Many of Chicago?s site-specific biennial installations must be seen in the context of their surroundings. | Courtesy of Chicago Architecture Biennial/ Francis Son, 2019 © Chicago Architecture Biennial / Francis Son, 2019

The issue is who grants?and gets?access Chicago?s architecture biennial opens this week, welcoming a half-million festival-goers to the city. One would think the architecture critic for the local paper?of which there are fewer than a dozen employed full-time in this country?would use such a platform to preview some highlights of Chicago?s homegrown design scene.
Instead, the Chicago Tribune?s Blair Kamin?s first story about the biennial this week was about how the festival is paying for flights and hotels for some journalists to attend. ?Reader beware: Chicago?s architecture biennial pays travel expenses of some who cover it,? reads the story?s headline. ?Can you trust journalists on a junket"?
Junkets, or press trips, are often organized for events like Chicago?s biennial as a way to bring out-of-town journalists to cover a particular building, product, or fair. In addition to booking and paying for flights, hotel rooms, and meals, the PR firm often coordinates a rigorous itinerary that gives journalists access to the story?s major players and local context in a very short amount of time.
Some publications, mostly newspapers, don?t let their staffers go on press trips at all. (Kamin?s Tribune does not, he notes.) But other publications somet...