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There’s no love lost between Williams and Baim, frequent journalistic rivals over the years, but she could abide a friendly word on his behalf. What ticked her off was what came next. “Instead,” Davenport went on, “the documentary features Tracy Baim . . . as both a subject and a contributing resource. [Coproducer Dan Andries] insists that Baim didn’t control access to the information and had no editorial input, but it’s hard to believe she had no influence over the documentary, given that producers used her own interviews for research and relied heavily on her newspaper archives. It would be an understatement to say that, as a journalist, Williams is far more respected by members of the community than Baim is. But Baim is here. Williams is not. Andries doesn’t see this as a problem. I’m sure many will beg to differ.”
Baim read this with astonishment and anger. “It’s one thing to say someone’s missing,” she says. “It’s something else to say someone else took their place and didn’t deserve it.”
Out & Proud in Chicago debuted during a pledge drive and made WTTW a lot of money; what’s more, it got a glowing review on WFMT by Andrew Patner. Baim needn’t worry about WTTW suffering collateral damage. The damage was done to Baim alone, and most of it was self-inflicted.
