Thursday, March 04, 2010

News Reports To Date on Shimer Crisis

Here are the recent stories in the Serious Media, in approximate reverse chronological order. This may not be a complete list:
Big Trouble at Little Shimer: What’s happening to Chicago’s Great Books college? Chicago Weekly 3/3/2010 Sam Feldman Focus on 2/28 Assembly vote; good background; somewhat confused about relative size of last two campuses
Anonymous Donor Outed in Debate Over Small College's Mission Chronicle of Philanthropy (subscription) 2/26/2010 Andy Markowitz Poor, poor Barre Seid. How hard his life must be.
At a Tiny College, an Epic Battle Over Academic Authority Chronicle of Higher Education (subscription -- but ask around) 2/25/2010 Don Troop A merciful focus on the real issue of governance, rather than ideological distractions.
Who's Buying Shimer? Chicago Reader 2/25/2010 Deanna Isaacs Deanna takes it up a notch; good details on the covert purchase of the Board and the mysterious COTUS issue.
Shimer College in Power Struggle: Board, president seek independence from partnership with students Chicago Tribune 1/27/2010 Ron Grossman A shameful mess of an article. The first sentence is accurate; the rest, not so much.
The Conservative Menace: Is an influx of neocon board members threatening Shimer College’s egalitarian tradition? Chicago Reader 12/10/2009 Deanna Isaacs Although problematic, this article pretty much broke the story; at the time, few took the claims of conspiracy seriously, and the role of Barre Seid was still unknown.
Overall, I think the media has been doing a decent job. So far the Tribune is the only legitimate news outlet to have fallen for Lindsay's spin. That alone should be enough to get Tom Lindsay fired for incompetence; who ever heard of a conservative executive who couldn't piss on the media and convince them it's raining? Then again, the Tribune is also the only entirely mainstream media outlet to weigh in so far.

A WBEZ reporter has been working on a piece, but as far as I know, there is still no word as to when it will come out, or what form it will take.

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