Do Chicago Mayor's Race News Reports Show 'Frontrunners' Bias?

A South Side guy clicked off the TV news, slammed an empty pint on the table and got all philosophical. “You t’ink dose news guys really know who’s da frontrunner fer mare?”

The obvious answer is, hell, no. They’re betting on politics rigged against change. For Chicago political journalists, election season triggers unhealthy behaviors associated with a chronic disorder — Obsessive Compulsive Frontrunner Reporting, OCFR for short.

As the crowded race for mayor heats up you can expect to see the symptoms in print as Chicago journalists increasingly cite meaningless election minutia including, but not limited to, campaign war chest totals, candidate-funded polling data and nominating petition signature totals as justification for inserting frontrunner speculation in news stories.

It’s already happening. The Sun-Times reported Bill Daley, son and brother of mayors named Daley, is the fundraising “frontrunner.” Columnist Mark Brown described Cook County Democratic Party boss Toni Preckwinkle and Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza the “perceived frontrunners” without any explanation in his coverage of an invite-only mayoral debate partially funded by a labor union that owns the paper.

Politico reported Preckwinkle and Mendoza are the mayoral race frontrunners, according to a poll paid for by Mendoza.

The Tribune described the formation of Preckwinkle’s exploratory committee as a move to solidify her “early front-runner status.” And Chicago Magazine ranked Preckwinkle as the mayoral frontrunner in its “nonscientific” power ranking of mayor contenders.

The next mayor will be tasked with the unfinished business of reforming the police department, improving failing schools and rebuilding poor forgotten neighborhoods forsaken for generations by the Democratic ruling class.

I’m not suggesting all political reporters name election frontrunners in straight news stories in hopes of swaying public opinion. But I am saying that naming election frontrunners in straight news stories can sway public opinion.

Heck, as a young reporter I've spiced up a boring political story with a line or two about who’s probably going to win before anyone cast a vote. That sometimes happens when you’re a Chicago journalist and your best sources are clout-heavy insiders that dominate our town's one-party political bubble. It’s symptomatic of a pervasive institutional cynicism that gets passed down in newsrooms over generations and finds its way into stories, potentially impacting a reader’s view on a candidate’s viability.

After watching political coverage from the sidelines for a while now, it seems to me that the reasons reporters give for saying Preckwinkle and Mendoza have the advantage subtly implies that outsider candidates with smaller campaign war chests don’t have a shot in hell because this is Chicago, a city that “don’t want nobody nobody sent.”

This mayoral election is different than many that came before it. Reporters should cover it differently, erring on the side of fairness and avoiding bias and cynicism at all costs. This isn't your grandpa's Chicago anymore.

For the first time since 1983, there isn’t a powerful incumbent or overwhelming frontrunner like Rahm Emanuel in 2010. By all accounts, the mayoral election is destined for a run-off, and the two candidates who make it to the final showdown could be decided by a few thousand votes or less.

This election comes at a time when our city is starkly divided by race and class, plagued by shootings and murders and teetering on the brink of financial collapse. The next mayor will be tasked with the unfinished business of reforming the police department, improving failing schools and rebuilding poor forgotten neighborhoods forsaken for generations by the Democratic ruling class.

There has been shift in Chicago voter turnout demographics fueled by millennials who outnumbered baby boomers at the polls this month. The next mayor will represent a new generation of constituents — the "most independent generation" — that experts say is more likely to care about how a candidate stands on issues like race and gender equality, affordable housing and criminal justice reform, and less likely to have steadfast political party loyalties.

In our changing city, it’s time for journalists to make some changes, too. Chicagoans deserve news coverage that fights to keep the election playing field in this crooked town as level as possible so each candidate has a shot be heard, no matter their odds of winning.

As things stand, there are too many stories that call the election like a horse race — who got the biggest donation, the newest endorsement or the best zinger at a candidate forum. That doesn't help people who care about the city's future differentiate between candidates. Indeed, that's the stuff that can make regular folks believe elections — and their votes — don't matter because Chicago politics is rigged to favor the status quo.

And that's the way news outlets here have covered elections since, well, forever.

Just because you do something a certain way for 40 years or so doesn’t mean it’s right. Mayor Rahm Emanuel said that after admitting he was wrong to follow the longstanding City Hall policy of keeping police shooting videos secret to protect "ongoing investigations" as he did with the Laquan McDonald shooting video.

I think that’s true about the news, too.

Photos of Chicago mayor candidates Bill Daley, Toni Preckwinkle and Susana Mendoza by the Associated Press.