By: Mark Fitzgerald For the second day in a row, the Chicago Tribune was explaining to readers Thursday how a picture of a respectable senior citizen ended up on its front page identified as a mobster.
This time around, it was 69-year-old janitor Stanley Swieton.
On Wednesday, the Tribune ran a photo of Swieton looking dapper, posing on a bike with a cigar in his hand. "Have you seen this 'Clown?'" a front-page headline over the photo asked. The caption identified man as Joseph "The Clown" Lombardo, an alleged leader of the Chicago organized crime syndicate called the "Outfit." Lombardo managed to elude a massive raid by federal agents on alleged mobsters.
This latest goof came after the Tribune on Tuesday published a photograph from its archives of retired businessman Frank Calabrese, and misidentified it as Frank Calabrese Sr., an alleged organized crime figure.
In a Tribune story about the mix-up published Wednesday, Calabrese is shown smiling, but the same day the businessman, who is not related to the alleged mobster, sued the newspaper's parent, Tribune Co., in Cook County (Ill.) Circuit Court seeking a minimum of $2 million for defamation and invasion of privacy.
Thursday, the paper again printed a correction and a story about the Swieton/Lombardo mistake.
"We sincerely regret our mistake," Editor Ann Marie Lipinski said in the article. "We strive for accuracy, but when we make an error, we try to correct it. We are very sorry for this mistake and apologize to Mr. Swieton."
When Swieton's photo was first published, an accompanying story said the image was purchased from Val Carpenter, who had shot it last year as part of a class project at Columbia College. She said she had not asked the man's name.
Before publishing the image, the Tribune showed it to Lombardo's attorney, Rick Halprin. Wednesday's story quoted Halprin as saying that "Lombardo's" face looked "slightly fuller," but that it "definitely" was his client. In Thursday's story about the goof, the lawyer denied he "positively identified" the man as Lombardo.
Not surprisingly, the Chicago Sun-Times gleefully pounced on the error by its cross-town rival.
On its Thursday front page, it published a full-color photo of Bozo the Clown with the headline, "Have You Seen THIS Clown?" Columnist Mark Brown interviewed Swieton under a headline that read, "Someone should tell that other newspaper this man is no clown."
Swieton told Brown that he did not intend to sue the Tribune. "I just want to get this clarified and get my good name back," he said.
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