“Reading a Book is Like Life:
You Live it One Page at a Time.” (Ron Yates)

Receive Updates!

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 …

Read more…

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 …

Read more…

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 …

Read more…

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 …

Read more…

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 …

Read more…

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 …

Read more…

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 …

Read more…

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 …

Read more…

“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 …

Read more…

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 …

Read more…

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 …

Read more…

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 …

Read more…