L
ast Thursday, the Chicago Reader‘s then-executive editor, Mark
Konkol, published a cover that depicted gubernatorial candidate J.B
Pritzker sitting on a black lawn jockey. He published it without the

knowledge of Edwin Eisendrath, CEO of Sun-Times Media, which owns the Reader. The image was meant to call out the sneak racism of white progressives who call themselves friends to the African-American community, but many in that same community interpreted it as a reduction of black Democrats to a racist trope. The same image was used inside the paper to illustrate a column I wrote about Pritzker’s coded language in a 2008 conversation with then-governor Rod Blagojevich about filling the Senate seat Barack Obama vacated when he became president.

I would say the Reader is changing. For years and years and years
it was a white baby boomers’ paper, mostly on the north side. It’s gotten
interested in, comfortable with, and eager to cover more and more and more
of Chicago, and to cover more and more and more of Chicago in partnership
with people who live in neighborhoods in Chicago. When I say partnership,
I’m thinking about the stuff the Reader does with the TRiiBE, for
example.




    This is something that’s been floating around the Internet—that there
    was a cover with J.B. Pritzker in blackface that was vetoed by you. Is
    that true?



When I talk to people at the Reader and make my own judgments,
it’s clear the Reader does have to go through some change. It was
very high quality but a little bit stuck, and that reflected itself in
operational ways, in financial ways, so I was eager to find somebody who
could sort of combine a business vision, a new vision, as well as an
editorial one that made sense. I’m still eager to find that person. We’ve
posted the [executive editor] job, and one of the reasons why I’m eager to
do this interview is I’m hoping that really interesting people and people
from all over will apply.



We actually met with a lot of people, but it was a confidential search, not
a public search.




    What’s the financial situation at the Reader these days? When
    people ask me, “What’s your financial situation,” they’re basically
    asking me, “Are you broke or not?”