Let’s Go Brandon: Johnson wins mayoral race
Tightest margin of victory ever as election night coverage was OK, but WGN-TV bricks hard
In one of the closest mayoral races in the modern media era, Cook County Board member Brandon Johnson pulled off a shocking upset by beating former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas to become Chicago’s 57th mayor with a margin of around 12,000 votes (not counting mail-in ballots.)
The Associated Press called the race in the 9 p.m. hour, as Johnson took the lead in the ballot counting and never looked back. Both candidates advanced into the runoff last Tuesday after battling it out in the mayoral primary back in February, as both were the top vote-getters as current mayor Lori Lightfoot finished third, ending her hopes for a second terms and becoming the first incumbent serving a full-term to lose a race in 40 years.
From a media standpoint, the runoff generated tons of political advertising – the likes not seen since for a mayoral race in nearly four decades as local TV and radio stations certainly benefited from the windfall. While the ads were mostly negative, they didn’t reach the level they did during last fall’s gubernatorial race, which featured several violent ads created by Dan Proft for Republican candidate Darren Bailey in order to call attention to Chicago’s crime epidemic.
The four major network-owned stations moved election results coverage to their streaming news channels in order not to interrupt regularly-scheduled programming on their main outlets, but did break in when mayor-elect Johnson gave his victory speech. Ratings information wasn’t available as ABC 7 (ABC-owned WLS-TV) easily won primary election night in February, followed by Nexstar’s WGN-TV with the rest bringing up the rear.
The election results coverage were OK, with analysis provided by anchors, political analysts and former politicians as the network-owned stations kept it simple. For example, CBS 2 had retiring Ald. Leslie Hariston and former CBS 2 anchor Derrick Blakely sat alongside Joe Donlon and Erika Sargent while Fox 32 had no outside political analysts aside from Mike Flannery, but did abruptly ended its coverage after Johnson finished his victory speech.
But the night’s worst coverage belonged to WGN by far, and it shows you how Nexstar has driven this station’s news coverage into the toilet. At one point, seven people were seated at the anchor’s desk to provide analysis, much of it worthless. Also questionable was the addition of political analyst Lisa Duarte – who happens to share the same name as the woman anchoring the coverage, Lourdes Duarte. Are they related? If so, it’s not a surprise, given how nepotism runs in the family in Chicago. Also a negative was inviting former Republican politician Pat Brady to dispense the typical right-wing talking points about Chicago, who didn’t add anything to the panel at all. Then there was the treatment of Morgan Elise Johnson (no relation to Brandon Johnson) from hyperlocal publication The Triibe, who targets young Black readers. And as the only person who made a lick of sense on the entire panel, here’s her account as follows:
Not surprisingly, Black viewers complained on social media about her treatment, and Brady in general. Obviously, Nexstar and WGN tried to duplicate their NewsNation formula to election night, and If this coverage was meant to please everyone on the political aisle, it failed miserably and wound up pleasing no one. WGN’s coverage is just another example why young viewers are abandoning linear TV in droves, and those who tuned in have absolutely no reason to return in the future. Tuesday night is just another example of how media consolidation has hurt local news.
In the past, this space told you how local media haven’t done a good job with minority issues, and Tuesday night’s WGN shitshow tells you all you need to know about how broadcast station groups continue to fail in this mission, three years after George Floyd’s death. If the only audience local news stations around the country want is an aging boomer one, then mission accomplished.
[Editor’s Note: An earlier draft misspelled Lisa and Lourdes Duarte’s names. T Dog Media apologizes for the errors.]