"If your mother says she loves you, check it out."

I think that was the motto of my j-school. Perhaps my j-grad-school, not my undergrad.

I used the phrase in conversation yesterday, when I was talking with a co-worker about a story.

So it was kind of eerie to read that, according to an article in the Chicago Tribune today, "It's -30- for New City News Service, which in journalism parlance means the end of the story."

The same article states "City News was a respected training ground for many of Chicago journalism's best-known bylines, including columnists Mike Royko and Michael Sneed, and for novelist Kurt Vonnegut. Countless other workaday journalists learned their craft abiding by the news service's legendary mantra of skepticism: "If your mother says she loves you, check it out."

City News was a rarity, a news co-op, founded in 1890 by the five daily papers then publishing in Chicago. But over the years, all but the Trib and Sun Times shut down...and then the Sun Times pulled out, leaving this co-op a mon-op (Well, not exactly, but it sounds good when you say it).

Local broadcasters will feel the pinch, it looks like the vaunted Day Book will no longer be produced, and producers will have to find their own events to cover.


-30- (haven't used that in years, but it just feels right)