Did Magazine Get Used By Davis Gates To Influence CTU Election?

CHICAGO — Chicago Magazine published a glossy profile on Chicago Teachers Union vice president Stacy Davis Gates, complete with glamour shots, that conveniently landed on newsstands and email in-boxes a month before rank-and-file teachers vote on new leadership.

Davis Gates is running to replace current CTU boss Jesse Sharkey, who is stepping aside.

She might run for mayor, though I think she's probably smarter than that.

The Chicago Magazine story didn't mention that some people say Davis Gates is a genius political strategist. But it's true. Some people say that about her. They might even be right.

But it's a shame nobody gave a heads-up to Heidi Stevens, the former Tribune columnist who described Davis Gates as a misunderstood labor leader overwhelmingly beloved by members who elected her in a landslide in 2019.

Some members of the newly divided CTU argue the magazine must not be paying attention to internal CTU politics. But we'll get to that later.

The Davis Gates profile was a mid-winter story assignment with a mid-April publication date.

CTU's public relations team had to know they struck gold when they allowed access to Davis Gates for what Editor-in-Chief Terrance Noland said wasn't an election story, just a "profile of a woman who has already had a major impact on this city (whether you consider that impact positive or negative) and is poised to potentially gain even more power."

In January, Davis Gates limped away from the union walkout on in-person learning she helped lead. Davis Gates' verbal attacks on Mayor Lori Lightfoot landed with a thud. A week later, 55 percent of the union's members voted to end the walk out. CTU members lost $33 million in pay — around $1,672.65 each — with not much to show for it. Then, two factions of CTU members emerged with plans to oust her and the Caucus of Rank-and-file Educators (CORE) from leadership positions.

Around that time, Davis Gates and CTU's controlling caucus gave Chicago Magazine curated, behind-the-scenes access to Davis Gates for a story with a scheduled newsstand delivery date weeks before the union's internal elections.

Stevens —whose pro-CTU opinions decorate the CORE website — was given exclusive access to follow Davis Gates on the "last day of Black History Month."

Stevens tagged along as the CTU vice president who wants to be boss attended a virtual meeting of CTU's executive board (that otherwise is strictly off limits to reporters). She was Davis Gates' plus-one for a members-only party limited to 100 people that promoted a chance to meet the union vice president.

Stevens noted in the story that Davis Gates didn't have notes as she addressed the crowd.

"That’s my family," Davis Gates said. "You don’t need notes to talk to your family."

After reading the story, I felt bad for folks at Chicago Magazine. It looks like they got played.

"Stacy Davis Gates Won't Back Down," the headline screams. "She's not about to let anyone stand in her way. Including the mayor."

There's little evidence that Chicago Magazine made serious attempts to track down Davis Gates' detractors. There were an email response from "Members First," a CTU election rival; a public statement from the mayor; and vague generalizations characterizing Davis Gates as both beloved and despised.

MORE ON PATCH: 33 Million Reasons Why Fed-Up Teachers Want To Unseat CTU Bosses

An entire caucus of former devotees to the CTU faction that Davis Gates hopes to lead wasn't mentioned in the 5,000-word story.

Instead, the profile was packed with important details about the union leader.

I especially appreciated this one: Part of the reason Davis Gates sees herself as a crusader for Chicago's common good is that she wanted to be like Perry Mason, the fictional TV detective she watched with her "Paw Paw" when she was a kid.

Davis Gates apparently sees herself as the hero trying to save our city, and Chicago Magazine furthered that narrative as if her attempt to gain power is fulfilling a preordained destiny, like a TV sitcom character.

"I don’t intend to lose," Gates told Chicago Magazine.

Well, Davis Gates also didn't intend to lose the illegal strike that she pushed CTU members to launch in January in an attempt to block the return of in-person learning. (A move that the Chicago Magazine writer said she favored on Twitter.)

But that's exactly what happened.

CTU members, who collectively lost millions in wages in exchange for a couple N95 masks, didn't just criticize Davis Gates' negotiation style. When the walkout was over, factions of members organized to oust her and the entire CORE leadership team. But the new division within CTU membership wasn't part of the Chicago Magazine story narrative.

On Feb. 21, a week before Stevens shadowed Davis Gates, a new caucus of former CORE members who call themselves "REAL" — short for Respect Educate Advocate and Lead — announced an election challenge.

MORE ON PATCH: New Caucus Campaigns To Lead Fractured Chicago Teachers Union

No members of their slate of candidates were mentioned in the magazine story, which dubbed Davis Gates as CTU's "heir apparent."

"Heir apparent? I guess the votes of 25,000 members on May 20th is a forgone conclusion. Glad the media knows the pulse of our members," Joey McDermott, REAL Caucus' candidate for CTU vice president, wrote on Facebook.

I reached out to Chicago Magazine's editor asking why there wasn't room in the story for Davis Gates' detractors, and what evidence there might be to suggest she's the obvious front-runner to replace Sharkey.

Noland replied in an email, "we can't quote every stakeholder in a story. Heidi tried to talk to what we saw as major players, including Members First, which has been a voice of dissent among teachers for some time. I can't speak for Heidi, but I personally was not aware of the third caucus (it was announced well after the story was assigned)."

It's worth mentioning that many Chicago news outlets make the mistake of trying to predict the future based on a miscalculated perception of the pulse of voters.

Early in the 2019 mayoral election, they heralded Cook County Democratic Party boss Toni Preckwinkle as the front-runner to replace Rahm Emanuel based on CTU's endorsement — and relegated unknown political newcomer Lori Lightfoot, who would go on to win in a landslide, to the list of likely also-rans.

"Calling Stacy the 'heir apparent' definitely isn't a good look," REAL Caucus spokeswoman Liz Brown told me.

But she wasn't too upset about it.

"Who reads Chicago Magazine, anyway?" Brown said. "This is an internal union election."

First, let's be clear, plenty of people read Chicago Magazine.

Still, Brown has a point. Most fans of Mike Thomas' enlightening "BackRoom" interviews in Chicago Magazine, like me, don't get to vote for CTU's union boss.

What's interesting about Davis Gates' willingness to give Stevens — a former opinion writer with kids in city public schools and whose social media posts and Tribune columns often have a pro-CTU vibe — exclusive access for a story that was framed as highlighting a woman "poised to potentially gain even more power" is that it came at a time she was fighting against an alleged attempt to exert outside influence over the May elections.

It seems to me that posing for photos like a runway model for a story destined to get wide distribution on social media might run afoul of a February resolution Davis Gates pushed that condemned "external intervention into the CTU officers' election as an affront to union democracy."

The CTU resolution even cited the anti-union editorial position of the Tribune — which is owned by Chicago Magazine's parent company — that union leaders said attempts to influence the results of the May election.

It calls for prohibiting the use of external funds or "in-kind contributions" from outsiders for the purpose of promoting the candidacy of anyone running for a leadership position.

The measure, also pushed by Sharkey, was inspired by news stories reporting that a former mayoral aide who stopped working for the city in 2019 had helped the Members First Caucus distribute nearly $500 in ads on Facebook.

If left unchallenged, the resolution says, such outside influence has "potential to delegitimize CTU's election process" and set a dangerous precedent for union elections nationwide.

The CTU resolution even requires "signed acknowledgement" from every caucus running for leadership positions that violating rules against "non-member interference in our election" is "grounds for expulsion from the election."

The impetus for the rule — negative opinion pieces in the Tribune and a woman who worked in City Hall in 2019 kicking in 500 bucks in Facebook ads for a teachers union caucus with fewer than 1,500 "likes" — doesn't seem like overwhelming outside intervention when compared to the Chicago Magazine story that reads like an in-kind campaign contribution.

Davis Gates, who some consider a campaign genius, agreed to be the focus of a story with a fashion-model quality photo shoot that got shared with Chicago Magazine's more than quarter of a million Twitter followers.

As candidates campaign for leadership positions, CTU leaders pulling for a Davis Gates victory even retweeted the story twice to CTU's 66,000-strong social media following.

It doesn't take Perry Mason to see that political genius Davis Gates used media outsiders to bolster her influence right around election time.

Mark Konkol, recipient of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting, wrote and produced the Peabody Award-winning series "Time: The Kalief Browder Story." He was a producer, writer and narrator for the "Chicagoland" docuseries on CNN and a consulting producer on the Showtime documentary "16 Shots.

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