...Does anyone, ANYONE, really believe the politicians in Chicago who say they will make up any shortfall (about $4 billion) in required funding for the 2016 Olympics? Are you kidding? We all know who will make up any shortfall...us, the good taxpaying citizens of Illinois.
The pols here are assuring the IOC they will raise the required funds from selling naming rights to venues and other sponsorship vehicles. What about vehicles to get around to the venues? The Chicago Transit Authority is broke (and broken) and the people who run it are vastly under-qualified (but are apparently qualified to run Chicago's schools, as one of them now is doing - go figure - he can't even get kids to school on public transportation, but he can run the schools - hopefully not into the ground).
From Vancouver (2010) to London (2012) and dating back to Montreal ('76), Olympic facility budget shortfalls run amok. But we're in the catbird seat here in Illinois, huh? Sorry, not buying it.
So, where are the media? Why aren't we challenging this more vigorously? Why?
Because we want the games here. The games here are good for business and business is bad these days. We have a vested interest in promoting the games and bringing all that economic-development cash flow this way. Except it's going to flow right into Lake Michigan if we're not more careful.
We under-projected and overspent on the reconstructed Soldier Field. We did the same on the tourist-sensational Millenium Park. The media didn't come down on all this until way after the fact. After all, who cares about multi million-dollar budget shortfalls to be made up by taxpayers when there are cute, human interest photos to get of kids splashing in the wading pool on a hot summer day at Millenium Park or fans reacting to the Bears making believe they're a championship team on a crisp fall Sunday afternoon.
Must sell papers, generate ratings, not stink up relationships with athletes and coaches by doing real reporting.
Actually, our local media has plunged into the depths of overspending and under-delivering in Illinois sporting and tourism construction projects, but to no avail. The politicians don't care. And that's an all-star roster.
We are the state of Rod Blagojevich, George Ryan, Jack (and Jeri) Ryan, Otto Kerner, Dan Walker, Roland Burris and...Abraham Lincoln? Yikes! Did I really just mention all their names in the same sentence. We extort money for contracts and jobs, we run for respected public offices after dragging our significant others through celebrity sex clubs and we generate political-campaign funds by extorting money for truck-drivers' licenses that were never officially sanctioned and led to the deaths of at least one family's beloved children.
And we visibly go to sporting events in Chicago when we're supposed to be in the state capitol attending to official business. In fact, corporate campaign contributors spend as much money treating politicians to games at Wrigley, U.S. Commiscular and the UC as they do on almost any other underwriting of ways and means to achieve corporate goals.
We, the media, report on it, every so often. Now, we have to expose it, publicize it, blast it and blare it, spread it like wildfire and goose it for the greater good of the gander. If not, the usual contractors are going to get the usual contracts and do the usual piecemeal work that does the damage to the original cost projections that we promised the IOC we'd make up if there were shortfalls.
If we do get the bid (and who's to say we won't?), I propose making local-broadcasting "Monster of the Morning" Mike North chair of the organizing committee, or at least its ombudsman, keeping a watchful eye on it to keep it honest. He's as equally unafraid to blow the whistle as he is eager to look at the lighthearted side of things that keep us all laughing in the face of our dire economic straits.
But, God forbid he get such a position - he'd tell the truth.
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Speaking of telling the truth, we in journalism education, especially those of us who came first from the ranks of real media, need to remember to do the same in our venerable halls and classrooms as we tried to in print and on the air. Being in the habit of telling award-winning page designers that they don't know how to teach said art and telling award-winning feature writers that the only reason they're considered good instructors is because their students think they're "great guys" is no way to run an airline, if I can borrow a cliche. People who get years and years of excellent teaching reviews on top of years and years of producing peer-recognized journalism excellence didn't build up that kind of consistency by accident. The people who think that are accidents waiting to happen.
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Howard Schlossberg is an associate professor of journalism at Columbia College Chicago (http://www.colum.edu/) and a sports correspondent for The Daily Herald (http://www.dailyherald.com/). He also serves on the editorial advisory board of and contributes to The Journal of Sports Media (http://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/ and www.olemiss.edu/depts/journalism/JSMindex.html).
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