Attack error. Reactionary Chicago radio host and disgraced former TV reporter Amy Jacobson is out as the volleyball coach at a Chicago high school after parents objected to her on-air mockery of vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz’s neurodivergent son.
■ She and her co-host, Dan Proft, issued half-assed apologies the next day on WIND-AM.
■ Columnist Eric Zorn: “A better outcome was possible. … Administrators should have asked her to stay on … on the condition that she speak to the student body … to explain why it’s wrong to make fun of people with differences and why it’s important to stand up to those who do.”
‘We can confirm there was an incident.’ Donald Trump’s in hot water for conducting a campaign stunt at Arlington National Cemetery.
■ Columnist and cartoonist Mark Fiore: Trump literally campaigned over soldiers’ dead bodies.
■ Asked about criticism of the event, Trump running mate JD Vance said Kamala Harris “can go to hell.”
■ Historian Heather Cox Richardson notes that “Harris has not, in fact, commented on the controversy.”
■ James Risen at The Intercept: “The political press has doubled down on horse-race coverage of the election, overlooking the threat Trump poses to democracy.” (Cartoon: Jack Ohman.)
■ Journalist Ken Klippenstein: Don’t overlook the appeal of Trump’s new campaign co-chair, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—“the outsider—channeling continued anxiety and discontent, supplanting Trump and JD Vance with his ability to actually say something.”
■ Satirist Andy Borowitz: “Vance Seething With Jealousy After Trump Starts Seeing Other Weirdo.”
‘Makes my stomach feel sick.’ A CNN anchor expressed disgust over a misogynistic social media post by Trump.
■ Through some contorted logical analysis, the Daily Dot concludes the post inadvertently has Trump predicting he’ll lose in November (link corrected).
■ A CNN investigation has ID’d 17 fashion and beauty influencers around the world whose online photos have been stolen to promote Trump on Twitter X.
Harris and Walz in the hotseat. At 8 p.m. Chicago time, CNN broadcasts the first post-convention interview with the Democratic presidential team.
■ HuffPost: “13 questions we really, really want CNN to ask.”
A bad look. Block Club Chicago’s analysis concludes that, from early 2023 to early 2024, Chicago Transit Authority boss Dorval Carter spent more time traveling the world than visiting CTA stations.
■ Now in beta at the CTA: Tech that uses artificial intelligence to identify guns.
■ A Sun-Times editorial asks why the CTA—which “managed to perform nicely during last week’s Democratic National Convention”—can’t do the same every day.
‘Protest peacefully and get ignored by the media or protest violently and draw media scorn.’ WBEZ’s Chip Mitchell says activists during the convention found themselves confronting a longstanding dilemma.
■ Journalist Taylor Lorenz: Mainstream media journalists mocking the convention’s credentialing of “content creators” is “nothing short of disgraceful.”
■ The Washington Post: Newly discovered documents suggest a journalist whose 1956 article was billed as the “true account” of 14-year old Chicagoan Emmett Till’s killing in Mississippi withheld credible information about people involved in the crime—maybe because he hoped for a movie deal.
Who watches the schools? Chicago Public Schools is in the hunt for a new inspector general.
■ A Tribune editorial welcomes Illinois’ ban of corporal punishment in private schools: It’s about time.
Water you drinking? U.S. Environmental Protection Agency workers are demanding a fix for the discovery of lead, copper and the bacteria that cause Legionnaires’ disease in the water of their downtown offices—15 floors of the Metcalfe Federal Building.
■ Reporting surging profits, Lego says it’s moving ahead with plans to replace the fossil fuels used to make its bricks with renewable and recyclable plastic.
Not-so-free press. Block Club: After yanking 40 newsracks from city streets ahead of the convention, the city has no plans to bring ’em back.
■ The publisher of one of the publications those racks housed, Newcity’s Brian Hieggelke, rejects the contention the boxes were in “deteriorating condition”—because it was the city’s responsibility to clean the things weekly.
■ Looking for stuff to read? Here’s a preview of this next weekend’s Printers Row Lit Fest.
Strange bedfellows. Free-speech advocates and authoritarian governments are opposing the French government’s arrest of messaging app Telegram’s CEO.
■ The Washington Post: He built a haven for free speech—and child predators.
Pole positions, everyone. Illinois next week will begin taking submissions for a new Illinois state flag …
■ … but there’s no guarantee the state will change the one it has.
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A diagram would’ve helped. Chicago Tribune alumnus Phil Vettel corrects an item in yesterday’s Chicago Public Square: “It was Nexstar that sold Freedom Center, not the vampiric Alden Global Capital. When Tribune Co. emerged from bankruptcy, it was split into two entities: Tribune Publishing, which got the newspapers, magazines and a shit-ton of debt; and Tribune Media, which got the TV and radio stations and all the real estate. Tribune Media was so thoroughly mismanaged (another Arsenio Hall talk show? THAT was your big idea?) that it went up for sale—originally headed to Sinclair until the deal was thwarted, and ultimately to Nexstar. Confusing the details was Tribune Publishing’s renewable lease on the Freedom Center; Alden took an undisclosed sum to decline its renewal option (at which point Alden bought the former Daily Herald plant), and here we are.”
■ Reader Marc Magliari observes: “Apparently Nexstar has so little respect for its former corporate cousin and its brand it didn't require the buyer to remove the Trib logos before demolition began.”
■ Julie Johnson, Todd Hieggelke, Linnea Crowther-Robinson and Cindy Farenga made this edition better.
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