Chicago Suntimes editor resigns after being forced to rewrite Obama endorsement by outside influence

[sunonmars]

I knew something was fishy here. After all the criticism over Rezko, it went nicey nicey.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-080204suntimeseditor,0,4709600.story

The Chicago Sun-Times today named Tom McNamee its editorial page editor after Cheryl L. Reed resigned, saying in a note to her staff she was "deeply troubled" at the paper's presidential primary endorsements of Barack Obama and John McCain were subjected to "wholesale rewrites" by people outside the editorial board.

The choice of candidate did not change in the endorsements, only parts of the prose, Sun-Times Publisher Cyrus F. Freidheim Jr. said in his own staff memo. "The changes made, in our judgment, deepened and strengthened the messages," he wrote.

Reed's note said the rewriting "severely damages the integrity of the board and makes a mockery of the editorial process," calling the revisions "absolutely antithetical to the vision and purpose of my hiring."

[still_one]

1. editorials are just that editorials /nt

[rodeodance]

2. you missed the point.

[pathansen]

5. Not when endorsements are changed by outside influence

If a paper endorses someone, I would think it should not be rewritten by someone from the outside. She also said originally diversity was used, a black, hispanic and 2 white women, and then changed to white men only.

[Apollo11]

3. Your subject line is misleading.

The publisher of the Chicago Sun-Times is not an "outside influence".

So the story should be like this:

"Editor of Chicago Sun-Times editorial page resigns after publisher changes content of articles."

The articles in question were endorsements of Barack Obama AND John McCain.

Nowhere does the report suggest that there was any disagreement over which candidates to endorse.

[ursi]

4. good catch ...this was someone who didn't get her way with the endorsements