It’s tempting to make too much of Kevin Flynn’s role in snatching the Sun-Times from the jaws of death, the reason being that the bigger the role the richer the irony. Suffice it to say that Flynn belongs to the investment group assembled by James Tyree that on Monday took control of the Sun-Times and the other 58 titles that compose the Sun-Times Media Group.

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The Flynns fought back against the gaming board, and in 2005 former federal judge Abner Mikva conducted a hearing into the matter. He concluded that the board had done the right thing. As Chris Fusco reported in the Sun-Times on November 16, 2005, Mikva wrote that Emerald played “fast and loose with the law and with the rules and regulations” of the gaming board and that its “modus operandi seemed to be ‘catch me if you can.’” Various parties “dissembled” when Emerald was first trying to move into Rosemont, Mikva found, while Kevin Flynn “flat-out lied.”

Another Sun-Times editorial on the Emerald project appeared on November 16, 2003. Earlier the paper had merely railed against the Flynns. This time it lectured them.

“One of the things I’m hoping is that the new owners understand they’ll have to end the Conrad Black-David Radler era if the newspaper is to survive. Some of these people who own us [now] have been in the news in the past and presented in lights that we know they couldn’t have found favorable to them. But I’m hoping these new owners understand they’re inheriting a newspaper that has been plagued by questions of integrity. They’ll need to end that era if the paper is to survive. Everything needs to be kept at arm’s length—not only for the sake of the reporters but for the sake of their protecting their own investment.”

I faxed Robert Parrillo with questions about his past experiences with the press and how they might bear on his new adventure. The reply was from his administrative assistant. “The purchase of the Sun-Times is viewed as an opportunity sustain an important part of Chicago’s tradition and have Chicago to remain a two-paper town,” she wrote me. “Other than that as an occasional contributor to the Chipmunk Chatter (the camp Shewamegon newsletter) Mr. Parrillo has no particular relationship or experience with the press. Mr. Parrillo currently has no expectation of influencing the coverage of the STMG papers.”