Has anyone considered the lack of media coverage for the first congressional district race? While I haven’t scoured each web page of every news site, from what I have seen, the coverage of where I lived for 12 years has been abysmal, especially considering the significance. This is the 1st time in more than a GENERATION that we have an incumbent-free election that is more open than ever. The choice made could be another Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (who regular gains national attention), or we could have just another of the 400 relatively obscure members, and receive very little for the votes.
And why should we care about a PRIMARY? Well, in Chicago, Only TWO local candidates
have ever won in the general election in Chicago in the past 40 years. One of
them was state senator James Meeks, who
ran at the height of Salem Baptist church's popularity. Once he was elected, he
quickly switched he switched to the Democratic Party so that his re election
was assured the next term .
The 1st congressional district election is very meaningful
to me because I lived in Chatham for 12 years. I have seen which of the
candidates had been involved in the community and which have suddenly made and
appearance when Bobby Rush. decided to retire to retire.
I'm angry that we have had a lack of coverage, but
also the journalists that do report seem to have a complete lack of knowledge
of who is actually a community leader in the 1st district as opposed to those
who are being promoted due to their association with more famous people and/or funds. For example, Jonathan Jackson
is the son of Jesse Jackson, but in my 12 years in Chatham I have never seen or
heard him at any community event. That
is a stark difference to Jahmal Cole who has written a book about the community,
and in my time there has risen from being a mere resident to a community
influencer that has tried his best to help improve the community through his
nonprofit activities (and accolades) that have stretched far beyond even the
immediate community.
Journalists have also completely failed to use basic
math to show just the uniqueness of this election. For example, if all 17 Democratic
candidates who are currently on the ballot were to almost equally get a
percentage the winner of that election, then the final candidate would win by
only with only 7% of the votes. That would mean over 90% of residents would not
be able not be able to get their choice AT ALL. (Unlike the mayoral race, which
featured a runoff, so that the 83% of people who did NOT vote for Lori
Lightfoot at first, at least had an opportunity to choose from the top 2). And if you were to be a little more realistic
and just only assume that say, the top 4 candidates would get the majority of
the votes , that would mean that the top candidate could win with only 26% of
the vote. That would mean again over 70% of the voters would not have their
choice in office at all .For this election (as opposed to mayoral or aldermanic
races) we have no such opportunity for the majority to have their say.
I have not heard one reporter do the traditional
journalistic work of actually going out and talking with real people about what
they are thinking. It is not a difficult
task nor would it take a lot of time. They can easily go they go to the 79th
street, 87th street or 95th street Red Line stations during rush hour and it
could easily get a few (or rather several) opinions the perspectives on the candidates.
While I understand that in broadcast journalism it may not be feasible
to even name all 17 candidates in one story, there is absolutely NO excuse to
not refer people to a website that could have a listing of all of the
candidates with some basic information on them for a journalist it would take
less than a day to research, if not call AND talk with all of those candidates.
It should be no problem at all just to find out basic contact information such
as phone numbers, email addresses, and websites as well as a short biography
(including where they now live, so one could get a sense of what communities
they might best represent).
Journalists also have access to a number of high quality
journalism schools such as Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism
(which I am a graduate of ) as well as Columbia and others. It would be easy
for them to recruit to recruit members from classes. Students would be able to
do some of that basic research. One class alone could get the basic information
I am especially disappointed with our nonprofit media,
of which we have several distinctive organizations such as Chicago public media,
WTTW, Axios, and Pro Propublica, all of which even if they had to share duties,
could easily create forums for the public to be able to more adequately
research their choices
Also, in this day and age, one could easily take a
test online test to see which Harry Potter house 1 could fit would be would fit
in with and those things would actually be and that quiz would actually be
accurate why could we not set up a quiz that not only speaks on the issues that
are most important to constituents but also other items such as communication
style leadership abilities or leadership experience that would help voters
decide who would best represent them in Congress right now. The question is:
will the 1st congressional district have someone like AOC who is able to make a
national headlines despite being a freshman or with the representative be
someone who would be forgotten amongst the other 434 representatives in the
house today
I would love to hear from community residents of the 1st
congressional district to hear what do they think about this issue of coverage.
Do they feel that they are actually being represented in the news, or should
things be changed or improved in some way. I also would love to hear from those
in the media to see what are they going to do differently to help the residents
of the 1st congressional district make a good choice as to who they would want
to represent them answer represent them I hope
I would also love to hear from media in the Chicagoland
area to see what they are going to do different in the next few weeks before
the election so that residents of the area would actually have a choice a fair
choice as to who they should pick, and that it's not based on popularity that
is predetermined by the media or by other media or by campaign funds
In a future post (probably October) I will also follow up to
see how many Democratic candidates who DID win their primary election have
decided to drop out which would allow Democratic Party to install somebody else
so which would in effect create voter OMISSION, which is even worse than voters
suppression because they would not have a choice at all in the matter that
99.99% of residents would not have a choice in their candidate
Please, Chicago media, DO BETTER. And for all Chicago
residents who say they are concerned about voter rights – demand better from
those who say they are here to inform us. Don’t we deserve it?
The following list is on the official Illinois election
website.
or look up candidate filings search at www.elections.il.gov
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BIRGANS, KIRBY |
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DEMOCRATIC |
3/14/2022 |
Active |
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BUTLER, CHRIS |
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DEMOCRATIC |
3/7/2022 |
Active |
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CARLSON, ERIC |
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REPUBLICAN |
3/10/2022 |
Active |
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COLE, JAHMAL |
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DEMOCRATIC |
3/7/2022 |
Active |
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COLLINS, JACQUELINE "JACQUI" |
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DEMOCRATIC |
3/7/2022 |
Active |
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DeJOIE, STEVEN |
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DEMOCRATIC |
3/14/2022 |
Active |
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DOWELL, PAT |
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DEMOCRATIC |
3/7/2022 |
Active |
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GOODRUM, CASSANDRA |
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DEMOCRATIC |
3/7/2022 |
Active |
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JACKSON, JONATHAN L. |
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DEMOCRATIC |
3/7/2022 |
Active |
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LEWIS, MARCUS |
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DEMOCRATIC |
3/7/2022 |
Active |
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MATTHEWS, AMEENA |
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DEMOCRATIC |
3/14/2022 |
Active |
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McGRIFF, NYKEA PIPPION |
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DEMOCRATIC |
3/14/2022 |
Active |
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NIX, DARIUS "DEE" |
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DEMOCRATIC |
3/9/2022 |
Removed |
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NORINGTON-REAVES, KARIN |
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DEMOCRATIC |
3/7/2022 |
Active |
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O'KEEFE, MATTHEW "MATTO" |
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REPUBLICAN |
3/14/2022 |
Withdrawn |
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PALMER, ROBERT A. |
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DEMOCRATIC |
3/11/2022 |
Active |
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REGNIER, JEFFERY T |
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REPUBLICAN |
3/14/2022 |
Active |
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ROSNER, TERRE LAYNG |
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DEMOCRATIC |
3/10/2022 |
Active |
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SPAULDING, STEPHANY ROSE |
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DEMOCRATIC |
3/10/2022 |
Removed |
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SPILLER, HOWARD L. |
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DEMOCRATIC |
3/14/2022 |
Removed |
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SWAIN, JONATHAN T. |
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DEMOCRATIC |
3/14/2022 |
Active |
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THOMPSON JR., MICHAEL A. |
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DEMOCRATIC |
3/7/2022 |
Active |
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WHITE, PHILANISE |
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REPUBLICAN |
3/14/2022 |
Active |
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WILLIAMS, CHARISE A. |
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DEMOCRATIC |
3/14/2022 |
Active |
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YOUNG, GENO |
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REPUBLICAN |
3/14/2022 |
Active |
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