There is at times some good journalism that makes way through the it bleeds it leads dribble that comes out everyday all day in the Chicago media. In today’s show we talk about 2 fine examples of good journalism from WBEZ and the Chicago Tribune. These two examples are not the investigative journalism that we would usually feature but they come from the unlikely source of more traditional beat journalism. I usually reserve the content produced by beat repporters for scorn because how shallow and propagandist the coverage usually is; however, today we have two shinny examples of good journalism produced by more or less beat reporters.

The first example we cover today is a piece by Chip Mitchell at WBEZ titled “A top suburban prosecutor blames Waukegan police for a boy’s false confession”.  In this piece MItchell does a great job of digging in to the fact that the cops clearly did something they know is illegal but because of the weakness of our state legislators there is no real punishment for the cops despite their illegal bebavior.

Our second example of good journalism is a piece by Annie Sweeney and Stephanie Casanova at the Chicago Tribune titled “Surge in Chicago violence highlights teens in trouble and efforts to save them: ‘The stakes feel higher.’ This piece actually digs in the the science regarding brain development of youth and it discusses how punishing the youth with incarceration rather than rehabilitation actually is more likely to lead to a life spent justice system involved.

Later in the show we also discuss the ridiculous letter written by 12 alderpeople to Mayor Lightfoot demanding a special city council hearing on ending the City’s vaccine mandate for city workers. The letter is a shining example of just how delusional our elected officials in Chicago are because it certainly seems as if they believe the pandemic is completely over. They are also showing their constituents that they believe it is fine for first responders to not take the vaccine and possibly bring with them a deadly disease as they respond to serve the people of Chicago.