Chicago Mayor makes symbolic racial gesture and hammered by press

I wanted to share this with you all before the nite is out. Mayor Lori Lightfoot put out a tweet last nite shared primarily by local journalists like Mary Ann Ahearn for example where the Mayor announced she will only grant interviews with journalists of color (black or brown people). My knee jerk reaction was that she was looking for favorable people to interview her. 

As ⁦@chicagosmayor⁩ reaches her two year midway point as mayor, her spokeswoman says Lightfoot is granting 1 on 1 interviews - only to Black or Brown journalists pic.twitter.com/PAUsacD9Gj

— Mary Ann Ahern (@MaryAnnAhernNBC) May 18, 2021

Then over at Capitol Fax another possible angle, this was an opportunity to start a discussion on the composition of Chicago's political press. Why is the press almost overwhelmingly white and male? Perhaps she wanted to prioritize talking with journalists of color and women. Furthermore she was taking that opportunity to make that call when she arrived at the two year anniversary of her election to the 5th floor at city hall.

I guess I have to recognize that politicians grant privileges to favored journalists all the time. Special access or exclusive interviews and of course it probably should be for favored journalists. Hopefully more journalists who are more often than not fair. It makes sense I recognize that journalists are people and many of them have their biases good or bad.

What Rich Miller at CapFax pointed out on Wednesday is and very correct:

But, once again, a clumsy, ham-handed rollout of something that could’ve actually gotten the mayor some good press is botched.

Mayor Lightfoot seems to have been making some key mistakes as mayor of America's third largest city. Yeah she may well have finally gotten a casino, however, it seems she has very few good working relationships not only with the city council, but Springfield as well. She's an outsider of course and she's definitely showing it and is having issues navigating the system.

She is also very combative and has set the tone from the jump for her relationship with the city council. So this "ham-handed rollout" is just more evidence of in my mind how not ready for the job she has proven herself to be. It was well-meaning, and it opened herself up to charges of "reverse-racism" or even looking for soft coverage.

And let me address soft coverage. I'm sure there are a few journalists of color who would definitely ask Mayor Lightfoot tough questions. Yes I know that thought has come up that journalists of color would ask soft questions, that was never my thought process. I'm just sure that whoever the mayor granted interviews she will insure that with her stated parameters that there will be favorable coverage.

And as one local journalist here in Chicago that I follow on twitter has stated, no politician should get to choose who covers them. I do agree with that.