4 CHICAGO READER | SEPTEMBER 30, 2005 | SECTION ONE

Hot Type

By Michael Miner

T he Tribune stands by itsFarm Aid story, the oneNeil Young tore into pieces

at a news conference. Or ratherreporter Jason George and hiseditor, Jim Kirk, stand by it. Rockcritic Greg Kot holds it at arm’slength. Kot wasn’t consultedbefore the story was written, andin his Tribune interview withYoung last Sunday he made itclear that Young was angry about“an investigative news story thatemanated from a differentdepartment in the newspaper.”

Kot tells me, “Neil’s father wasa journalist. He knows howpapers operate.”

George’s story ran on page oneSeptember 17, the day beforeFarm Aid’s big annual concert,held this year at the TweeterCenter in Tinley Park. Farm Aidchampions the family farmer,but George questioned howmuch of that championing isrhetorical. “Last year, Farm Aiddonated less than 28 percent ofits revenue,” he reported—$387,641 of some $1.4 million.He called Naomi Levine, execu-tive director of New YorkUniversity’s Heyman Center forPhilanthropy and Fundraising,to find out how 28 percentstacked up and reported that shetold him anything under 65 per-cent was unacceptable.

Moreover, he wrote, “The 2003concert earned $1,013,087through sale of items like tickets,T-shirts and programs,” yet afterexpenses “generated only$159,254 of net income.”Imagine reading that as you setoff to Tinley Park to spend a for-tune you’ve justified on thegrounds that every dime willland in the pocket of a needycorn grower or dairyman.Wouldn’t you be honked?

Young was honked. A FarmAid cofounder who’s now on theboard of directors, he ripped theTribune in more ways than one.“That was a great performance

Kot read the story andthought, “It looks like they’venailed some of this pretty well,”but he says parts of it “made mescratch my head a little bit.” Forone thing, he knew that FarmAid, which isn’t a foundation,doesn’t just make grants. Yes,grants last year came to$387,641. But according to FarmAid’s 2004 tax return, totalspending on programs was$908,940—a figure that didn’tshow up in George’s story.

Melissa Morriss-Olson, direc-tor of the Axelson Center forNonprofit Management at NorthPark University, was quoted byGeorge, and she thinks he’s ontosomething. “Farm Aid could havedone a better job of communicat-ing what they’re all about,” shesays, and she’s pleased to see thatit responded to the story by post-ing a lot more facts and figureson its Web site. Its entire 2004tax return can now be foundthere, complete with attach-

ments that list every organiza-tion to which it gave a penny.

But Laurie Styron, an analystwith the American Institute ofPhilanthropy in Chicago, tells methe Tribune “missed the wholepoint” of the concert. She saysthe purpose of such extravagan-zas—not just the concert but anyother high-profile charity event,including the familiar black-tieauction and ball—is to raise visi-bility and drum up donations.These events are expensive, sheexplains, and on a balance sheetoften not particularly profitable.

But she says that’s not how tojudge them. Referring to the2003 Farm Aid tax returnGeorge had cited in his article,she wrote him an e-mail sayinghe “completely ignored the$747,880 which was raised [indonations] above and beyondthe retail value of the ticketprice, which is reported asContributions.” She went on,“The whole point of a charitythrowing such an event is theopportunity for them to raiseContributions.”

When I asked Kirk, the assis-tant managing editor for busi-ness, about the $747,880 he said,“It certainly was not ignored.”Not entirely, but it was shownmuch less respect than Styronthinks it deserves.

Because the Farm Aid concertwas coming to Chicago, “wefocused on how much the concertitself had brought before frompeople going to the show, buyingt-shirts, etc.,” Kirk explained. “Wethen looked at how much wenttoward expenses to put on theshow. Then we compared it toother benefit concerts.”Specifically, the Tribune com-pared it to a concert Young putson every year at and for aCalifornia school—though ofcourse the school donates its facil-ities and the Tweeter Center doesnot, something Young pointed outat his press conference.

Articles likeGeorge’s show upon the front pagebecause theymake readersindignant.Facts that mightdeflate thatindignation don’tget much play.

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Neil Young Has a CowBut he’s not wrong about the Trib’s Farm Aid reporting.

he put on,” says Kot. “Whenrock stars get ticked off thereare various levels, but NeilYoung is at the top level. Hewears his heart on his sleeve,and he took it personally.”

Young couldn’t say the Tribunehad its numbers wrong, which iswhy Kirk is sticking by the story.“Our story on Farm Aid focusedspecifically on the amount ofgrant money allocated to organi-zations that help farmers,” he e-mailed me, “and how muchincome, directly, the concert cre-ates. Because the information ispublic, grant allocation is oneconcrete way to measure anorganization’s effectiveness.”

It’s one way, but not the onlyway. “We are not purely raisingmoney to give to farmers,”Young thundered. “That’s only asmall part of what we do. Weare available 24/7, 365 days ayear to the American farmer.That’s what we do. That costs alittle bit of money.”

hottype@chicagoreader.comwww.chicagoreader.com/hottype

Neil Young and Willie Nelson at Farm Aid

CHICAGO READER | SEPTEMBER 30, 2005 | SECTION ONE 5

The Straight Dope®by Cecil Adams

D on’t worry, ma’am. Thescarred-eyeball photo I foundonline wouldn’t reproduce verywell on newsprint anyway. Let’s

just stick to the facts:(1) Yes, there are real-life instances of ter-rible consequences of haphazard jump-starting. They mostly involve eye injuriesdue to car batteries exploding in the facesof mopes who just slapped the cables on. Ihaven’t been able to firmly ascertain howoften this happens, which has some bear-ing on how seriously you should take thatstern advice in your owner’s manual. Butit’s not like somebody just made thewhole thing up.(2) Car batteries can explode due to deto-nation of hydrogen liberated by electroly-sis of the water found in lead-acid car bat-teries. Some circumstances, like extremeheat or cold, are especially conducive toelectrolysis.(3) In light of the above, the seven pagesof instructions in your owner’s manualconsist of sensible things all car ownersshould do. Space doesn’t permit reviewingevery step, but the key is attaching thelast clamp to the car body, strut, etc, notthe battery terminal. The last connection,if you make good contact, inevitablysparks, and you want said sparks to occurfar from the battery, lest they cause a gasbuildup to explode.(4) Except for the rare Girl Scout such asyourself, however, nobody actually doesthis. Which brings us back to the ques-tion of how often car batteries blow up.Little Ed has been calling around thefederal government and so far it

appears nobody keeps track of suchthings. (Hey, in Washington they barelynotice hurricanes.) Case reports in the medical journals suggest batteryaccidents are fairly common—in 1978an MD reported that his Chicago eyeclinic treated 62 cases over an eight-month period. But nobody hazards a guess about the scale of the problemnationwide. Browsing on the Internet I found a couple car safety sites claiming that exploding car batteriescause 6,000 injuries annually. However,they cited no source.

Finally, Little Ed called a fellow namedCarl J. Abraham, an engineer whodescribed himself as the leading authori-ty on exploding car batteries. Abrahamtold me that in the 80s he commissionedthe Greater Detroit Society for the Blind(now the Greater Detroit Agency for theBlind and Visually Impaired) to surveyeye doctors and hospitals and such onhow many injuries they saw resultingfrom exploding car batteries. Apparentanswer: 6,000-10,000 annually. The survey wasn’t published in a professionaljournal, though, and I haven’t been ableto obtain a copy. (Abraham said heincluded his findings in a petition to the National Highway Traffic SafetyAdministration requesting safety stan-dards for car batteries. The NHTSAdenied the request.) The number seemshigh—surely we’d hear more aboutexploding car batteries than we do. In any case, Abraham believes it hasdropped in recent years.

But the exact figure needn’t concern

Recently I gave a jump to someone who’d left his car headlights on and drained hisbattery. Because I have a healthy respect for anything containing moving parts,flammable liquids, and battery acid, I followed the directions for giving a jump in myowner’s manual to the letter. These instructions run to seven pages. To summarize,they say to turn on the heater blower in both vehicles to prevent damage fromvoltage surges, turn off all other switches and lights in both vehicles, connect anddisconnect the jumper cables in the order specified (positive terminal of dead battery,positive of booster battery, negative of booster battery, body BUT NOT negativeterminal of dead car), and let the booster car run for several minutes before trying tostart the dead car. The guys from whom I had to borrow the jumper cables treatedme like an idiot, insisting that they just slap the cables on in any order, doing nothingmore than going from red to red and black to black without bothering with otherprecautions. My question is this: Is it really necessary to be anal when jump-startinga car? What could happen if I used the slapdash method? Are there any real-lifeinstances of terrible consequences of haphazard jump-starting (but spare me thegory details if the answer is yes)? —Connie, via e-mail

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us. Some nontrivial number of peoplegets injured by exploding car batterieseach year. Doesn’t that mean you shouldfollow the seven pages of instructions inthe manual despite what the boys think?For insight I called up the service manag-er for a car dealership. Did he know thecorrect procedures? He sure did. Did heand his crew follow them? They sure didn’t. His main beef was that if youattached the last clamp to some remotepoint on the body of the dead car, youdidn’t deliver enough juice to crank theengine. My excuse for ignoring the proce-dure is similar: You often don’t get agood connection due to crud on the ter-minals, so you have to jiggle the clamps,most of which are unavoidably on battery terminals, till you see sparks. Is this a dangerous, stupid, typically guylike thing to do? Yeah. But nine timesout of ten we’ll be able to start your car.

Comments, questions? Take it up with Cecil on the Straight Dope Message Board, www.straightdope.com, or write him at the Chicago Reader, 11 E. Illinois, Chicago 60611. Cecil’s most recent compendium of knowledge, Triumph of the Straight Dope, is available at bookstores everywhere.

As for the $747,880, he said,“There is no difference betweenthese funds and those raised atother parts of the year.” TheTribune barely acknowledged theconnection with the concert. Itsimply wrote that “last year,Farm Aid’s revenue of approxi-mately $1.4 million came fromthree basic categories: the con-cert, financial gifts or donations,and savings and investments.Most of the revenue associatedwith the concert came fromdirect donations rather thanticket sales.”

Articles such as George’s showup on the front page becausethey make readers indignant.Facts that deflate indignationinto an idle “Interesting, Iguess” don’t get stressed. Factssuggesting that although ticketsales alone don’t justify aTweeter Center concert, contri-butions do, and that Farm Aiddoes more with its money thangive it away are dealt withvaguely and briefly.

The American Institute ofPhilanthropy gives nonprofits aletter grade, and its last ratingguide, published in August, gaveFarm Aid an A-minus. There’sgrade inflation everywhere, butthat A-minus puts Farm Aid wellabove the average. AIP measuressome 500 charities on the basisof a couple criteria: the percent-age of their total expenses spenton programs, and the cost ofraising $100. AIP flunks organi-zations that don’t keep the firstabove 60 percent and the secondbelow $35. Farm Aid’s scoreswere about 75 percent and $17.That 75 percent strikes me as areal and important figure, the 28percent of George’s story as moredramatic than significant.

“Rankings of Farm Aid fromvarious charity watchers run thegamut,” Kirk e-mailed me. Iasked him for other watchers,

and he sent me to CharityNavigator. It gave Farm Aid twostars out of four, but its scores forspending on programs and forthe cost of raising money werevirtually identical to AIP’s.

When I called back AIP I gotits president, Daniel Borochoff.He was eager to talk about thecompetition. He said Farm Aidsuffers at the hands of CharityNavigator because that groupcompares it to other charitiesthat are nothing like it. To Mealson Wheels Indianapolis, forexample, and Friendship Trays inCharlotte, North Carolina—boththree-star performers in CharityNavigator’s book.

I also called NYU’s NaomiLevine. She told me she didn’tremember talking to the Tribuneand knew nothing about FarmAid, wasn’t sure she’d ever heardof it. You did speak to theTribune, I told her, and theyreported you said 28 percent wastoo small a cut of a nonprofit’srevenues for donations. Whatabout 75 percent of its expensesgoing to grants and programs?

“It seems OK to me,” Levinesaid. “If they’re giving that muchin grants and programs, it’s arespectable number.”

News Bitesa When Federated DepartmentStores announced last week thatthe Marshall Field’s name wouldvanish in favor of Macy’s, the edi-torials could have written them-selves. Of course it hurts . . .Things change . . . Federated hasits reasons . . .

The only question—and it wasn’tmuch of one—was how the paperswould inflect these sentiments.Would they write that it hurts likehell? That sometimes thingscontinued on page 6

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6 CHICAGO READER | SEPTEMBER 30, 2005 | SECTION ONE

continued from page 5

change for the worse? That obtuseout-of-town owners have beenknown to make changes for rea-sons that are really stupid?

That tack was favored bycolumnists such as Roger Ebert.But to no one’s surprise, the edi-torial pages struck a more wistfuland fatalistic note. “We’ll missField’s name,” said the headlineover the Sun-Times editorial,“but we’re ready to move on.” TheTribune remarked, “The folks atFederated may have underesti-mated the reaction to this deci-sion. . . . But if Federated runs abetter store, Chicagoans will findit. They may even grow to like it.”

Virtuous editorialists don’ttrim their sails to delight adver-tisers, but they’re not imperviousto their own circumstances. Thedeath of the Marshall Field’sname will bless Chicago newspa-pers with hundreds of thousandsof dollars worth of advertisingintended to acclimate the publicto the very change of identity thepapers gently lament. Dear Lord,says a famous old prayer, give methe serenity to accept what I can-not change, and the wisdom toknow when it would be reallystupid to even try. That is howthe prayer goes, isn’t it?

a Read this week’s cover story,in which Tori Marlan writesabout a Chicago reservist whospent a tour in Baghdad interro-gating Iraqi prisoners and camehome despondent and disillu-sioned. He talks about a war inwhich young, frightened soldierswho can’t tell friend from enemyflail about lethally, while theirofficers become increasingly con-cerned with meeting quotas andcovering their butts. Iraq is sup-posed to be nothing likeVietnam, but this description of life on the ground soundsawfully familiar. v

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