LAKE FOREST – When I have my Jimmy Olsen erstwhile reporter’s hat on, my mission is clear: I have to get the story right, and I have to have the facts to prove I did. Nothing else matters.
But when I go all Mike Royko, Red Smith or Jerry Magee on you — not that I could or ever will be worthy of walking in any of those giants’ shoes — and am delivering a column, the job is quite different.
Here my job is to be thought provoking. It is to offer you my opinion on a topic of current interest, based on as much inside information and analysis as possible, hopefully written in an entertaining collection of words with at least a few clever turns of phrases and intended to get you to form a strong opinion of your own.