In a column last week, Tribune op-ed writer Eric Zorn sideswiped a chain of community newspapers that don’t meet his standards. Zorn’s subject was the right-wing reaction to New Trier High School’s recent all-day, all-school “white privilege” seminar. It’s led to three conservative candidates running insurgency campaigns for seats on the New Trier Township board. Of these campaigns, Zorn wrote in passing:

      Proft also hosts a weekly podcast, Illinois Rising Radio, up until last year with IPI’s vice president of policy, Michael Lucci. He distributes what he calls “upstream ideas” on Against the Current, a one-on-one subscription video-interview series. His lofty aim is to “arm you with new information and fresh perspectives with the goal of making Illinois and the United States of America a bit more free, a bit more just and a bit more civilized.”

                                        Jacobson: “Oh, I heard about it.”

                                        Proft: (reading): “People tell me that Hillary is acting ‘like a retard’ since her head injury.”

                                        Jacobson: Gasp.

                                        Proft: (reading): “‘Have someone talk to her doctor and see if there’s anything he can give her.’ . . . Podesta’s e-mail goes on—this is the fun part— ‘Also, I’ve noticed she has an “odor” lately.'”

                                        Jacobson: “Mmmm! Oh my gosh!”

                                        Proft (reading): “‘It reminds me of a combination of boiled cabbage, urine, and gas.'” [Proft spares his audience here. The “e-mail” says “farts.”]

                                        Jacobson: “To her friend!” 

                                        Proft: “He’s the campaign chairman!”

                                        Proft (reading): “‘I’m guessing it’s connected either to her fall or simply the fact that she rarely bathes. Outside of encouraging her to take a shower once in a while, I don’t know what to do about this—any suggestions would be appreciated.'”

                                        Jacobson: An assortment of gasps and exclamations.

                                        Proft: “Ewww boy, that is vivid!  I can almost smell that and I don’t want to. Ewww.”

                                        Jacobson: “It’s very vivid in the details there. He brought the smell to life.”

                                        Proft: “I think the fact that she rarely showers! Anybody got any ideas how we can get the stink off Hillary Clinton? 312-642-5600. We’ll take your ideas. We’ll pass them along to John Podesta and the campaign team, trying to help out here, at least that stink associated with Hillary Clinton.”


      “We have a point of view,” he told Lynne Marek of Crain’s Chicago Business, “and we want to advance that point of view in terms of policy solutions.”

          Two months in, This American Life ran a long report about how TribLocal stories were actually being written in the Philippines. Ryan Smith, a Journatic minion who’d been TAL‘s source (and who’s now the Reader‘s social media editor), followed with a long piece for the Guardian. 

     “We reject the premise that you have to live in a community to cover its local government,” Timpone said in an e-mail when I questioned him about his far-flung reporters. “In fact, we have found that living there is a negative, as reporters reporting on their own communities pull punches for fear of offending someone they see at the grocery store.”

      “Liberty Principles has used cookie-cutter ads critical of Democrats on behalf of Republican candidates in the House and Senate, splicing in images of the individual Democrat—often with a critical reference to Madigan,” the Tribune wrote.