Update 1/12/20:Chicago Tribune editor-in-chief Colin McMahon controls the paper’s news pages, and was the person in charge of relocating John Kass’s column from Page 2 to an op-ed section in the middle of the paper last summer. However, since the publication of this piece I have learned that Kass is now on the paper’s editorial board, and therefore currently reports to Tribune publisher Par Ridder, not McMahon. Therefore the questions and suggestions at the end of my piece should have been been addressed to Ridder. Apologies for the mix-up.
Kass denied any wrongdoing and defiantly declared in a follow-up piece, “I will not bow to those who’ve wrongly defamed me.” But during the Soros controversy, Tribune editor-in-chief Colin McMahon announced that the columnist would be losing his prime spot on Page 2 and position as “lead columnist,” and moved to an op-ed section in the middle of the paper to help readers distinguish between factual reporting and political commentary, although McMahon claimed the change had been in the works for months.
After two months of the president’s nonstop, deluded claims that a second term had been stolen from him by trickery ended in bloodshed, Kass’s column finally admitted the obvious: Trump “had no evidence of widespread voter fraud.” That’s locking the barn door after the horses have been stolen.
But even in Thursday’s post-Capitol-storming column, Kass voiced sympathy for the racist rioters, blaming their rage and resentment on “corporate media” accurately debunking Trump’s falsehoods and “Big Tech that sought to silence” conservative speech, when in reality Twitter and Facebook amplified the president’s conspiracy theories. Kass acknowledged that Trump was guilty of “inciting a riot,” but didn’t admit to his own role in advancing the narrative that MAGA followers had legitimate grievances against a potentially fraudulent election process.
So that leaves McMahon, the paper’s editor-in-chief. Mr. McMahon, are you proud your paper has paid John Kass six figures over the last four years to amplify Trumpism, contributing to this shameful, but inevitable, end result? If not, what will the Trib do to prevent Kass from enabling fascism in the future?
