John Kass Finally Aware of Jay R. Grodner

Rogers Park's own media sensation, Jay R. Grodner, is a lawyer and, allegedly, a real scumbag. Grodner recently made a huge splash in the Blogosphere. Bloggers around the nation, big and small, glommed onto this sensational story of a lefty lawyer who vandalized a U.S. Marine's car a few months ago. As of 9:00 last night, a Google Web search for "Jay R. Grodner" got around 3,600 hits. Tonight at 8:20, that number has shot up to 7,200. That's phenomenal. A Google News search, on the other hand, turned up only one hit last night, from the Blue Springs Examiner on December 31. Tonight, the same search turns up two hits. Yep, the second one is Kass's column in the Chicago Tribune, dated January 3. And Grodner is a local story, right in the Chicago Tribune's own back yard. The score: Blogosphere kicks Main Stream Media's butt, 7,200 to 2. The game is nowhere near over. Not even to half time. That's four days after this story blew wide open in the Blogosphere. Four days later the Chicago Tribune ran it. Four days in the news business is a hell of a long time. Too bad John Kass is trying to make this story his own. It ain't. But to be fair, any references to the bloggers who have been howling about this for several days now might have been removed by the editors of the Chicago Tribune. After all, the Blogosphere is taking a lot of readers away from the Dead Tree editions. We bloggers, without using a single sheet of paper, often get to the stories days or weeks, even months, before the Main Stream Media do. Don't get me wrong. I like John Kass. He digs up good stories and deserves a Pulitzer for his body of work. But the word "blog" or "blogger" does not appear in his column today at the Chicago Tribune. It's a good column, and Kass presents some original material that includes quotes from the Marine's brother. But, Mister Kass, how about letting readers know how you really became aware of Jay R. Grodner story? I still like you, Mister Kass. I just don't respect you quite as much.