What has emerged in Chicago is a culture of lying
2025 was another banner year for Chicago media. Over the past year, what news consumers experienced in Chicago was more overt political bias in ostensibly neutral news media. Business as usual for Chicago’s print, television, radio, and digital media figures, in 2025, reporters continued to demonstrate their utter intolerance with opposing views and became less trusted to separate fact from fiction in the delivery of the news.
Whether it was covering up or whitewashing Mayor Brandon Johnson’s incompetence and mammoth failures as mayor or throwing a tantrum at Department of Homeland Security agencies enforcing immigration law in Chicago, in 2025, Chicago media confirmed their intent to serve as a protective chrysalis for politicians and groups they favor.
It was once a non-negotiable duty to maintain a strict pose of neutrality in the reporting of the news. However, instead of asking questions and learning a story, media figures in Chicago persist in their habit of creating news. With Chicago media simply disinclined to fulfill the core journalistic duty of telling the truth or holding powerful people accountable for their actions, contributors to Contrarian have collected some of the most egregious examples of biased journalism in Chicago for 2025. While some reporters profiled here are regulars, in this installment of “Worst in Chicago Media,” there are some new arrivals, including our worst journalist for the year.
Mohammad Samra
A newcomer to our annual column documenting awful journalism in Chicago, in a March article appearing in the Sun Times, Mohammad Samra reported on the shooting death of Jerry Aquino in the Little Village neighborhood. While the basics of Samra’s story appeared to be in line with honest journalism, his description of the shooting incident was, well, odd.
Recounting the incident, Samra wrote how a “black Jeep Grand Cherokee with no front license plate” had pulled up on Aquino as he walked on South Komensky. Continuing his retelling of the death of the 15-year-old Infinity Math Science & Technology student, Samra explained how a passenger in the Grand Cherokee had fired at Aquino, who, though injured by gunfire, attempted to escape his attackers by seeking shelter behind a parked car. Carrying on with his account, Samra then related how two assailants, “masked, gloved and wearing all black” fired their weapons at Aquino and made their escape.
Though the shooting incident had all the features of a gang assassination of a rival, Samra, for some reason, declined to use any language revealing gang involvement. Run-of-the-mill reporting for the Sun-Times, clearly, Mr. Samra was more interested in delivering a narration which explained the death of a teen due to guns rather than a neighborhood overrun by gangs with homicidal instincts.
Noah Glasgow
Teen takeovers have become problematic in Chicago, but to read Block Club’s Noah Glasgow, one would think these events are a harmless manifestation of youthful spirits. Though separate teen trends in Streeterville and at Millenium Park in early 2025 left a teen shot dead and several wounded — including a tourist — Glasgow explained the events as “much-maligned gatherings.”
Writing on April 13, Glasgow described how a planned “teen event” in River North did not develop, leaving a group of teens to convene in Hyde Park. Ignoring how in the small things the rot starts, Glasgow created an image of teens innocuously releasing surplus energy until met by Chicago Police. His bias enlivened, when brawls broke out between teens and older residents at 53rd and Harper which led to four teens taken into custody, Glasgow was unable to stifle his creative urge and described a teen who resisted arrest as an “attempt to pull away during arrest.”
Eager for anything which might bring discredit on Chicago Police, Glasgow wrote with lament how teens in Hyde Park were “more worried about the threats posed by police than by their peers.” Portraying CPD as the neighborhood bully, Glasgow cited one teen who bitterly described police:
“They not trying to help us. They here to take us to jail. This been going on all day. We just trying to walk around, have fun kicking [it] with our friends.”
While Glasgow did quote one teen who conceded the teen events tend to have an unfavorable effect on nearby businesses, the thrust of Glasgow’s article was to cast CPD as racists, when no evidence to support the charge exists, and to minimize the vulgarity or criminality among teens when takeovers occur.
Fran Spielman
In 2025, Chicago media regularly demonstrated it was agog with Mayor Johnson. As the mayor nears the midpoint in his term in May, he sat for an interview with the Sun-Times’ Fran Spielman and Mariah Woelfel. Rather than grill the mayor over his mismanagement of the city, Spielman — the self-anointed high priestess of Chicago media — never pressed Johnson with tough questions and allowed Johnson to trip over his own excuses and lies. Preferring to give Johnson a light braising, Spielman lobbed softballs, never pushed back on the mayor’s evasive answers, and allowed Johnson to repeat campaign slogans for most of the interview.
In one segment of the ponderous discussion, in a demonstration Chicago media cannot be trusted to take city leaders to task for their decisions or policies, Spielman absurdly asked Johnson about his weight loss. As we all know, smooth interviews break down when an interviewer is tough.
Mincing Rascals
2025 also reminded us dreadful media in Chicago is not limited to print or digital platforms. A city known for progressive dominating the airwaves, the chorus line of far-left kooks on WGN’s "Mincing Rascals" provided a steady stream of outrageous comments and entertainment.
A weekly therapy session for whiny progressives, shortly after President Trump returned to the White House, panelists threw a tantrum over immigration enforcement, and in one anti-Trump derangement segment Brandon Pope referred to Trump as a “Nazi.”
Unsurprisingly, neither fellow panelists nor host John Williams disputed Pope’s charge.
In an August episode, “award winning” journalist Marj Halperin raged over Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke’s decision not to charge Chicago Police officers in the 2024 shooting death of Dexter Reed.
Though Reed fired on CPD first, striking one officer — a fact Halperin never acknowledged — she laughably insisted officers at the scene had “not clearly identified themselves” and Reed had been “set up” by police during the traffic stop. To his credit, host John Williams did state officers who confronted Reed were wearing clearly marked police gear and the emergency lights on the CPD vehicle were activated. Nonetheless, Halperin continued to vent her anger at officers and declared CPD's “actions were dangerous to the public.”
In another episode which took place after federal agents returned to Chicago in September, as the discussion revolved around ICE and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), Halperin comically questioned whether immigration enforcement was being carried out by the Proud Boys.
Kelly Bauer
To read Block Club Chicago’s mission statement, one would be led to believe the digital platform is committed to delivering reliable, nonpartisan, and essential coverage of news events in Chicago. Nonetheless, for those who do read Block Club, its bias is at work every day and its not subtle.
Take, for instance, Kelly Bauer. The senior editor at the do-it-yourself-journalism outfit, in a magnum opus piece in December, the Queen Bee of Chicago journalism explained why Block Club titled its serial coverage of immigration enforcement “Chicago Under Siege.” A series of articles numbering an astonishing 260 stories, Bauer wrote:
“For more than three months, our nonprofit newsroom prioritized breaking news stories on federal immigration arrests, tear-gassings and other need-to-know information from the ground. We developed know-your-rights guides, revealing investigations and explained how court orders affected Chicagoans. And above all, we showed readers the truth.”
A preposterous claim, what “nonpartisan” publication creates “know-your-rights guides?”
Gaslighting her audience, Bauer then proceeded to paint a portrait of federal agents enforcing immigration law as a mendacious horde of incompetent brutes terrorizing neighborhoods and randomly plucking innocent American citizens for deportation.
Yet, while Bauer depicted federal agents as an unrelenting enemy of the law abiding, she was careful to avoid admitting some hard truths over Operation Midway Blitz. When discussing individuals sought by federal agents, Bauer claimed arrest data revealed a “majority” had no criminal record.
A falsehood, perhaps Bauer should familiarize herself with 8 U.S.C. § 1325 - U.S. Code, which outlines the circumstances under which entry into the United States is legal. While many of the illegal immigrants arrested by federal agents did not have criminal records, arrestees were in violation of civil code for entering the country illegally, which is a criminal act. Moreover, arrestees in many instances were also facing final deportation orders.
It is also interesting to note Bauer did not refer to arrestees as “illegal immigrants” in her article.
While there was some factual truth in her article, Bauer’s mission in her year-end article was not to explain Block Club’s obsessive coverage with immigration enforcement, but rather a defense of Block Club for its biased coverage of Midway Blitz.
Heidi Stevens
Heidi Stevens loves the City of Chicago, really. For those who recall, Stevens took home the trophy for worst journalist in 2022 for her migraine-inducing piece of puffery laureling Stacy Davis Gates published in Chicago magazine. Chicago’s “feel-good” columnist, Ms. Stevens was again recognized in these pages in 2023 for her all-about-me series chronicling her training for the Chicago Marathon.
Our favorite hate read, in 2025, Stevens spent most of the year railing about Trump, praising critics of the White House, and taking photographs of the lakefront for use on X. Between silly commentary on the White House ending a LGBTQ+ youth suicide and crisis hotline and an eminently stupid column offering fulsome praise for “No Kings” protesters, Stevens crammed in a completely tone-deaf piece on the decline of newsrooms in August.
While Stevens did acknowledge part of the liability for the demise of newspapers is a function of journalists themselves, she then — naturally — assigned blame on “corporate greed.” Pure denialism, what Stevens does not understand — and is unlikely to learn — is the model of journalism is collapsing is because journalism, particularly print media in Chicago, is not being created at all. Rather, Chicago journalists enthusiastically serve as pipe organs for Chicago’s one-party system and presumed journalists cannot bring themselves to admit this.
Weeks after the slimming of newsrooms caused tears to roll down her cheeks, in September, Stevens composed another whine-a-thon on guns. A preoccupation of hers, Stevens felt compelled to tackle guns shortly after a mass shooting at a Catholic Church in Minneapolis. Though Stevens carefully documented several instances of mass shootings across the nation and mentioned over 300 mass shootings had taken place at the time she penned her column, she carefully excluded any reference to Chicago. An odd omission from a columnist who claims a deep affection for the city in which she lives, Stevens’ column railing at the availability of guns was published just two months after 18 were shot, four of whom were killed, in a River North mass shooting over July 4th weekend.
Unsurprisingly, Stevens did not mention Chicago had led the nation in mass shootings, nor did she mention "gangs."
Worse, and a quality typically found in her columns, Stevens used the tragic shooting — in Minneapolis, not Chicago — as an opportunity to deliver a finger wag, rather than offering any workable solutions to the problem of mass shootings. Instead of a remedy or accepting neither background checks or bans on certain kinds of weapons would prevent mass shootings, Stevens simply segued into a familiar diatribe about the availability of guns and implied the availability of guns is only reason why mass shootings occur more frequently in the United States than elsewhere.
Rather than exploiting mass shootings nationally and ignoring mass shootings in Chicago, perhaps Stevens should stick to capturing images of Chicago’s lakefront.
Rick Pearson
In Chicago, there is bad journalism, worse journalism, and then there is Rick Pearson. One of Chicago’s lousiest reporters, throughout his career with the Tribune, Pearson has allowed his biases to disfigure the facts of stories he covers.
The Tribune’s chief political reporter, Pearson salivated at the opportunity to blast away at conservatives who were lining up to challenge incumbent JB Pritzker. Leveling both barrels at Ted Dabrowski in a September 12, 2025 article, the far-left Pearson lamented how Dabrowski’s running mate, Dr. Carrie Mendoza, was not made available to discuss her opposition to transgender-affirming care procedures. An ER physician, Mendoza was called away to work at Safety Net Hospital. A fact which was lost on Pearson, it is unlikely he would have been charitable in any questions asked of Mendoza had she been able to remain at Dabrowski’s campaign launch.
Thereafter, Pearson took aim at Dabrowski’s previous work with libertarian policy foundation, Illinois Policy Institute, and news curation organization website, Wirepoints. Organizations which offend his liberal, progressive sensibilities, Pearson wrote:
"Dabrowski’s previous work at the Illinois Policy Institute coincided with the early years of Rauner’s single term as governor. The policy institute backed Rauner and supported his fight against public employee unions — a major factor that led to Illinois’ record two-year period without enacting a state budget."
A fatuous and misleading claim, had Pearson taken more than a cursory glance under the hood to explore Dabrowski’s association with IPI and his relationship with former Governor Bruce Rauner, he would have learned Dabrowski played no role in IPI's support for Rauner. Moreover, simple fact checking would have revealed Dabrowski authored countless articles critical of Rauner's policies.
Blundering along, when Pearson trained his crosshairs on Wirepoints, he defined it as a "conservative action organization." Another distortion, had Pearson, failed reporter he is, performed the most basic examination of Wirepoints, he would have understood Wirepoints is a research, commentary, and news curation organization, which has been cited by numerous leading publications across the country.
Quite obviously, fact checking and research are not Pearson’s strong suits.
In what was likely Pearson’s worst attempt to impugn Dabrowski, Pearson characterized Dabrowski’s 2023 statement “There is educational equity in Decatur now because the white kids can’t read either” as “racially questionable.” Unsurprisingly, the Tribune’s unsuccessful chief political reporter did not furnish any evidence over how Dabrowski’s quote was “racially questionable,” so it’s fair to conclude Pearson was using the Tribune as a platform to damn an ideological opponent as a racist.
WTTW’s very own Lois Lane
Though countless Chicago reporters were worthy for the title of worst journalist, Contrarian coronated Heather Cherone Chicago’s worst journalist for 2025.
An award long overdue, though the Lois Lane of Chicago journalism serves as WTTW’s politics reporter, the craft Cherone plies more closely resembles progressive narrative enforcement than journalism. Always on hand to quiz Mayor Johnson at press availability, Cherone’s line of questioning always seems to shift back to the topic of police reform.
The leader of the anti-police cheering section in Chicago media, between November 5, 2025, to the end December 2025, Cherone’s articles on Chicago Police appeared with almost exhausting regularity — in sum, a whopping 27 stories about CPD — on WTTW. An average of three articles a week — every article was an opinion and negative — Cherone’s concentration of purpose is to whip up a sense of crisis over CPD and keep the subjects of the Consent Decree or “police misconduct” in the headlines.
Though Cherone does occasionally shift from her routine pessimistic coverage of CPD, her reportage elsewhere characteristically repeats what is drip fed to her from City Hall.
A career built on weaving fictions or her personal views into stories, what earned Cherone the title of worst journalist for 2025 was not merely her bias, but what Contrarian considers wholly unprofessional behavior.
At a March 18th press conference, Cherone questioned Mayor Johnson over the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office’s new “Felony Bypass” program. In her query, Cherone mentioned the obscure Bolts magazine and declared the far-left publication had first reported on CCSAO rolling out the new “Felony Bypass” policy. Bolts first reported on “Felony Bypass" on March 14. Weeks later, on April 4, Cherone again repeated Bolts was the first to report on “Felony Bypass” in an article published on WTTW on April 4.
The problem here, of course, is CWB Chicago had reported on the State’s Attorney’s Office introducing the “Felony Bypass” program some three months earlier, on January 7th.
When confronted with her crediting Bolts and ignoring CWB Chicago’s original reporting, Cherone quietly returned to edit, attributed CWB Chicago, but curiously allowed Bolts to remain in her work and share credit with CWB.
While it is tempting to dismiss this as an instance of error or another example of her sloppy reporting, our hunch is Ms. Cherone is familiar with some of the good folks at Bolts and she saw the “Felony Bypass” story as an occasion to advertise for a fledgling publication with which she aligned politically.
Congratulations, Lois.
