Newscasters seen in bed with Daley seek subtraction from furniture ad

Having climbed into bed with outgoing Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley and an area furniture chain, some local TV news people were scrambling to avoid being seen in a figurative walk of shame.

At least a few of the reporters and anchors shown paying tribute to Daley in an ad for Walter E. Smithe Furniture + Design requested they be cut from the spot after Time Out Chicago blogger Robert Feder's Monday post lambasting the journalists for the dual transgressions of appearing in a commercial and sucking up to the city's longtime chief executive.

The original long-form version of the ad (above) was still available online as of late Monday, but edited out of the version on the Smithe Web site were WBBM-Ch. 2's Bill Kurtis, Walter Jacobson, Rob Johnson and Ryan Baker, as well as WFLD-Ch. 32's Bob Sirott.



Many of the testimonials were recorded at an April 14 party in Daley's honor thrown at the Paris Club by Smithe, the Melman family of Lettuce Entertain You restaurants and the Elysian Hotel. The invitation to "celebrate our mayor" told guests they would "be filmed in a sing-along to 'My Kind of Town'" and "also have the option to film a personal 10-second thank you to the mayor."

Some who appeared in the ad insisted they did not know the clips would be made public, let alone part of a Smithe ad. But that in no way mitigated the cringe-inducing fawning over Daley.

In the case of Kurtis and Jacobson, who apparently did not attend the party, the farewells to Daley were recorded on the Channel 2 news set. Kurtis called him the "best mayor" of the "best city in America." Jacobson congratulated Daley on 22 years as mayor and said, "We have loved watching you go through it.”

Separately, WBBM lead anchor Johnson called it "an honor covering" Daley.

Tim Smithe, who's in charge of sales and marketing for the family business, said in a statement issued by Channel 2 that permission was not asked for their inclusion. "I personally apologize for the misunderstanding and have had CBS 2 employees removed from our commercials," Smithe said.

WBBM President and General Manager Bruno Cohen said, in his own statement, said the station only agreed to have "a few of its employees participate in what was described to us as a farewell video that would be given directly to Mayor Daley when he steps down after 22 years in office next week."
A Smithe-sponsored contest to hire a new traffic reporter by the end of the month for WBBM's early-morning weekday newscasts does not appear to have been affected by this dust-up.

Other news people in the Smithe Daley commercial were WMAQ's Allison Rosati and Natalie Martinez. Larry Wert, president of NBC Local's Central and Western regions, also makes an appearance along with former President George W. Bush and others, some better known than others.

Reporter Charles Thomas of market-leading WLS-Ch. 7 tweeted in response to Feder's blog post: "Proud there were no ABC7 newsies in the furniture ad. Our boss is 'old school' and wouldn't stand for it!"