Please, no whining about the IHSA

Shame on you Daily Herald. How disappointing that you would stoop to using your editorial page to whine about the IHSA finally stopping you from stealing their property. It's bad enough that you printed an article every day in the sports section complaining about the IHSA and your disagreement with their photograph policy. In a recent edition, you printed one subscriber's letter which just happened to agree with your side. Now you're using your editorial page which should be used for social commentary and criticism, and you're using it for your own private commercial disputes. Shame on you!

I don't know anything about this dispute other than what I've read in the Herald. However, based on what you've been reporting, the Daily Herald is clearly on the wrong side of this argument. From what I understand, when the Daily Herald sends a photographer to take the pictures, sometimes the photographer snaps a few extra photos. You've learned there's a secondary market for these photos. It's apparently such a nice little profitable business that the IHSA finally realized instead of the Daily Herald profiting from pictures of their events, maybe they should share in some of this profit. After all, they are putting on the event, renting the stadiums, hiring the staff, etc. So they contracted with an exclusive photographer to sell the pictures of the IHSA events and share the proceeds with the IHSA. Seems fair enough.

However, you won't agree to stop selling your photos in the secondary market. You won't agree to stop profiting from the photos you originally took to sell your newspapers but that you now sell individually. The IHSA apparently asked you to stop and then they would allow you could cover the games as always. But the Daily Herald is too greedy to stop. Now you even use your editorial page to whine about the IHSA finally upholding their rights.

I don't know who those IHSA officials that you criticize in your columns really report to, but if they somehow indirectly report to the taxpayers, I think they are negligent if they don't enforce their property rights and make sure they receive all the revenues associated with their events. They should not allow outside, private organizations, like the Herald, to steal their property.

So please, do the readers a favor and stop writing about your private, commercial disputes in the public forum and pretending that you're making social commentary.

John A. Wilkin

Lake Zurich