As if poor Democratic 10th District candidate Jay Footlik didn't have enough problems, it appears that the Daily Herald is trying to double-team him by reprinting letters to the editor signed by fans of Dan Seals that they have already published.
A few weeks ago, the Herald ran a letter written by one Eric Tobiason, a Chicago resident who thinks all of us on the North Shore ought to be like people in Chicago, whom he believes all support Dan Seals. Exactly why we up here should give a flying fig who people in Chicago think should be our congressional representative escapes me. And, this particular letter caught my attention just because it was an example of where a lot of Seals' support is coming from, e.g., Chicago, the 9th congressional district a la Jan Schakowsky, etc. I ranted briefly about this letter when it was first published on January 8, 2008, in the Herald.
Apparently, however, either the Herald thought the letter was so fantastic that it was concerned that some reader might have missed it, or they just aren't being too careful about what they publish nowadays, because it appears they re-ran the SAME LETTER by Mr. Tobiason again in this Saturday's edition. The wording appears off in a few instances, but it's obviously the same letter, down to the same story about sharing lockers with Seals (that must've been a treat). I guess they at least had the decency to write a different headline for today's version.
Generally, most newspapers try to balance (at least subconsciously) the number of letters among competing candidates. Does this mean the pro-Seals letters in the hopper were so few that they had to dig into letters that they had ALREADY used???
To be sure, that's probably not what happened, and it was just a mistake. And, clearly, everyone makes mistakes, even Team America. But, you would think the Herald would have a bit better quality and editorial control than this. Especially when it's such a daffy letter. I really am shocked that someone didn't pick this up over there.
BTW, I'm still waiting for that article exposing the Professor-gate issue. How 'bout it, guys?
UPDATED: As commentor "Barbara" explained, it appears as if the "recycling" that I stated the Herald did on the Seals letter by Tobaison may only have been an "online" artifact, as opposed to reprinting the letters in the paper editions due to separate geographical editions of the Herald using the same letters at different times (see the comments for Barbara's explanation). I guess the slight differences in the letters would have to be explained by editing, rather than slightly different versions of the letter being submitted by the author and printed at different times by the paper. But, in any event, the letters get double-billing on the Internet, with different titles, and at the very least, it gave me the opportunity to point out the ridiculousness of the Tobaison letter encouraging all us north shore-ers to vote the Chicago way, for their chosen candidate. Thanks for the schooling on the editorial process, Barbara, and I hopefully won't get fooled again (on this issue, anyway).
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9 comments:
Do you have a photo of Eric Tobiason that we can caption?
Speaking of recycling, the Rezko name keeps resurfacing to haunt Obama. Now it appears that Rezko's fundraising activities on behalf of Obama during his U.S. Senate run will be part of the federal trial evidence used against Rezko.
Check out the Sunday Sun Times for more details. Obama's campaign responded to WRITTEN questions about this.
Everyone wants to be linked to Obama, right?
Louis G. Atsaves
You’re usually pretty good, TA, but you must be too young or too electronic to know about replating. The Daily Herald, like Pioneer Press, has numerous editions replated for the different communities it serves. So, the letter than ran in Buffalo Grove two weeks ago probably ran in Arlington Heights this time.
Pioneer Press’s letters to the editor cannot be found on line and one must scour each individual paper as I did the other day. Seals had two letters, the same one from Tobiason and one published in the Lake Forester that also ran in yesterday’s News Sun.
Jay had an abundance of letters and a good number were replated from one edition to the other. I think I counted seven. That’s how the community papers, including the Herald, do it. The Tribune also does it in its Metro sections.
Good to see Jay's soon to be unemployed field director/future Clinton phone banker extraordinaire is still burning the midnight oil to share his thoughts on the Daily Herald.
Obama's fading campaign coupled with the rise of Hillary and the Mac Attack is about as good a January as Team Kirk could have asked for. I would love a Mac attack/Rudy team to send up to the Hill to be sworn in a year from today to join Kirk.
Barbara- you seem to know a lot about the newspaper business, obviously more than I do. And I suppose just under 40 counts as young, in many circles (although the grey hair is coming in nicely, thank you).
I am aware that Letters to the Editor are often edited for space considerations, etc. But I am not quite ready to buy your explaination, because the differences between the two forms of the letter, while subtle, still seem to be more significant than I would expect of an editor snipping here and there for space. Maybe I'll go check out the print editions at the library.
If I'm wrong, I'll be sure to let everyone know. But, at the least, it gave me an excuse to talk about that ridiculous letter from the Chicago guy again. ;-)
Dan Seals' Web site continues to say, "The surge has not worked. We have no plan to get out."
Why has no one in the media questioned Dan Seals on the surge's apparent success?
Did everyone see this article?
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2008/01/18/us_most_baghdad_areas_now_secure/2653/
Apparently, The Pup, through his website, is now calling many of his fellow Dems, including some very high-ranking Dems, liars.
See Danno, the reason that Iraq is not the leading election issue anymore is because the surge is working.
Sorry, no gloom and doom on the war front this time for you.
Perhaps that's why your look-a-like is also fading. Oh well, just think, there will probably be a go-for job for you on his Governor staff in 2010.
Iraq is not a winning issue in this district. McCain was right on the surge but it was good news for the country but bad news because it meant the issue faded. In this media market, reporters won't go for that level of questioning of a dan. They'll do a summer story on it, a fall one and then one in the run-up to the campaign. There's too much going on this year for this to get high level attention.
If the dems get hillary will be interesting to see if Mark gets a pass from the DCCC with his strong fundraising numbers and dems need to hang on to seats in red districts since member retention comes first before Also Ran Dan....
Where in that letter does he say that everyone in the North Shore should be like people in Chicago, and where does he say that everyone in Chicago supports Dan Seals? Apparently, based on primary election results, the vast majority of Dems in the North Shore do support Mr. Seals.
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