No truce in sight between Sun Times Executive Editor and former columnist
Plus follow-ups on the whistleblower cop and Brittney Griner
12-15-2022 (issue No. 66)
Eric Zorn is a former opinion columnist for the Chicago Tribune. Find a longer bio and contact information here. This issue exceeds in size the maximum length for a standard email. To read the entire issue in your browser, click on the headline link above.
This week
Following up on … John Fountain, the whistleblower cop and Brittney Griner.
News and Views — about fusion, Elon Musk, the mayor’s race and more
Land of Linkin’ — Where I tell readers where to go
Play “Two lies and a truth” about three beloved Christmas songs
Mary Schmich — on “The Walking Man”
Re:Tweets — featuring the winner of the visual tweets poll and this week’s finalists
Tune of the Week — My new favorite Christmas song
Addendum — images from John Fountain’s dispute with Jennifer Kho
Last week’s winning tweet
Here are this week’s nominees and the winner of the Tuesday visual-tweets poll. Here is the direct link to the new poll.
Follow-up on columnist John Fountain’s departure from the Sun-Times
Sun-Times Executive Editor Jennifer Kho sent me a comment Tuesday morning hours after I’d posted a story in the Picayune Plus about how veteran contributing columnist John Fountain had resigned after a dispute with her over proposed edits to one of his columns:
I wish we could have resolved this issue, but I respect John’s decision to resign. My approach is to be highly collaborative with writers, whether they are reporters or columnists, to elevate their voices in the editing process. My goal is to help them not only reach, but also touch, our readers and make their work as impactful as possible. John’s departure is not the outcome any of us wanted. I’ve enjoyed reading his columns and I appreciate his voice and his work to inform our community over 13 years.
Fountain is a passionate, at times idiosyncratic writer who brings a lot of himself to his work. My view is that Kho, as the boss at the newspaper, should back up her gracious but vague words with a serious effort to repair this rift and bring Fountain back into the Sun-Times fold.
Fountain made this point in a lengthy reply to Kho’s statement emailed to me Wednesday afternoon:
"Elevate" my voice as a columnist?
I find Kho's contention laughable and disconcerting. She couldn't elevate my voice with a bullhorn. But my readers across the Chicago area and beyond, for years now, certainly have heard me loud and clear. And there are plenty who could testify to how "impactful" my voice has been.
Indeed readers have responded with hundreds of letters and emails over the last nearly decade and a half about how my writing, without Kho’s edits, has "moved" and "touched" them, made them cry. Numerous awards over the last year alone for my column (all of them predating Kho’s tenure) speak to the power of my voice and excellence in craft in the eyes of contest judges.
Among those awards are the National Society of Newspaper Columnists "Social Justice Award"; the top Lisagor Award for editorial, opinion and column writing, a category in which I was two-thirds of this year’s finalists; and a National Association of Black Journalists "Salute to Excellence Award," for best feature series.
Frankly, I resent Kho's matriarchal condescension manifested not only in her written response to you but also inherent in her revisions that were completely unnecessary, heavy-handed and sophomoric. Not to mention her attitude, which I found disrespectful in tone and dismissive of my expressed desire to keep the column as I originally wrote it.
Columns are not collaborations. They simply aren’t. That’s why the columnist’s photo and byline appear with their column. Columns are the words and creation of the columnist, not the editor's. And I've earned and deserve that much respect, I think.
What is clear to me now is that I was a Black man who dared to challenge the newly minted executive editor. And it mattered not how respectful or humble I was in attempting to help her see my side and approach. I could not stoop low enough. This was not a conversation as much as it was a directive. And her response to my unwillingness to comply was to put me in my place. But what is my place?
As a tenured full journalism professor for the last 18 years, and a practitioner of the craft over the last 37 years, having written my way onto the front pages of the New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times (interning at six newspapers before ever landing my first newspaper job), having written five books, including a 372-page memoir (encountering good editors all along my journey), and having earned several journalism degrees, I think that maybe, just maybe, I have reached the level of being qualified enough to write a less-than 700-word newspaper column without necessitating remedial edits or revisions.
Especially from an overzealous power-tripping editor who hasn't been in town long enough to experience the bite of the Chicago Hawk, or long enough yet to truly get to know Sun-Times readers. Especially its African-American readers who can attest to how often I have raised my pen in celebration, remembrance, honor and in recognition of life and death on the other side of the tracks—where my former student, the late Aaron Lee, grew up—and whose stories often otherwise go missing from news print and broadcasts.
I know these readers. I’ve been a voice for many of them. And neither mine nor theirs—of how we speak or how we structure the telling of our stories—will ever need sifting through an outsider’s point of view.
As for, "John's departure is not the outcome that any of us wanted..."
If that’s the case, why then since my announced departure on Nov. 25, have I not received a single call, email or any such communication from Kho to discuss my resignation or to express that sentiment? Zilch. Crickets.
If she had reached out, she might have started the conversation with an apology. But that perhaps would be too much like admitting that my column was just fine the way I wrote it.
Some readers of Tuesday’s edition had no luck with the links showing Kho’s proposed revisions, so I’ve embedded images of them in an addendum below.
Follow-up on the whistleblower cop lawsuit
Last week’s lead item was about a then-ongoing lawsuit in which former Chicago police Detective Sgt. Isaac Lambert alleged he was demoted for failing to help cover for an officer who for no good reason shot and wounded an unarmed teenager with autism in 2017.
Andy Grimm of the Sun-Times reported that a Cook County jury found in Lambert’s favor Tuesday and awarded him $910,000, “less than the $1.2 million to $2.5 million that Lambert’s lawyers had suggested, but well above the $143,000 in compensation city attorneys had called for.”
Follow-up on Brittney Griner
Did WNBA superstar Brittney Griner pay the price of fame when she was in effect taken as a high-value hostage by Russian authorities for a minor violation of that country’s draconian drug laws?
Or did she reap the benefits of fame when she moved to the head of the line and was freed last week in a prisoner swap, leaving less famous hostages behind bars?
The answer may be yes to both questions.
Griner’s nine-year sentence for having vape cartridges containing hashish oil in her hand luggage when she arrived at a Moscow-area airport in February was unconscionable, outrageous and provocative.
Whether Griner packed the contraband accidentally in haste, as she’s said, or whether she was simply trying to sneak it in to use medicinally — or, hell, even recreationally — there’s no indication that she was involved in the drug trade. A fine and perhaps expulsion from the country would have been an adequate sanction for this first-time offense.
But if Griner’s sentence was unconscionable, outrageous and provocative, what adjectives are sufficient to describe the 14-year sentence a Russian judge imposed in June on Marc Hilliard Fogel for a strikingly similar offense?
Fogel, 61, who taught history courses to the children of foreign diplomats in Moscow, was arrested in August of last year for trying to enter Russia with half an ounce of marijuana and some cannabis buds hidden in his luggage, palliatives that a doctor had prescribed to treat chronic pain related to spinal surgeries. Russia does not recognize medical marijuana prescriptions so Fogel was taking a huge risk, but, again, there was no indication that he was involved in the drug trade despite the Russians’ unsupported accusation that he was intending to sell his stash to students.
Griner’s arrest sparked an international outcry, with many observers arguing that Griner had been taken as a bargaining chip in Russia’s increasingly tense confrontation with the United States. In May, the State Department determined that Griner was being “wrongfully detained,” a designation that established the legal basis for her release this week in a one-for-one prisoner exchange for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.
Fogel, by contrast, has garnered little public attention. The State Department has not granted him “wrongfully detained” status, despite repeated appeals from a bipartisan group of lawmakers and Fogel’s lawyers.
Paul Whelan, a corporate security executive serving a 16-year sentence in a Russian prison after an espionage conviction that U.S. officials say is bogus, does have “wrongfully detained” status but he, like Fogel, was left behind in the Biden administration’s one-for-one swap of Griner for Bout, the so-called “Merchant of Death” who was serving a 25-year term in the medium security federal prison in downstate Marion.
The Tribune Editorial Board offered a strong editorial.
Biden deserves credit for Griner’s homecoming. In the meantime, however, the White House cannot waver in its mission to do the same for Whelan, who on Thursday told CNN via telephone, “I don’t know why I’m still here.”
The Biden administration should also take a closer look at the case of Marc Fogel … We expect Putin to reprehensibly treat Whelan, Fogel and any other American detained in Russia the same way he treated Griner — as a commodity, a bargaining chip. Biden must do all he can to rescue Whelan and Fogel from Putin’s inhumanity.
Someday we may know the contours of the negotiations — why Griner was traded for Bout and not Fogel or also Fogel. But as I wrote in August, for the U.S. to swap drug users and those purportedly falsely convicted of espionage for arms traders and murderers strikes me as grotesquely, dangerously asymmetrical. It incentivizes hostile foreign countries to in effect kidnap travelers from the U.S., particularly famous ones, in order to liberate their worst malefactors.
News & Views
News: Scientists announced Tuesday that they have for the first time produced more energy in a fusion reaction than was used to ignite it — a major breakthrough in the decades-long quest to harness the process that powers the sun.
View: The Tribune was right to play this story on the front page, and the Sun-Times will look a little foolish to history for having played it on Page 33, after the funnies and the classifieds. Yes, the potential benefits from this breakthrough are still decades off, but I now have hope for the future of the planet for the first time in a long time.
News: Mayoral hopeful Paul Vallas “unveils crime-fighting plan to reverse ‘utter breakdown of law and order.’”
View: Given the persistence with which concerns over robberies, thefts and shootings reportedly came up at Tuesday evening’s mayoral candidate forum, the candidate who comes off as the most serious, thoughtful and potentially effective crime fighter is likely to get some serious traction prior to the Feb. 28 election.
Vallas said (Monday) he’d begin by firing police Supt. David Brown, a position held by several other candidates, and restoring police strength to the 13,000 level it was under former Mayor Rahm Emanuel. According to the Civic Federation, the number of uniformed personnel was 11,638 as of June 1, although (incumbent Mayor Lori) Lightfoot says the city has since boosted efforts to recruit more personnel.
Vallas also called for:
returning police to a more neighborhood-focused patrol strategy rather than centralized, citywide units.
supplementing patrols by bringing back some retired officers part time.
sharply limiting the use of overtime so that officers would have a more predictable work schedule. (Crains)
News: Elon Musk tweets “My pronouns are prosecute/Fauci” and announces that the current 280-character limit on tweets will expand to 4,000.
View: Oh, there’s more. Musk is turning out to be a more malign owner of Twitter and all-around wing nut than many of us expected.
Elon Musk escalated his battle of words with previous managers of Twitter into risky new territory over the weekend, allying himself with far-right crusaders against a purported epidemic of child sex abuse and implying that the company’s former head of trust and safety had a permissive view of sexual activity by minors. (Washington Post)
Elon Musk’s Twitter has dissolved its Trust and Safety Council, the advisory group of around 100 independent civil, human rights and other organizations that the company formed in 2016 to address hate speech, child exploitation, suicide, self-harm and other problems on the platform. (Associated Press)
So far I’m still finding the site useful, but 4,000-character tweets? Those are extended squawks. The entire item on Brittney Griner, above, is less than 3,400 characters. Increasing the character limit 14-fold will rob Twitter of whatever charm it still holds.
News: Interference from electric vehicle motors is bumping AM radio bands off EVs, alarming legacy broadcasters.
View: My guess is that smartphone technology will ultimately do to radio what it’s done to camcorders, alarm clocks, calculators, GPS devices, metronomes, CDs and other old and not-so-old technology. Broadcasters will become streamers, and the most nimble will survive.
Land of Linkin’
“Why is Marjorie Taylor Greene Like This?” is an excellent profile in The Atlantic.
A sweet li’l story: “Los Angeles County grants girl license to own a unicorn – if she can find one.”
“States With More Abortion Restrictions Have Higher Maternal and Infant Mortality, Report Finds.”
“Lloyd Newman, Teenage Chronicler of ‘Ghetto Life,’ Dies at 43.” When he was 14, Newman and his best friend, LeAlan Jones, 13, recorded an audio journal of their hardscrabble lives on the South Side that producer David Isay crafted into “Ghetto Life 101,” an unforgettable and seminal radio documentary.
The Picayune Sentinel on the air: On Thursdays at 4:30 p.m., WCPT-AM 820 host Joan Esposito and I chat about ideas raised in the new issue. The listen-live link is here.
The Picayune Sentinel preview: Tuesday at 11:30 a.m. I talk with WGN-AM 720 host John Williams about what’s making news and likely to be grist for the PS mill. The WGN listen-live link is here.
Two lies and a truth, holiday edition
During interludes at Songs of Good Cheer, my co-host Mary Schmich and I asked a different member of the band each night to guess which one of three statements about certain holiday songs were true and which two were lies that we’d made up.
Make your guesses, then scroll down to see how you did:
Round 1:
A. Jose Feliciano, the composer of “Feliz Navidad," the most popular Spanish-language Christmas song in the United States, was born and raised in Little Rock, Arkansas, and does not speak Spanish.
B. “Deck the Halls” was the title of a 2006 movie about a man who decides to try to make his house visible from outer space by decorating with a bodacious number of Christmas lights.
C. When “The First Noel” was initially published in “Carols Ancient and Modern” in 1823, the Duke of Cornwall decreed that its repetitive melody made it “blasphemously tedious” and prohibited it from being sung in Anglican churches
Round 2:
A. “Fa la la la la, la la la la” was never intended to be part of "Deck the Halls." In 1862, Scottish lyricist Thomas Oliphant wrote in the nonsense syllables as placeholders until he could think of some real words, but the song’s manuscript leaked and the “fa la las” caught on.
B. Jose Feliciano composed “Feliz Navidad” in 1970 as a jingle for J.C. Penney stores in Texas.
C. In the original Cornish songbook, the words in the chorus of “The First Noel” were “O, well, O well, born is the king of Israel.”
Round 3
A. “The First Noelle” is the title of a recent movie that tells the story of Terrence and Noelle, a romantic couple who break up when Terrence moves to London. There, he gets a second girlfriend also named Noelle. When he comes home with the second Noelle, the first Noelle contrives to win him back.
B. Since 1978, state law in South Dakota has mandated that public school children performing “Deck the Halls” sing “festive clothing” instead of “gay apparel.”
C. In 1973, Jose Feliciano was sued by The Chiffons when they alleged that he stole the melody to "Feliz Navidad" note for note from their early 1960s hit “Oh Babe, You’re So Fine.”
Round 4
A. In the 1800s when “Deck the Halls” was written in England, listeners there understood “decking” to be a form of vandalism directed at unbelievers and “tis the season to be jolly” to be an admonition, not a declaration.
B. Prior to releasing Feliz Navidad in 1970, Jose Feliciano was best known for singing an unconventionally soulful version of “The Star-Spangled Banner” prior to Game 5 of the 1968 World Series.
C. “The First Noel” was originally titled “The Third Noel” and recounted Jesus’ terrible twos.
Mary Schmich: Rest in Peace, Walking Man
My former colleague Mary Schmich posts occasional column-like entries on Facebook. Here, reprinted with permission, is her most recent offering:
The Chicago legend widely known as Walking Man died this week after an attack several months ago. You may have seen the news stories. This is the column I wrote about him after he was attacked in 2016:
His name is Joe
Who knew?
Not most of the people who for years have watched him walk the streets of Chicago, up near the Hancock Center, south near the Willis Tower, next to the river and across the bridges, occasionally in more far-flung precincts.
To most of his fellow downtown pedestrians, he was just "Walking Man," or "Walking Dude," or "Walking Yanni," a familiar, tall, mustachioed guy who loped around town in a V-neck T-shirt and a kerchief tucked in the breast pocket of his suit jacket, going who knew where.
Occasionally, he'd stop to comb his flamboyant hair, which through the decades faded from black to silver, while his long stride got a little shorter and slower.
Could he talk? If he could, it was rare to witness. Walking was his thing, mile after mile, alone.
Walking Man has been one of those people commonly called a character, a word that shrinks a human being into an amusing story, but the speculation he incited usually seemed friendly.
"I saw Walking Man!" people would report to each other. His followers would post surreptitiously shot photos of him on Facebook, videos on YouTube. His mystery was part of his allure.
Now an act of violence has given him a real name, a family, a past.
On Tuesday morning, a homeless man attacked Joseph Kromelis, 69, with fists and a bat on Lower Wacker Drive, sending him to the hospital with leg injuries and his eyes bloodied.
Ordinarily, a fight between people who live on the streets wouldn't make news. But this was Walking Man, and his assault has inspired not only media attention but a rush of sympathy, outrage and offers of financial aid.
"A quiet wandering soul," one person wrote on a comment board.
"He makes my day better whenever I see him," said another.
"A familiar face in a city full of strangers," wrote one.
Of course, to most of us, Walking Man is a stranger too. But he has been one of those strangers who, seen so often and for so long, come to seem like friends. That's why his attack has touched a collective nerve and felt somehow personal.
We don't know him, but we feel we do. We project stories onto him. One of the stories -- true -- is that he's the kind of person who makes Chicago a more interesting place to be.
All of this has come as a surprise to his sister-in-law, Linda Kromelis, who says she knew nothing of his stature in Chicago until now.
"No, no way, nope," she said Thursday. She added that she doubted he knew either.
"He doesn't do computers," she said, "and he doesn't have a cellphone. We tried to get him one."
She acknowledges, however, that there are a lot of things about him she doesn't know.
She said that when his parents moved from Chicago to Michigan in the mid-1960s, he stayed in the city but regularly came to see his mother, until she died in the mid-1980s. After that, he visited only periodically, but when he did, he talked.
"Oh, yeah," she said, "he's a big talker, especially when he was here with his brother. They liked to argue."
The family worried about him, she said, especially after he lost his longtime apartment a couple of years ago. They tried to persuade him to come to Michigan, but Chicago was home.
"It's just his way of life," she said. "He liked the city, liked walking, liked selling jewelry on the street. There's nothing wrong with him. But we worried about him."
Joe Kromelis' brothers are all dead now, along with one of his sisters. His remaining sister didn't want to talk. But his sister-in-law passed on a photo from a few years ago that shows him with his family, on a deep-green lawn surrounded by trees.
For people who have known him only as the solitary Walking Man, to see him that way is startling and comforting.
On Thursday, police charged Kromelis' attacker with reckless conduct, a misdemeanor, a charge so light it incensed a lot of the strangers who think of Walking Man as a friend. But police say they couldn't charge a felony unless Kromelis was willing to sign a complaint. They say he refused because it's the code in the homeless community not to rat someone out.
In his conspicuous way, Walking Man has always seemed like a very private person. The violence done to his body has cost him some of that privacy.
But maybe what he has lost in privacy will be partially made up for with the knowledge of how much affection and concern he has inspired among his fellow city-dwellers.
Chicago sends you its best wishes, Mr. Kromelis. — Mary Schmich, May 27, 2016
Minced Words
Jon Hansen, Austin Berg and I joined host John Williams on this week’s episode of “The Mincing Rascals.” We talked about the issue of crime in the race of mayor, the 1,000-day “emergency” under Gov. JB Pritzker, Brittney Griner and the World Cup. Hansen and I believe that this Sunday night’s regular season NFL game on NBC — the New York Giants against the Washington Commanders, teams likely bound for the playoffs with identical 7-5-1 records — will have more viewers in the U.S. than the World Cup final Sunday morning between Argentina and France. Williams and Berg think otherwise.
Though Hansen quipped that the 2-2 tie was thematically appropriate, I’m curious how the inestimably clever Picayune Sentinel readership will break the deadlock.
Subscribe to us wherever you get your podcasts. Or bookmark this page. If you’re not a podcast listener, you can now hear an edited version of the show at 8 p.m. most Saturday evenings on WGN-AM 720.
Re: Tweets
In Tuesday’s paid-subscriber editions, I present my favorite tweets that rely on visual humor and so can’t be included in the classic Tweet of the Week contest in which the template for the poll does not allow the use of images. Subscribers vote for their favorite, and I post the winner here every Thursday:
The new nominees for Tweet of the Week:
The worst part about getting scared is cleaning up the bejesus afterwards. — @VerifiedDrunk
"Give me, a vegan, liberty, or give me (still a vegan) death." … Vegan Patrick Henry — @JoshMankiewicz
First day as a 911 operator: “Whoa, whoa, stop yelling! You called ME, remember?" — @thatdentaldude
I told my daughter she had to donate two toys to the community toy drive and she picked two of her sister’s toys to give away so I’m pretty sure she’s gonna be a CEO someday. — @thedad
For $49.95, I will name your dog, your cat, your turtle, or your baby. (The name will be "Dave".) — @Writepop
Yes, son. All dogs do go to Heaven. Except Bosco. Just kidding. Heaven’s a fantasy invented to dispel our fear of death. — @Cpin42
Professor: You are failing Ethics. Me, pulling out my wallet: Or am I? — @anoticingsenpa1
Throwing a spear at your enemy is a bad gamble. If you miss you have no spear now and he's just fine. He's better than fine; now he has a spear. — @IamJackBoot
Don’t hate the player hate the game. Unless it’s golf. Then you can hate both. — @lloydrang
There’s no way Willy Wonka ever paid taxes. Then, before the feds could close in, he just dumped the whole operation on a minor. Baller. — @badbanana
Vote here in the poll. For instructions and guidelines regarding the poll, click here.
The truths revealed!
Answers to the “Two lies and a truth” game. These are the true statements.
Round 1. B (the 2006 movie) Round 2. C ("O well, O well ...") Round 3. A ("The First Noelle") Round 4. B ("The Star-Spangled Banner")
The movie “Deck the Halls” inspired these reviews:
Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times: “You cannot believe how excruciatingly awful this movie is. It is bad in a way that will cause unfortunate viewers to huddle in the lobby afterward, hugging in small groups, consoling one another with the knowledge that it's over, it's over—thank God, it's over."
Sam Toy, Empire Magazine: “Got any kids who've been naughty this year? Here's their present.”
Sam Adams. Los Angeles Times: “Like a fatally snarled string of Christmas lights, ‘Deck the Halls’ promises holiday cheer but delivers only frustration.”
Tune of the Week
This is the original performance of my favorite song from this past weekend’s Songs of Good Cheer programs at the Old Town School of Folk Music. Heck, this may be my favorite Christmas song ever.
Beverley Smith, of Marshall, North Carolina, wrote this song in 2015, but it sounds exactly like something you’d hear from the legendary Carter Family in the 1930s, right down to the Mother Maybelle-style guitar stylings of John Grimm on this recording.
Consult the complete Tune of the Week archive!
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Addendum
In reference to this story.
The original submission is here. Jennifer Kho’s revisions below are in purple.
First proposed revision:
Second proposed revision:
Wow! I'm not an award winning columnist and I'd be insulted with the amount of editing in either version.
If I were editing Fountain's largely persuasive rejoinder, I would nix the odd word choice "matriarchal," which, unless I'm missing something, suggests resentment of a woman boss, as well as the implicit charge -- which doesn't ring true on the facts and allegations we have -- that he was singled out for a Kho-ing because he's black.
If I were editing Kho's response, I would suggest a rewrite that doesn't sound like bullshit.