What a Joke

I just watched a “documentary” about the Bears’ stadium situation, done by NBC-5 Chicago. What a joke, and it’s not even April Fool’s. Start with the title—Bear Down and Out: Chicago’s Team Moves to the Suburbs. Sorry, unless you do actual polling on the subject, you can’t call the Munsters “Chicago’s team.” Not if you’re making a documentary. Which is to say, they weren’t, at least not by any rigorous standards of journalism. For example, a talking head said that at the beginning of the NFL, all the teams played in municipally owned stadiums. I checked on the Bears and Cardinals and didn’t find supporting evidence. Never mind Wrigley Field and Comiskey Park. I’m willing to bet the bank that Staley Field and Normal Field weren’t owned by public bodies in Decatur or Chicago, respectively. Sloppy journalism makes for questionable conclusions. Another problem is one of their talking heads, a sports’ consultant who basically is a new-stadium shill, which anyone checking on the internet would’ve known. But he was presented as some sort of disinterested sage. Again, sloppy journalism making for questionable conclusions. The whole thrust of the “documentary” was that the Bears didn’t start off wanting to leave; the big, bad park district with support from city hall forced them to. Oh, please. The Bears want to put up Munster Land, which is why they bought 326 acres in Arlington Heights. Where is that kind of open land in the city? The talking heads tsk-tsk without identifying said space. But everyone agreed on how neat a Bears’ version of SoFi Stadium will be in Arlington Heights. Not a word on new ticket prices or potential traffic headaches (sorry, been out there, seen the roads, and think it’s going to be a disaster). And just a passing reference to another round of personal seat licenses to shear the sheep, er, fans. So much for the notion of journalists digging into a story. No, what you got here was a commercial extolling a planned move. I hope the McCaskeys sent thank-you cards to everyone involved.