It's the public who loses the most when Mayor Johnson avoids the press

We’re still perplexed over our blink-or-you’ll-miss-it Zoom interaction with the mayor earlier this week.

It wasn’t that the Sun-Times’ Editorial Board and the newspaper’s City Hall reporter, Fran Spielman, didn’t want to talk to Mayor Brandon Johnson. A robust conversation with him on Chicago’s latest challenges, including the influx of migrants, and perennial problems like violent crime, was long overdue.

The board only passed when Johnson’s press secretary Ronnie Reese announced his understanding that the discussion with his boss would be off the record. Thanks but no thanks. Public officials have confidential chats with journalists on occasion, but the majority of communication with the press, and certainly roundtables with editorial boards, aren’t — and shouldn’t be — shrouded in secrecy. We look forward to rescheduling that on-the-record session with the mayor.

But this really isn’t about us. The media overall, as Spielman reported Wednesday, has grown frustrated with the persistently press-shy Johnson and his administration’s sometimes-delayed responses to inquiries. The exasperation is palpable. And when elected leaders don’t engage with journalists publicly and often, it is everyday people who suffer in the long run.

No matter how the public consumes news, it comes from reporters, who are the conduit for Americans to learn about governmental bodies’ business dealings, proposed land developments, laws and policies that could affect them.

The more journalists are kept in the dark, the less the population as a whole will be informed.

Politicians might not believe it, but it can affect them negatively when they aren’t in the news. There’s no benefit to them to keep quiet.

The more inadequately a congressman or congresswoman was covered by the media, the less likely voters were to know that representative’s name and to be able to describe and rate him or her, according to a paper that appeared in a 2010 issue of the Journal of Political Economy, which is published by the the University of Chicago Press.

Those representatives who were granted less airtime and ink also tended to be at a disadvantage, as they were less likely to participate in congressional hearings and serve on constituency‐oriented committees. Their districts also received less in federal spending, the article revealed.

Johnson doesn’t seem to be starving for media attention. Instead, he appears to run from it, dodging cameras or hemming and hawing when he is in front of them. With the editorial board on Monday, Johnson was silent as his spokesperson talked and eventually turned off his Zoom video. Why not just say, “You know, it’s fine. Let’s be on the record,” and use the situation to talk about and take questions on his agenda?

The former teacher and Chicago Teachers Union organizer considers himself a man of the people, but in blowing off the media or giving confusing answers to reporters’ questions — as he did at a news conference last week that was dominated by inquiries regarding ShotSpotter and the migrant crisis — the mayor comes off as a man of mystery who doesn’t value transparency or accountability.

Johnson prides himself on his progressive values and has stressed that he’s not like others who once sat in the powerful office on the fifth floor of City Hall. There are certainly lingering elements of machine-style, patronage politics that need to be eliminated, and Chicagoans have grown weary of reading about yet another corrupt and unethical alderperson or other politician. Shaking up the status quo? Bring it on.

But we still have the old-school expectation that a mayor, especially a big-city mayor, answer hard and even unexpected questions. It’s a tradition worth embracing, not selling out.

We can’t think of any mayor in recent history who was fond of journalists hounding them. However, many of those leaders regularly used the press to their advantage, boosting their visibility while allowing the media to grill them.

Former Mayor Richard M. Daley had an availability almost every day, and even provided a van to the City Hall press corps that shuttled the group to events where he fielded queries. Daley would also often saunter into the press room before City Council meetings for banter that wasn’t meant for public consumption.

Johnson doesn’t have to emulate Daley or any other mayor’s strategy in dealing with the press. We just strongly urge that he address journalists regularly and not shy away from hard questions, so reporters can relay to his constituents his thoughts, political rationale and overall blueprint to guide the city. Choosing to mostly stay mum, or relying on soaring rhetoric that’s about inspiration more than information, should not be an option.

The Sun-Times welcomes letters to the editor and op-eds. See our guidelines.