Friday, June 30, 2006

Jesse Jackson son still interested in buying Chicago Sun-Times

Yusef Jackson, son of the Reverend Jesse Jackson, is co-owner along with his brother Jonathan, of River North Distributorship, the exclusive supplier of Anheuser-Bush products on Chicago's North Side.

Anheuser-Busch, for those with long memories, is a former boycott target of the Reverend Jesse Jackson. The ad slogan for its flagship beer, Budweiser, was "This Bud's for You." Jesse quipped, when announcing the boycott, that "This Bud's a Dud."

But a few years later, two of Jesse's sons--with no prior beverage industry experience, end up with that distributorship. Coincidence?

Now, according to the Chicago Tribune's Phil Rosenthal, Yusef may be interested in buying Chicago's # 2 newspaper, the Sun-Times and various suburban newspapers.

From the Tribune (free registration required):

But with Radar (a new magazine), Jackson says he's "now firmly in the media," an appetite only whetted a couple years ago by his rejected high bid, reportedly $850 million, for the Sun-Times and its area sister publications.

"I have been interested in the media business for a long time ... so I went after a big one first," said Jackson, 35, a lawyer who is chief executive of River North Sales & Service, an Anheuser-Busch distributorship. "I learned a lot of lessons. I wish they had elected to sell it.

"I'm still very interested in the Sun-Times property," he said. "The Sun-Times is a great publication, a great paper. It's synonymous with Chicago, and I would love to own it."

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