Thanks for reminding us where the "shill" sobriquet started... I've long heard it was coined by sister paper NY Daily News legend Dick Young. B
Mark Jeffries, June 6th: When Gary Deeb arrived at the Chicago Tribune in 1973 from his native Buffalo and the Evening News there, he came upon the media scene in Chicago like a house afire, breaking stories all over the place and bluntly attacking Chicago institutions like sportscaster Jack Brickhouse and the venerable Sun-Times gossip columnist Irv "Kup" Kupcinet--his columns attacking their sycophantic coverage of the Bears on WGN Radio--the Tribune's own station (when NFL home game TV blackouts were still a thing)--not to mention almost everyone at ratings-leader ABC-owned WLS, then in deep "happy talk" with "Eyewitness News," particularly the clownish weatherman John Coleman (before we knew he was a rightwing climate denier)--his attacks probably helped the more straightforward WBBM actually beat WLS for a few years (but along came "Wheel of Fortune," "Jeopardy!" and Oprah, and a less giddy WLS has been top-rated ever since)--nationally, he called Howard Cosell "Howie the Shill" and savaged Fred Silverman's T&A approach to programming at top-rated ABC--he was also virtually alone among his colleagues in supporting radio personality Steve Dahl, Mr. Disco Demolition--natural causes in Charlotte May 17: https://www.wbez.org/obituary/2025/06/04/gary-deeb-obituary-media-columnist-dies-at-79?subscription=true&utm_source=Newsletter_Daily-Rundown-Non-Member&utm_medium=WBEZEmail&utm_campaign=Daily_Newsletter_Daily-Rundown_Sponsored_20250604&utm_content=6/4/2025&DE= In 1980, Mr. Deeb moved down the river to the Sun-Times (running across Kup in the hall had to be awkward) and then left in 1983 for, believe it or not, WLS, where he worked for 13 years as media reporter and became basically everything he attacked as a newspaper reporter. (Coleman was long gone by then.) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/9720675f-8ff1-4e1e-a6f6-94b9dfc621ben%40googlegroups.com.
