Leadership Quote by Richard J. Daley

Daley’s line reads like civic-minded praise, but it also carries the unmistakable aroma of a machine politician acknowledging the power of the megaphone. “Television and radio do a wonderful job” isn’t really about gratitude to journalists; it’s an admission that mass media can set the public agenda faster than any ward boss, precinct captain, or backroom deal. The key verb is “focusing.” Media doesn’t merely report problems, it concentrates them, selects them, frames them, turns them into a single, shared object of attention. That’s both a democratic service and a political hazard.

In Daley’s era - mid-century Chicago politics bleeding into the national stage - broadcast news was becoming the country’s central nervous system. Images from civil rights marches, urban unrest, Vietnam, and later the 1968 Democratic National Convention made “society’s problems” impossible to keep local or containable. For a mayor who built power on control, message discipline, and institutional loyalty, the camera introduced a rival authority: visibility. Once something is televised, it stops being an internal matter and becomes a performance with consequences.

The subtext is strategic. If media “focuses attention,” then attention can be managed, redirected, or exploited. Praising the spotlight lets Daley sound responsible while subtly suggesting that the spotlight itself is part of the story - that social “problems” are, in part, created or amplified by coverage. It’s a line that flatters the press and warns them at the same time.