Chicago Cubs beat reporter calls out rival over manager Craig Counsell’s quote

A beat writer covering the Chicago Cubs added to an electric week for sports media in the city.

Chicago radio station 670 The Score kicked off the dramatic week by deciding to pull Dan Bernstein off the air after his social media posts last week regarding sportsmanship and conservation awareness. Bernstein appeared to threaten to dox the child of someone who left a negative and accusatory reply to a picture of the legendary radio host with a fish he caught.

A sad week in Chicago sports journalism

On Friday, The Score parted ways with Bernstein after trolls hammered their social media posts asking for him to be removed from the airwaves.

The Score had a tough week.

Fans of journalism didn’t like the idea of the station promoting legendary Cubs broadcaster Pat Hughes calling play-by-play of Chicago’s opening series against the Los Angeles Dodgers from a studio in the United States instead of in the Tokyo Dome where the game was being played.

Cubs Baseball is on the air live from Wrigley Field. On the Score. ⁦@670TheScore⁩ Pat Hughes welcomes you to Opening Day!!!! pic.twitter.com/zgMfQtJ6Sl

— Mitch Rosen (@MitchRosen670) March 18, 2025

Digital media is changing how sports are covered in Chicago.

Some of those changes have led to mass layoffs. On Friday, the Chicago Sun-Times said goodbye to 20% of its staff after many journalists took buyouts in a desperate effort to keep the paper in operation.

A beat reporter calls out the Chicago Sun-Times

Fewer people on the payroll means fewer bodies in the field. Paul Sullivan of the Chicago Tribune accused CST of using a quote from Cubs manager Craig Counsell without attribution.

“Sad that @suntimes_sports loses so many solid journalists Friday and immediately resorts to using a Craig Counsell quote without attribution because it had no one covering @Cubs camp today,” Sullivan posted on X.

Sad that @suntimes_sports loses so many solid journalists Friday and immediately resorts to using a Craig Counsell quote without attribution because it had no one covering @Cubs camp today.

— Paul Sullivan (@PWSullivan) March 22, 2025

It’s unclear what quote CST used without attribution.

Quotes of Chicago Cubs press conferences are easy to find

Many quotes from players and managers are available online and provided by the teams on their websites and social media platforms. While it’s proper form to use attribution for those quotes, not all established news publications use them. (CCS does.)

Sullivan’s gripe is fair. But this feels a little petty to point out as CST is essentially transitioning to the great world of sports blogging.

In fairness to CST, they did not lose a beat reporter covering the Cubs. However, they did lose Chicago White Sox beat reporter Daryl Van Schouwen.

Like Hughes calling Cubs games via a monitor, CST might be covering press conferences from questions other journalists ask.

What should their role be as journalists now?

As for the Chicago Tribune, we’ll check online for the scores.

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