Chicago based reporter William J. Kelly told lame duck Mayor Lori Lightfoot to “pack [her] suitcase” and “get the hell out” of his city.
Kelly directed his comment toward the soon-to-be former Mayor of Chicago during a Wednesday city council meeting.
The reporter began his public comment by noting Lightfoot previously revoked his media credentials in August 2022.
“I should be sitting over there with my colleagues,” Kelly said as he pointed toward fellow reporters attending the meeting. “But I’m standing over here because on a weekly basis I was going viral asking you obvious questions.”
Kelly suggested the mayor refused to converse with him because his questioning appeared to be hurting her re-election campaign.
“So you revoked my media credential,” he continued. “That should never happen in a free country.”
A local reporter who had his press credentials revoked tells outgoing Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot to "pack your suitcase and get the hell out of my city." pic.twitter.com/jNwWuCxgG8
— MRCTV (@mrctv) March 16, 2023
Kelly encouraged the city council to remove the ability to determine media credentials from the next mayor’s authority.
“What you’ve done to the city of Chicago … what you’ve done to me, is nothing compared to what you’ve done to my city,” he continued, claiming his public comment felt more like a victim impact statement. “The city I was born and raised in. The city that I love with all my heart.”
The Chicago-based reporter noted Lightfoot’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic by detailing her decision to shut down schools, churches, and businesses.
“You did the one thing that I thought could never happen,” he said. “As someone who was born and raised on the south side of Chicago, I never thought in my life that I would ever see the city of Chicago brought down so low as you have managed to bring it down.”
Kelly said the damage caused to Chicago by Lightfoot’s tenure as Mayor is her legacy.
“I hope that you realize what damage you’ve done to the city,” Kelly concluded. “I hope that after today’s city council meeting you will pack your suitcase and get the hell out of my city.”
“You are a pandemic.”
During a September appearance on Fox News’s Tucker Carlson Tonight Kelly referred to his media revocation by Lightfoot as a “textbook First Amendment case.”
“I believe that journalism is extremely important,” Kelly told Carlson. “I’ve had a media credential in Chicago for over 10 years. Emmy award-winning. Print, radio, TV, but Mayor Lightfoot is the least transparent mayor in our city’s history, and sadly, for better or for worse, the reason my questions were so effective, is because I was asking the questions that real Chicagoans wanted to hear. But they were hurting her re-election campaign so she canceled by media credential.”
“They see that I asked real questions, and got my credential revoked, canceled I guess would be a better word. I grew up in Chicago watching legendary reporters … chasing politicians up and down the street … and this is the tradition I want to uphold,” he said. “This is the Chicago reporter tradition that Lightfoot wants to cancel.”
