Chicago media criticized for looting, vandalism coverage

Chicago’s news media under fire for coverage of African-American communities Even though a Tribune article published Friday fell short in describing the tense relationship between the local news media and the Black community, it did bring up valid points needing to be addressed.  In a sub-headline titled “Black Chicagoans, white media at odds”, writer Christen Johnson reported on the frail […]

Rewinding 2019 in media

  Disney Plus made the biggest splash of the year 2019 saw the end of several institutions, big media battles, and disappointing sports teams. Let’s start with the huge changes in big media, as Disney closed on its purchase of the 20th Century Fox film studio and Viacom reuniting with CBS again with a new name (ViacomCBS) as the race […]

Chicago Defender ends print edition; shifts to digital only

Second publication this week to call to quits on print In a timed day-after-a-holiday Friday news dump, the owners of the Chicago Defender announced the publication is ending its print edition on July 11 and shifting entirely to digital. The move is not unexpected; numerous smaller newspapers are doing likewise amid a tremendous slump in print as digital has siphoned […]

Sun-Times files for Chapter 11

Chicago, that great newspaper town… now with both in Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The Chicago Sun-Times has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, as the troubled newspaper is sinking under a massive amount of debt, which includes a lot to the IRS. The Sun-Times joins The Tribune in Chapter 11, who filed for bankruptcy several months ago. The paper has never recovered […]

News & Notes

The alternative title is being used to describe today’s News & Notes, as there is sad news to report: – Chicago Defender sports journalist Larry Gross passed away Wednesday at the age of 59 due to complications from lung cancer. Gross covered mostly local sports for the paper, including Chicago Public School Prep action. The wake will be held Feb. […]

Roland Martin heads to Tom Joyner Morning Show

Roland Martin, a former editor of The Chicago Defender and current host of a morning show on News/Talk WVON-AM has exited the old Soft Sheen building on East 87th Street (right down the street from my house.) Martin has signed a deal to become a contributor to the syndicated The Tom Joyner Morning Show, which airs weekday mornings on WVAZ-FM […]

Chicago Defender to be weekly only

It looks like the struggling newspaper industry has claimed another victim: The Chicago Defender, the historic African-American newspaper which has struggled for years, is converting from a daily newspaper to a weekly, a move that has been speculated since last summer.The Defender, which drastically scaled back its online presence last year, isn’t laying off employees (which is good) – but […]

A total disgrace

It’s a shame that Chicago’s historic black newspaper is being treated this way. The Chicago Defender has now been cut back from publishing daily to only a few days a week, and its website, which hasn’t been updated since June 8 (and only has been sporadically updated before that) is being neglected. Despite all the promises this bozo from Detroit […]

No more daily Chicago Defender?

That’s what this brief in MediaLife is implying – meaning that the struggling paper targeted to the African-American community may be cut back to twice-weekly or even just weekly. No word on when these changes might happen, but it’s not looking good. It seems that the paper is also neglecting its website – it hasn’t been updated today and there […]

Slogan change at Defender

The Chicago Defender, one of Chicago’s oldest African-American newspapers, has dropped its branding from the paper’s front page. The slogan, “Honest. Truthful. Unapologetically Black.” was discontinued by the paper’s owner, arguably to go in a different direction. The slogan was created by Executive editor Roland Martin, whose contract to the Defender was not renewed. He gave the paper new life […]