The controversy is emotional and rich: Millionaires fighting billionaires, social liberals and incendiary charges of racism, traditionalists arguing for change, politicians worrying about their privileges and some even raising the question of what’s best for the children.
The fight over the proposed relocation of the Chicago Children’s Museum to Grant Park provides all those elements. The arguments are intense, and the Tribune has staked out its official position.
Inside the newspaper, it is clear to journalists that the distinction between opinion and news pages is absolute, but it is equally clear from the mail I get from readers that many are not aware of that separation — or simply don’t believe it is real.
So how do reporters cover such a controversy? If ever a single story showed the divide between reporting and opinion writing, this is it.
The controversy involves the city’s power structure, from Mayor Richard Daley to Ald. Brendan Reilly (42nd) and his savvy downtown residents, to the rest of the Chicago City Council and to wealthy civic leaders, including Gigi Pritzker Pucker, chairwoman of the museum.
It is a local tempest in which the newspaper has engaged fully in the last month. There have been four editorials arguing that the Grant Park site is inappropriate for the museum and that the open space should remain clear of buildings, no matter how worthy, for the common good. Two other columnists on this page agreed.
Tribune architecture critic Blair Kamin has written three articles, the first a neutral analysis of the park history and the second suggesting the museum move might work, if the design were in keeping with the openness of the park. But in today’s Tempo section, Kamin argues that the mayor “should abandon this irresolvable plan and push the museum to look at alternatives.”
A critic’s role is to bring his expertise to provide readers with context and with his or her opinion, which may be opposed to editorial and other columnists’ opinions.
In addition, Voice of the people has received more than 300 letters from readers on the issue. They are overwhelmingly in opposition to the proposed relocation.
Many of those e-mails and letters appear in the newspaper and on chicagotribune.com. Some speak to the central issue, while many others speak to the charges of elitism and/or racism.
With all that commentary in the newspaper, and despite the newspaper’s official editorial position opposing the move to Grant Park, from my reading, I think the news coverage of the proposal has reflected both sides fairly.
Editorials are meant to be interpretive and provide strong opinion. They appear after discussions by the editorial board and, once approved by R. Bruce Dold, editorial page editor, they represent the official voice of the Tribune.
Reporters are not included in board discussions, unless the editorial board is meeting with a newsmaker. In the museum case, reporters attended the two meetings the board had with museum officials on the proposed relocation. Generally, reporters and editorial writers maintain a collegial distance, and for one group to try to influence the other’s reporting or writing is considered an ethical breach.
Noreen Ahmed-Ullah, who covers parks for the Metro desk, and Gary Washburn, a veteran City Hall reporter, have navigated between the two impassioned sides, recording what was said and trying to reflect the positions without favoring either one.
One of their editors, Steve Kloehn, said the story itself is somewhat unusual because nothing has actually happened yet. There are positions and perceptions and continually new comments, but no action, no decision.
While the commentary intensified, the reporters looked at the dynamics involving the city aldermen, who are concerned about their own “prerogative” in approving development in their wards. The reporters also have examined attendance records at the museum in its current location at Navy Pier and the rapidly evolving downtown neighborhood near Grant Park.
The reporters were challenged when the mayor introduced race into what had been a debate about open space and tradition. Daley and others claimed that opponents of the museum’s move were racists and were using code words to say they didn’t want busloads of black children coming to their neighborhood. The charge was roundly denied.
Washburn also began tracing whom the mayor relied on for his information and wrote the story in a deft, intelligent manner.
Later, reporters who were at some of the neighborhood meetings went back over their notes, talked to others at the meetings and spent time trying to trace those comments and decide whether it was fair to describe them as racial code words.
Though the race issue escalated and is now one of the significant elements in the continuing debate, the reporters have kept to facts and balanced statements on both sides of an extraordinarily passionate exchange.
A quick note
In covering the visit of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to New York City, the Tribune ran a front-page photo, a story, an editorial, an editorial cartoon and a partial text of the Columbia University president introducing and lambasting his guest at a forum. Outside of a few quotes in the story, nowhere in the paper or on chicagotribune.com was there a text of Ahmadinejad’s speeches at the UN or at Columbia.
