“Reading a Book is Like Life:
You Live it One Page at a Time.” (Ron Yates)
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About Ronald E. Yates
Author, former foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, and Dean & Professor Emeritus of the College of Media at the University of Illinois, his acclaimed works are now available through this site.
The Latest From My Blog
Why Do the Mainstream Media Support Censorship?
It’s a question I have struggled with since it began to happen during the Obama administration. I watched the media erect a protective media shield around President Obama to protect him from tough questions that might embarrass his administration. Then, during the 2020 presidential election, the media recreated that media …
University of Kansas Study Reveals Secrets of Success on the Basketball Court
With March Madness upon us and millions of fans having frenziedly filled out their NCAA tournament brackets, the University of Kansas has just published a 7-year-long study that reveals the secrets of success on the basketball court. It’s fitting that the University of Kansas published this study because you can …
What Will it Take to Lose the Blues in Chicago
Today, I am reposting a commentary by Erin Geary, who describes herself as a “Renaissance Woman.” Her commentary originally appeared in the blog produced by John Kass https://johnkassnews.com/. I am particularly focused on Chicago because I lived and worked there for many years as a Chicago Tribune reporter and editor–in …
A Censored Commentary in 2021 is Proven Accurate Today
Today, I am turning my blog over to Mike Ford, founder of the American Free News Network, former U.S. Army Colonel, and US Military Academy graduate (class of 1980). In the commentary that follows, Mike explains that a column he wrote in 2021 for a news outlet about the January …
Almost 80 Percent of American Men Unfit for Military Duty: DOD
A new Department of Defense reports that almost 80 percent of American men between the ages of 17 and 24 are unfit for military service. When I saw that, I did a double-take. Eighty percent of American men are not fit for military service. Is that even possible? And then I …
The Ghosts of DEI: Past, Present & Future
Today I am posting a commentary by Andrew Gutman, a New York City parent who, in 2021, pulled his daughter out of the Brearley School, an all-girls private school in the Upper East Side neighborhood of Manhattan, to protest the school’s woke policies regarding race and gender. Gutman wrote a scathing …
The America Premium
During my almost 30-year career as a foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, about one-third of the stories I produced had to do with business–specifically, international business. I wrote a lot about the theft of intellectual property rights and American competitiveness–or the lack thereof. I witnessed the hollowing out of …
Today is the day Chicago asks itself: “Who Should be mayor?”
Today, I am reposting a commentary from John Kass that appeared on his blog https://johnkassnews.com/. John is a former Chicago Tribune colleague and columnist who now produces a popular blog and podcast that deal with the “Chicago Way.” John possesses a keen eye and knows Chicago as well as any …
“Dilbert” Bites the Dust in Hundreds of American Newspapers
I have been a fan of the Dilbert cartoon strip since it began syndication in hundreds of American newspapers back in 1989. The strip is a sassy but candid look into the management and machinations inside the walls of corporate America. Its lead character, Dilbert, is a hapless butt of …
Will Artificial Intelligence Benefit or Destroy Us?
I have been thinking a lot about the dramatic rise of A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) in our lives since I read an article about A.I. replacing reporters and editors in American newsrooms. The idea that A. I. could be used to write news stories and columns in newspapers instead of reporters …
How Dumb is AOC? Let Me Count the Ways
If you watched Super Bowl LXII, you might have seen two $20 million ads promoting Christianity and Jesus Christ that were sponsored by the religious craft store Hobby Lobby and other anonymous donors. One of the two “He gets us” ads portrayed Jesus as a refugee in an attempt to …
The City of Lobsters
Once upon a time, Chicago was a city where newspapers, radio, and television news shows competed furiously with one another for news. When I started at the Chicago Tribune right out of the University of Kansas, Chicago had five competing newspapers and the world’s best training ground for reporters—the City …
