thoughts since making his comments. He confirmed the accuracy and context of his quotes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know how my remarks will be taken, but I really can\u2019t worry about that,\u201d he said. \u201cYou have to state how you feel, and that\u2019s what I did. If you feel you\u2019re speaking the truth, why worry about it?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over his 40-year career as an anchorman in Chicago, John Drury was never known as a controversial figure. His warm demeanor and unruffled delivery belied a sharp-edged competitiveness that viewers rarely saw. But one Saturday afternoon 25 years ago, the legendary broadcaster let his guard down and went on the offensive against critics in the... 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\/7254"}],"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=7254"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7254\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7260,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7254\/revisions\/7260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}