Proft is the mind behind Chicago City Wire and other local publications that have been popping up in Chicago-area mailboxes touting stories and themes poking fun at Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot. while highlighting right-wing talking points on hot-button issues ranging from cash bail to property tax assessments.
Earlier this week, Crain’s and other publications reported that the newspapers, which reveal little in their pages about who produces or funds them, were printed by the commercial printing arm of Paddock Publications and distributed via a postal permit registered with Paddock.
In a letter to Doug Ray, publisher of the Daily Herald, Pritzker’s campaign today expressed “extreme disappointment and utter shock” at the decision to produce and help distribute publications that Pritzker called ” advertisements without labels”.
“We simply cannot participate in a forum hosted by the same organization that appears to have willfully shared a franking permit with a partisan political entity dedicated to slandering the governor and his policies,” Pritzker’s campaign letter said. “Furthermore, we believe Paddock owes it to the readers of the Daily Herald to publicly disclose exactly what arrangements have been made” with Proft and company.
Late in the afternoon, the Daily Herald published a letter to his readers seeking to clarify the situation and announcing that the company was canceling the controversial contract with Proft. Paddock “does not endorse the content of any of the printing work it does for vendors, including many newspapers. It neither endorses nor condemns it. It just prints it.”
Paddock’s letter says no one from Pritzker’s campaign had contacted the company with concerns about the printing deal prior to the campaign’s decision to cancel the appearance. Paddock’s letter asserted that the governor should still participate in the forum.
The letter, titled “The Daily Herald and Journalistic Integrity”, points out that Paddock’s commercial printing business and the Daily Herald newsroom are separate business entities. The letter does not specify whether she has the postal license that appeared on Proft’s publications.
Pritzker and GOP candidate Darren Bailey had agreed to do a joint Zoom meeting with the Herald editors that would be structured as a question-and-answer session rather than a debate. That event won’t happen now, at least not with Pritzker, but the Democratic incumbent said he was willing to give an interview separately to “one of the Herald’s independent reporters.” (Read Pritzker’s full letter below..)
