Tom Roeser, the Chairman of our Editorial Board, states that you must read three newspapers and triangulate to understand any story in Chicago. After you take “just the facts” from people like Fran Spielman, subtract issue advocacy from Eric Zorn, then take notice as to what the news media refuses to cover, it is then possible to harvest a kernel of truth from the local media. ( Take a listen to miserable handling of Barack Obama’s “found” interview, advocating different methods of wealth redistribution on WBEZ‘s Odysessy for a foul reminder….first asking yourself why didn’t WBEZ remember this interview to begin with?) The news is never quite what it seems to be; what is left out is as important as what is reported.

For the last 18 months or so, Jerry Agar held the 9–11AM slot on WLS AM 890, bringing a lively, highly opinionated local and national news talk to the pre-Rush Limbaugh timeslot. His energy gained a solidly growing audience to his entertaining show. However, Jerry also brought a force of opinion that only an outsider to Chicago realizes, and for that he became one of the most important on air journalist in the City. Jerry filled a void in Chicago’s media trigonomety, to resolve the missing angle to many stories.

Case in point, in the Dark Days before the Chicago Daily Observer went to press, Fr. Mike Pfleger was commonly referred to as some sort of expert on social justice and peacemaking. Showing up on WTTW and WLS, at Archdiocese of Chicago conferences, and in the Tribune and Sun-Times, Pfleger nonsensically put forward a Leftist agenda in the guise of a priest and was generally accepted as a representative of the Catholic Church.

On May 26, 2007, Fr. Pfleger threatened to kill a gun shop owner in suburban Riverdale, in a riotous protest captured on audio tape, then distributed over the internet. Still, not a single person in the Chicago media mentioned the death threat, with ABC 7 inviting Fr. Pfleger to speak as an “expert” panel member on violence prevention. This was all too much for Jerry Agar, prompting Jerry to spend two entire shows on the subject of the death threat, and the media blackout of the story. Variously yelling in the microphone, taking calls from flabbergasted listeners (paraphrasing “If this really happened, why wasn’t it in the Tribune”) and playing the audio tape repeated, Jerry made a point.

Perhaps Jerry was alone in noticing that it was a bit strange for a somewhat deranged priest to be raving about killing someone like a “rat”, but his point made it across solely by Jerry’s determination to make abhorrent behavior known to the public, rather than covering up for a media darling. Soon afterward, Cardinal George issued a rebuke to Fr. Pfleger, which even the Tribune could not disguise (yes that is me scolding the Tribune in the comments). Alone, Jerry Agar used the power of the media to encourage responsible behavior from our public officials, setting in motion at least a mild amount of scrutiny that Rev. Wright and Fr. Pfleger received nearly a year later for their maniacal ravings related to the Obama campaign.

For the next year, Jerry continued his focus on local issues, interviewing politicians of major and minor parties, bringing in think-tanks and issue experts, as well as running reasonably amusing political humor segments from his comedy troupe, Jerry’s Kidders. The election brought out some very good analysis and investigation by Jerry Agar, completely trumping the rest of Chicago Media on Barack Obama and Bill Ayer’s roles in the Annenberg Challenge.

The issue itself (what did the Annenberg Board of Bumblers really do anyway..not much per Paul Vallas) became overly complicated, yet something dug at Jerry, which he was effectively able to transform to a dig at the Obama Media Squash Campaign. If there was nothing important about the Annenberg Challenge Archives, then why not release them? On August 19, 2008, Jerry took a great two hours late in the campaign season to try and flush out some details from the University of Illinois, interviewing Stanley Kurz of the National Review, and demanding some transparency from our public institutions, something that no other media outlet either wanted or demanded.

What followed was one of the great moments in Chicago Radio History. A spokesman from the University of Illinois, with the unlikely name of Bill Burton (coincidental with Sen. Obama’s campaign spokesman), called in to Jerry’s show to make a startling denial of access that would make the Soviets in 1975 look like a transparent institution. Jerry was combative, and not about to accept the answer. After several thousand contacts to Joe White, the President of the University of Illinois, the records were released by the University.

I am not sure Jerry knew what he was up against in trying to break down political stonewalls in Chicago. On the few times we went to lunch, Jerry would ask how does a city get like this? What makes the press and “reform politicians” give up all scrutiny and take up the “where’s mine” attitude? I honestly don’t know how to answer Jerry as to how we get into such a rigged system. I do know that with 10 more journalists like Jerry Agar, Chicago, Cook County, and the State of Illinois would be a saner place.

On the Monday before election day, Jerry Agar was replaced at WLS by Eric “Mancow” Muller, a talented radio man, with a huge name in Chicago Media. I wish both of them success and hope that the focus on skepticism towards Chicago media incumbents will continue.

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John Powers is the President of the Chicago Daily Observer