OK, being attacked and vilified by name is one thing … but when it comes from people who clearly have their own agenda, vested interests, and conflicts of interest, it just looks petty and trite…and certainly looks like a sabotage attempt for those who are trying to make Chicago look like a worldclass city. Coming from some people who obviously have way too much time on their hands. It doesn’t look pretty when the Sun-Times attacks the Trib, and it looks even uglier when one gay paper attacks another…because it plays into the stereotypes that no one gets along and it turns people off the gay press. The readers of Nightlines and Windy City Times are not confused about my role as a board member of Chicago 2006…I have been clear about that role for the more than two years I have put money and time into the bid effort to bring the Gay Games here. I am one of hundreds of volunteers who think bringing the Gay Games here is a good idea…is there a controversy surrounding this volunteer effort? No. Just as there is not a controversy surrounding most of the hundreds of organizations the gay press sponsors ads for every year. Yet somehow, the gay press manages to cover those groups as fairly and objectively as possible. Except, it seems, when it’s a group I might be involved with.
Now, who has a conflict of interest?
… Tracy Baim, Publisher