The Media By TOM LITTLEWOOD

COMPARING news reports of the mayoral election in the Chicago press and in the national media took me back to 1957 when the U.S. Army integrated Central High School in Little Rock, Ark. Reporters swarmed into that city from all over the globe then, myself among them, to render instantaneous definitive accounts following predetermined themes on the social trauma in Dixie. It was one of the first of the big "race stories" of that period.

Our stories were awesomely superficial, but everyone knew what was expected and there was only time to shoot from the hip. The home folks did not react very kindly to the stock questions, but the local journalists smiled tolerantly at the posturing of the makeshift sociologists bearing press cards from the North.

As might have been foreseen, the "race story" drifted north one day, to what more appropriate place than Chicago. What was changed since Little Rock and Selma is that the actors in these politico-dramas have become more skittish and the local media considerably more sensitive about community pride.

This year's campaign for mayor attracted the attention of many journalists from distant points who knew only that Chicago was a legendary Democratic party stronghold in which a black candidate was in danger of losing because of his color. By the time the sordid affair was over, both candidates had thoroughly denounced the press coverage as well as one another. Bernard Epton, the Republican, accused the national media of besmirching Chicago's reputation unjustly, Harold Washington, the eventual winner, "If they [the media] can't find some conflict, they aren't interested."

Sensing the explosiveness of the situation, the intensely competitive Chicago newspapers were uncharacteristically subdued. Measuring words carefully throughout the summary and the general election, they made a valiant but probably hopeless attempt to introduce some discussion of issues into the campaign. On the Sunday before the election, Tribune attempted in a front-page story to separate the facts from the fiction in the often anonymous charges that were leveled against the two candidates.

Generally, the Tribune and the Times reported the campaign as responsibly as they could under very difficult circumstances. One of the more asinine exceptions was a Tribune column by Bill Granger in which he treated the whole thing as a joke, saying the city could have "double the fun" by electing both to a joint mayorship.

If possible, the papers undersensationalized a very sensational story. The last time this happened was in 1968 when many of the younger reporters complained that the Chicago media had been overprotective of the city's image by painting a far less severe picture than did the national press of street violence during the Democratic national convention.

Again this time, the contrast was evident. On the final weekend of the campaign, political writers for both Chicago papers used some of their valuable space to chastise their colleagues from the Washington-NewYork-Boston circuit. "Jet-lag journalism at its worst," complained Basil Talbott Jr. of the Sun-Times. "The nation's suitcase journalists are portraying Chicago as the national capital of hate, racism and ugliness. Their case against Chicago is skewed, flawed and more inciting than insightful." The Tribune's David Axelrod offered a similar assessment, to which his columnist colleague Vernon Jarrett responded "Nonsense! If Chicago has an image as one of America's most segregated and racist cities, it's because Chicago earned it."

There are reasons, of course, why visiting reporters are less restrained. He first is known in the business as "Afghanistanism," a phenomenon that occurs with editorial writers who are more comfortable assailing conditions far away than they are conditions at home where there are advertisers. Moreover, the outsider will see things differently. Scott Simon, who does an excellent job of reporting mid-westestern news for National Public Radio, put it this way: "The national media tend to draw the lines of racism more darkly — no pun intended. We who live here become so inured to the racism around us that we have difficulty understanding outsiders who come in and are shocked by what they see."

Armed with stereotypes of a Chicago that may be outdated, the visiting journalists hold to single themes (in this case, racism) and do not welcome distractions. In one story, the Washington Post, which had seven suitcase reporters on the scene, referred to revelations of candidate Washington being a former scofflaw as "a series of seemingly timed leaks."

The Post, incidently, is correcting an oversight of many years by finally opening a permanent bureau in Chicago. That newspaper, one of the two most influential in the nation, had correspondents in California and Texas but not in the Midwest. Now the former Moscow correspondent has been assigned to Chicago, a decision that might have been more fitting in Mayor Daley's day.

Lingering on are questions about the news stories of Washington's past, the most obvious of which is: If this was information the voters needed to make a decision in April, why was it not given to them in the primary? The answer, one must assume, is that the editors never dreamed of Washington winning the primary and did not want to be in the position of working over the first serious black candidate for mayor. □

June 1983 | Illinois Issues | 31