* I’m not saying that this won’t happen, it’s just that we’ve heard this pledge so many times before I kinda doubt anything will come of it…
State education officials launched an investigation Monday into dubious after-school programs following a Tribune story that exposed questionable spending and political patronage.
The chairman of the Illinois State Board of Education vowed to reclaim misspent money and ratchet up oversight of the grant program.
The board already has begun looking into the $20,000 grants awarded to three groups that employed ex-cons, a violation of the state contract.
“The Tribune story raised the bar for us, and we plan to make these grant awards a much more rigorous process,” said Jesse Ruiz, chairman of the state Board of Education. “We have to go and try to retrieve funds if people are not doing what they promised us they’d do.” […]
In the Sunday Tribune story, Hendon said the state board is responsible for policing the programs that got money. Ruiz took him up on that offer Monday.
“If the lawmakers are going to throw this into our lap,” he said. “They will have to, hopefully, understand that some of these groups might not get the money.”
Many, many kudos to the Tribune for this story.
* The big worry, however, is that Sam Zell’s management will mean far fewer stories like this. The paper’s top investigative reporter just quit in protest…
Maurice Possley, an investigative reporter for the Chicago Tribune whose reporting helped bring about the state’s death penalty moratorium, is resigning from the newspaper.
Mr. Possley, who joined the Tribune in 1984, on Monday volunteered to be one of the staffers laid off in upcoming newsroom cuts the paper is making to balance falling advertising revenue with expenses. […]
The Tribune is trimming roughly 60 newsroom staffers in the first cuts to follow two rounds of voluntary buyouts in the past year.
Mr. Possley’s decision was based on what he referred to as the “stunning . . . dismantling of our newspaper in such a short time,” according to his note.
* Meanwhile, GateHouse continues to crumble. Its stock price is in the dumpster and some of its newspapers are being forced to share editorials. The Patriot Ledger just ran an editorial from the Rockford Register Star…
Beginning today, we will occasionally offer editorials from our other GateHouse publications on a variety of subjects that may or may not reflect our editorial view.
They sound so enthused.
* If you want another reason to be troubled by the slash and burn at the Trib and the tanking media in general, check out this lede…
One of the finalists to lead the office charged with ferreting out political corruption under Cook County Board President Todd Stroger is an attorney who led the county’s defense in a landmark illegal patronage case.
Only in Illinois.
And only Illinoisans can cover and analyze it. Not some far-away editorial board in Massachusetts.