Joe Orr Road Rod wrote:
Any "race-baiting" was actually done by Pritzker in his phone call with Blago. I don't consider the cartoon racist, but it was probably a overly harsh. I think Pritzker is more of a buffoon than a racist. Steinberg wrote what I would call a fair column on the matter inside that issue. And it should be noted that Steinberg's return to The Reader was at Konkol's behest.
I think you have two issues here. One, it seems like Konkol was hated by the staff. Whether political viewpoints played a part there or if Konkol was just an asshole, I don't know.
The other likely issue is that the unions that helped finance the Eisendrath's purchase of the Sun-Times support Pritzker and likely flipped over that cartoon on the cover.
The last couple of stories we have seen pulling back the curtain on reporters and writers has revealed them to be a difficult group to work with that will publicly flip on their bosses and each other. I can only imagine what its like working with the staff at the Reader where each of them thinks he is part Andy Warhol and part Woodward and Bernstein.