The Plight of Political Discourse in Chicago, Illustrated…

Elite faux-civic events like the ones below deny all but a few Chicagoans any real access to their top political leaders.

A poorly recorded video of the April 4 Sun-Times interview of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel by Editorial Page Editor Tom McNamee perfectly illustrates the sorry state of political discourse in Chicago. It’s a discourse of the few, by the few and for the few. And in this interview, it’s a discourse that’s inaudible to all but a very few. Here’s the video. See for yourself.

To attend the event, you had to pay $20. (In Chicago, political discourse is when you put down real money to hear your elected leaders talk for more than fifteen minutes.)

The Chicago Tribune holds similar events and charges similar prices.

Tribune events, however, have better video and audio quality. And, hey, these newspapers are at least more committed to political discourse than any of Chicago’s six network TV stations — 2, 5, 7, 9, 11 and 12 — all of which are licensed by the Federal Communications Commission to serve the public interest.

As things stand and have stood for decades, the only time Chicagoans ever get to see their elected leaders on TV is during sound-bite TV news clips that never last for more than a few seconds.

At election-time, of course, Chicago’s TV stations give us three or four overheated debates during which candidates get to throw insults and mistruths at each other with debate moderators sitting by like teachers unable to manage an unruly classroom.

And let’s not forget the televised election-time political attack ads that have corrupted American politicans and rigged elections outcomes ever since the advent of coast-to-coast network TV in the 1960's.

You may wonder why civic discourse in Chicago is limited to pricey, small audience events like those sponsored by the city’s daily newspapers when at least in theory these events could be aired to all 2.7 million Chicagoans on public or commercial TV.

The standard answer that I hear all the time is that Chicagoans are so bored and fed up with their leaders that no one would bother watch them on TV.

Certainly Chicagoans have reason to be fed up with their leaders. But that’s just part of the story.

Another part is the insidious purpose that I, for one, have come to believe is served by ‘civic’ events like those sponsored by the newspapers: namely, their ability to camouflage the obvious fact that Chicago has never had civic discourse where Chicagoans — leaders and citizens — are actually committed to listening to and learning from each other.

Think about it. I don’t want to sound conspiratorial, ‘Civic’ events like these effectively gull the privileged (or civic-minded) folks who attend them into believing that civic discourse actually does exist in Chicago. And from this belief follows the belief, or prejudice, that other Chicagoans — those not attending — are too bored or self-centered or stupid to care about politics.

It doesn’t have to happen this way. The April 4 Sun-Times event could at least have been televised live and at nominal cost on CAN-TV, the city’s public access cable network, which boasts some 30,000 prime-time viewers. For balance, a rejoinder from an opposition point of view could have been added. But things like this don’t happen in Chicago.

Currently, Chicago uses its powerful public communications system primarily mainly to connect Chicagoans and the city’s pro sports teams. These connections works like a charm for the teams, for their fans, for advertisers and for other sports media as well. The whole operation is a thing of beauty, year in and year out, whether the teams win or lose.

This system will work like charm for all Chicagoans (including its elected leaders) and for the entire Chicagoland region as well if and when a few forward-looking Chicagoans with clout put their minds to it.

It’s odd that this system hasn’t already been created when you think of how Chicagoans, at this critical turning point in its history, could be using its media to define and solve the city’s multiple and interconnected crises of violence, poverty, public finance and racism.

But wait. In 2013 the Chicago Tribune actually came up with this very idea in a brilliant editorial that proposed the creation of a New Plan Of Chicago modeled on Daniel Burnham’s original 1909 Plan of Chicago. The Tribune proposed to use its resources to advance an ongoing, citywide, citizen-participatory search for “holistic” solutions to the city’s multiple “intertwined” crises. It was a bright shining moment.

But the New Plan never took hold citywide. It never grew past the confines of the Tribune’s editorial pages, which not even Tribune subscribers make time to read. Other Chicago media — notably TV — ignored it.

The outcome might have been different if, say, Channel 9 — then owned by the Tribune Corporation — or the Chicago Sun-Times had joined forces with the Tribune to advance it. The idea of Chicago media actually cooperating (and competing) to improve Chicago would have attracted national media attention and, with that, local TV news attention. I wrote about all this here.

So where does all this leave us? It leaves us with the undeniable fact that Chicago is squandering its two most powerful forces for change. It’s squandering the power of its people: their wisdom, their experience, their yearning for safety and their love of family, neighborhood and Sweet Home Chicago. And in our media-driven city, Chicago is squandering the power of the media that shape our buying habits, influence our cultural choices and impact our voting decisions.

Why, then, are these precious resources being squandered? The answer isn’t hard to see. It’s a matter of mistrust: of the absence of trust. Chicagoans (including the city’s leaders) can’t trust each other enough to talk with each other openly and honestly about what’s happening in Chicago. Simple as that.

And especially since the breakdown of political discourse in the 2016 Presidential election, Chicagoans have been given new reasons not to trust media either.

There you have the root problem. Because with access to trustworthy media — media that connect residents productively — Chicago (and Chicagolanders) would learn in time to trust themselves and their leaders.

To survive and thrive in a digital age, the industrial-age I Will City of Chicago has no choice but to become a We Will City. Solutions to everything that ails the city exist and will be found — plenty of them — when Chicagoans are informed and empowered to search for them in dynamic new uses of the city’s media.

Some new uses — quite a few — can be found at Chicago Civic Media.

Others? If you have one or two, let’s be in touch!