On April 5 1968 The West Side Was On Fire

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But the story is also an indictment against the Chicago news media itself, which was, at the time, 90 percent white, Rivlin included; many of those reporters and editors and producers, Rivlin noted, had been inspired to go into journalism by the events of 1968, particularly the convention. Rivlin wrote:

“It’s a racial myopia,” says Nate Clay, news editor of the Chicago Metro News, a paper that proclaims itself the “largest BLACK oriented weekly” in Chicago. “It’s that simple. If you don’t have people inside the editorial-board rooms who understood and felt the significance of these riots, you won’t see any mention of the riots. It probably never crossed their mind.”