CBS Chicago used two journalists, 1695 words, two PDFs, two videos, several interviews, and the news room’s substantial resources to expose a scandal involving Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan. In all of this reporting, they mentioned his party affiliation, Democrat, exactly zero times. Here’s the lead-in to the story:
Following months of speculation about a wide-ranging investigation, federal prosecutors have charged ComEd with a years-long bribery scheme involving the company’s arrangement for jobs, contracts, and payments to allies and associates of Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan.
ComEd will pay a $200 million fine as part of a deferred prosecution agreement to end the federal probe, admitting it sought to influence “Public Official A” — identified as the Speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives without using Madigan’s name — by arranging for his allies and people who performed political work for him to obtain jobs, contracts and payments from ComEd between 2011 and 2019.
The scandal itself is really bad and represents exactly what many would classify as textbook political bribery and corruption. Madigan allegedly exchanged political favors for financial considerations that benefited his associates.
“I am deeply troubled, and frankly I’m furious with what is being reported,” Gov. JB Pritzker said. “The speaker has a lot he needs to answer for; to authorities, to investigators, and most importantly to the people of Illinois. These allegations strike at the core of what public service means. It’s a high calling, public service. It’s a high calling, one in which we serve with a sacred trust to put the people first.”
Democrats have been taking a beating across the country with their pushes to defund police, embrace the lawlessness of Black Lives Matter and Antifa, and make a mockery of our political system with unhinged attacks against Republicans. But this omission by CBS Chicago shows another side of the issue as mainstream media runs cover for Democrats whenever they can. We reached out to the news outlet with no reply thusfar.
If this exact same scandal had involved a Republican, you can guarantee party affiliation would have been mentioned at least a dozen times and President Trump would have been blamed. But with Democrats, mum’s the word from media.
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