Reruns -- they're not just for the comedic writers

The writers' strike has all the late-night talk shows running reruns.

We newspaper reporters are writers, too. You just might not have realized we are doing the rerun thing. But check out the news headlines these days.

• Former Illinois Gov. George Ryan headed to a federal prison.

Sharp readers might recognize this as a rerun of the 1980s story we wrote about former Illinois Gov. Dan Walker.

Sharp readers of a certain age might recognize the Walker story from the '80s as a rerun of the 1970s story we wrote about former Illinois Gov. Otto Kerner.

• This is the deadliest year for U.S. troops in Iraq.

This is a rerun of the story we ran in 2004. Editors this year just ran a simple search-and-replace program that swapped the dates and upped the number of dead from 849 to 851.

• Attorney general nominee to be confirmed in spite of concerns that he will be a rubber stamp for the Bush administration.

You might recognize that sentence about Michael Mukasey from our 2005 coverage of the Alberto R. Gonzales confirmation hearings.

• Chicago Blackhawks to televise hockey games.

All we did is remove all the references to Lloyd Pettit in this reprint of a story from the 1960s.

• School shooting a shocker.

This story moved into our news lineup in 1988. Just like lame TV sitcom reruns, the only change we make is in the location. The Brady Bunch went to Hawaii. Our school shooting story went to Finland.

• O.J. Simpson could be headed to prison.

This time, we left out the slow-speed chase.

• Local sex pervert did shockingly horrible things.

I'm not sure if this story qualifies as a rerun or simply a weekly feature.

• Bears need consistent play from quarterback position.

We've been running this apt bit of sports analysis just about every season since Sid Luckman retired in 1950.

• Suburban commuters brace for record-high gas prices.

I think I actually wrote this story in 1981.

• Incredibly popular with American voters at the start of war with Iraq, President Bush now has record-low approval ratings.

This paragraph is a rerun of news from 1992.

• If you think the president's approval rating is bad, check out the low marks given to Congress.

We ran that story in July, but even then, we just pulled it off an old front page from 1992.

• "There is not the slightest doubt Chicago will have her proposed casino. There is plenty of money behind the scheme."

That quote is from a story in The New York Times from Feb. 2, 1890. Yes, we're going back to the 19th century for this news rerun.

• "America can count on France."

We dipped into 18th-century news archives to rerun this quote now attributed to French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

• If Kerry Wood is fully recovered from injury, he could be a key pitcher for the Chicago Cubs.

Not only have we been running this lame story every year since the end of the 1998 season, we even wrote a spin-off with the same story line, except we changed the name of the main character to Mark Prior.

• Some people still like Hillary Clinton and other people still can't stand her.

This line has logged more reruns in the past two decades than "A Charlie Brown Christmas."

• NBC on Wednesday canceled this week's edition of "Saturday Night Live."

While my heart is with those striking Hollywood writers, my writer reality is that I will spend Friday writing my Saturday column live from the Daily Herald newsroom.