John Bracken

EveryBlock, the much-anticipated new project from ChicagoCrime founder Adrian Holovaty, debuted Wednesday– at least for Chicago, New York and San Francisco. (Was it a a coincidence that Wednesday was also the anniversary of the birth of Django Reinhardt, Holovaty’s gypsy jazz guitar hero?) I’ve had fun exploring restaurant reviews and Flickr photos near my block, and I’ve heard nothing but praise so far– including from a friend in New York who is turning her neighborhood council onto the service. Adrian and his team are freakishly talented, but the usefulness of the project largely depends on the degree to which local governments will make their– our– information available. (Relatedly, Tom Steinberg and MySociety today unveiled a new set of public transport maps. I’d love for the Chicago Transit Authority to be involved– the CTA announced the purchase of new cars yesterday.)

As Adrian and his team were basking in their deserved laurels today, across the Chicago River the evisceration of the Chicago Sun-Times continued. Michael Miner makes the case that the loss of 29 positions was not as bad as expected, and I think more than one of them was glad to get the layoffs, expected for weeks, over with. Will the Sun-Times survive as a source of local journalism, or is it just a matter of time until we are a one paper town.

Bears fans are a surprisingly pessimistic lot this week: almost 90% of the 24,000 respondents to the Sun-Times (highly scientific) poll on Sunday’s game are picking the Saints to win. Sigh. (I wonder how Mike Ditka voted?) Wisdom of the crowds?

[Update: The Tribune's poll, with 12,500 responses on the eve of the game, has an 83% pro-Bears stance. Are Sun-Times readers pessimists and Trib readers optimists? Or are Saints fans just more partial to to the Sun Times?]

Meantime, in other breaking Sun-Times news:

“57 percent of the 182,000 votes cast in a suntimes.com poll” selected punter Brad Maynard [?!] as the sexiest Bear. [That can't be a good sign.]

and

["Chicago-based psychic"]Sonia Choquette wants Bears fans to take a piece of paper, write ”Freeze New Orleans” on it, then place it in a freezer…”Rex is hitting his own feeling,” she said. ”I feel his energy is getting scared of his own success, so then he trips himself up. It’s almost predictable.”

Choquette said Bears fans can help Grossman.

”What we all need to do is raise the ceiling for his success, so he doesn’t think he’s reached that ceiling,” she said. ”I don’t know if there are evil forces involved, but he’s out of his element because he’s surprised he’s so talented.”

Last week, the Beachwood Reporter referred to one of our local papers as the Chicago Obama-Times for its all-Obama all the time coverage. (As case in point, on Monday, it posted mp3s of his two MLK Day speeches.) In the aftermath of the big pre-announcement, I decided to check the Beachwood’s assertion. According to Google News, the Sun Times has mentioned Obama 93 times so far this year. By comparison, President Bush has been mentioned 162 times and Chicago Bear Brian Urlacher 40 times.

Notably, the story counts from the Sun Times internal search engine differ from those supplied by Google. According to the Sun Times, it has run 40 stories mentioning Obama, 53 on “Bush” and 5 on “Urlacher.” Why the discrepancies– and whose count do you trust more, the Sun Times’ or Google’s?

When I read a news story, I’ve begun to ask, how is it reported and presented differently than it would have been  in 1993? How are the new approaches enabled by the web integrated into the story? This weekend, the Sun Times published a story on dirty restaurants, There’s Dirty and Then There’s Disgusting. Written by MARK J. KONKOL and ART GOLAB, it’s a summary of “Chicago’s Dirty Dozen– a collection of troubled eateries shut down by inspectors after posting the most critical health code violations in the city….A[n] analysis of 12,000 city health inspection reports found minor cleanliness trouble can strike just about any kitchen.” Nothing new here– a fairly standard list of gross health violations, such as this report on

Joe’s Bar-B-Q at 4900 W. Madison, which was closed down for having 10 critical violations… During five different inspections, officials found 30 pounds of spoiled beef, 50 pounds of cooked pork stored at 58.4 degrees and 120 pounds of chicken and perch thawing uncovered in a sink…and wastewater from a condenser line was dripping on food, according to reports.

This story is reported in the same way it would have been 1n 1996, 1986, or 1905, for that matter. The only difference is the fact that we can read, quote from and criticize it online. KONKOL AND GOLAB don’t tell us, for instance, that the food inspection reports maintained by the City’s Department of Health are available and searchable by the web. Happily, three of my favorite local Edgewater eateries passed inspections this year. The reports don’t share much, however. Why shouldn’t the city share the full inspection report online, along with summaries of each inspector’s reports? Such public transparency would be a check not only on the restaurants, but the on the inspectors as well. Better yet, what if the Sun Times took a page from local innovator Adrian Holovaty and overlaid the health department data over Google Maps, a la ChicagoCrime.org? If the Sun Times doesn’t do it, someone else will do it; if newspapers want to remain germane, they best leave 1993 behind and integrate the web and mobile devices into their reporting.

In a companion piece, Fran Spielman explores how the Health Department conducts its investigations. Alderman Tom Tunney, owner of the Ann Sather restaurants, opens the door to citizen food inspectors, “I find the consumer is as good of an inspector as anybody. At least in my community, they’re very educated and very on top of it.” How about it, Alderman? Why not create and publicize a way for us to grade restaurant cleanliness from our cell phones, for instance?

On Tuesday, the Sun-Times’ SCOTT FORNEK AND STEVE PATTERSON reported on a poll the Tarrance Group did on the race for Cook County President on behalf of Republican candidate Tony Peraica. (A Republican hasn’t won County wide since at least the Bulls last championship, but this year,a series of Democratic Party shenanigans has led many to consider defecting to the GOP.) From the article:

Republican Tony Peraica released an internal campaign poll Monday that shows him leading Democrat Todd Stroger by eight percentage points in the race for Cook County Board president. The GOP Cook County commissioner was beating the Democratic alderman from the 8th Ward, 48 percent to 40 percent, with 12 percent of voters undecided….Peraica’s latest poll was conducted Oct. 2-5 by the Tarrance Group of Alexandria, Va. It’s based on a random sample of 400 likely voters and has an error margin of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points, according to a memo written by the pollster.

It’s late, but let’s do the math: a margin of error of 4.9 percent, when subtracted from Peraica’s 48% and added to Stroger’s 40% means the poll shows that the race is a statistical tie.