Strange Reality in Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood

We have to address some comments that Tribune columnist Phil Rogers made when he wandered onto the White Sox Interactive Forum. Tribune writers often defend themselves from accusations of cubune bias by oversimplifying the accusations, and Rogers is no exception, as he illustrates with this comment:

It's ... silly to go on thinking there's this big conspiracy that starts at the top and goes down to guys like me, Sully, Vandy and Gonzo.

Actually, that's not what we think, as a Sox fan who calls himself 'Ol No. 2 eloquently replies:

Only the most hard-core conspiracy theorists would believe there's overt pressure on writers to slant their stories. It's far more subtle (and insidious) than that. Upton Sinclair was no fool:

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it."

Tribune ownership of the Cubs has put the Trib writers in an impossible position. No matter how hard you try, it's always human nature to be reluctant to publicly criticize your employer. I can point to example after example, but the more potent bias is in the thousand subtle (and perhaps unconscious) word choices in writing an article that cast one team or the other in a positive or negative light.

Rogers had no response to that. We'll just add that Tribune writers live within a corporate culture that differs profoundly from the culture on the streets of Chicago. (That's why you won't see any Tribunes delivered on many of those streets.) Among those differences: the assumption that the Cubs are the biggest, most lovable baseball team in Chicago. There was a startling reality on LaSalle Street on Oct. 28, 2005 -- 1.75 million White Sox fans -- a reality so startling to the Tribune that the Tribune ignored it. Tribune reporters live in a very different reality, one that happens to be self-serving, one that happens to be hostile to Sox fans, Southsiders, Westsiders, minorities, and lots of other Chicagoans.

So no, we don't think there's a big conspiracy that starts at the top and goes down to a bunch of guys who have names as cute as Snow White's dwarves. We know it's much worse than that. We know, for example, that the Tribune Corporation gives Tribune stock to Tribune employees in their benefits package, making each Tribune reporter a partial owner of the Cubs, giving each Tribune reporter a personal financial stake in the success of the Cubs. Some Tribune reporters own a lot of Tribune stock. When Tribune reporters cover the Cubs, they're not just covering their own employer, they're also covering their own investment. No one can be objective about that. This is exactly why concerned American journalists long ago wrote the passages that you will find in the right hand column at the top of this page, under the heading "Ethics." Phil Rogers would be ridiculous to claim total objectivity, but he does:

The fact that Tribune Co. owns the Cubs does not affect anything I write about them, the White Sox, the other 28 teams or anything to do with MLB.

Yeah sure, and I'm utterly unaffected by my bank account too. We do, however, agree with Rogers on one point:

And, yes, I wish we would sell the Cubs. It's an indefensible position.

It is an indefensible position. It is an indefensible position because it is a position that is wrong. A newspaper should not own a baseball team in its own city, especially one of two baseball teams in its own city. Rogers points out that the New York Times owns a piece of the Boston Red Sox. Notice that the Times did not buy the Yankees or the Mets. Also notice that when the Times covers the Red Sox, it prints disclosures like this one, in a Sept. 6, 2005 story about World Series rings:

"The distribution of [World Series] rings was once limited to within organizations, but these days they serve as rewards for people who work behind the scenes, even if they never drive in a run or strike out a batter. Among those who received Red Sox rings were a number of executives of The New York Times Company, which owns a minority share of the Red Sox."

The disclosure of conflicts of interest is the minimum ethical standard that journalists are expected to uphold. The minimum standard. The Tribune doesn't even do that. Even stock traders, hardly known for their virture, are expected to disclose when they're covering their own investments. But not Tribune reporters. So excuse us if we hold our noses with one hand when we pick up your rag with the other. Wanted: One Tribune journalist, just one, who has the balls to stand up for what's right. It seems like the Tribune screens out courage as well as principle during the hiring process, but it shouldn't be a problem, if you're really not all that concerned about your bank account.

What Does Tribune Know About Glory?

More evidence the Tribune is campaigning against Chicago becoming a White Sox town: this caption spotted by Cubune Watcher Brian Dykes in today's Tempo section, under a photo of Ozzie Guillen holding the Sox' 2005 World Series Trophy:

That World Series Feeling: No, it wasn't a dream, but it only took a year before the White Sox gave up possession of baseball's championship title, if not the trophy. Fleeting glory indeed.

You don't need us to point out the bitterness and unfairness in that statement. Nor do you need us to point out the obvious: neither the Tribune nor its Cubs have experienced even fleeting glory in more than a lifetime. Not knowing what glory feels like, how can they declare it fled? Sox fans would have loved another World Series championship in 2006, but every Sox fan I know remains thrilled with 2005, few thought it reasonable to demand an immediate repeat, and the 2006 Sox contended until the final week of the season, clearly outperforming the $99 million last-place Cubs, the suits who own them, and the dutiful hacks who do their bidding -- see example above -- in the guise of journalism.

Tribune Wants Us to 'Rest Assured'

This is what we mean when we say mediocre: On Dec. 24, the day of a Bears game, the headline splashed across the top of the Sports section read, "Rest assured: Relaxing is wrong." As if there was a single soul in Chicago who thought the Bears should just kick back and let the Detroit Lions beat them on Sunday.

Beneath that headline were a couple more space-filling stories by two guys who've shown they have no more insight into sports than any bloke ranting on the El. Or anyone passed out underneath the El. We have David Haugh, who infamously declared, as the White Sox were passing the Cubs in popularity last year, that "the Cubs can still lay claim to being the most lovable baseball team in town." And we have Rick Morrissey, who called the trade of one Sox pitcher a "fire sale" and picked the last-place Cubs to win their division last year.

Dusty Baker got booted for sucking. Andy MacPhail resigned for MacPhailing. Why do these two lumps still get a paycheck?

And why do we need this daily newspaper with its voracious appetite for buying every other institution in Chicago, with its constant self-promotion and its Gothic tower of arrogance, if it's just going to tell us stuff we already know? If it's not going to offer us some real insight with our coffee in the morning. And if it's not even able to keep up with the Timeses. Can you think of another media empire of such rich resources that so consistently produces mediocrity? Or another major metropolis so burdened with mediocrity in its media?

Tribune Up to Its Old Tricks

There was a brief period when the Chicago Tribune seemed to be making at least a token effort to treat the White Sox with at least a feeble appearance of equality, a brief period inspired, perhaps, by the fact that the White Sox did what seemed like the impossible for decades and brought a World Series trophy to Chicago. But that brief period of tokenism appears to have come to a resounding close. The Tribune has reverted to overt bias.

It has done so, no doubt, as part of a corporation-wide campaign to counteract the White Sox's documented dominance in team popularity last year. We didn't make this up. "Tribune columnist" Phil Rogers told us Nov. 20: "Tribune Co. is determined to hang on to the team, its most visible piece of civic commitment, and has too much pride to see the White Sox become Chicago's team." (Civic commitment? Try gross and greedy self-interest).

So, for example, whenever the two teams are listed in the sidebar to the Tribune's online sports page, Cubs are always listed first. Not long ago, the Tribune made the effort to interchange the two teams.

Also in the sidebar, the "Get Your Cubs On" fan photo gallery always appears above the "Get Your Sox On" fan photo gallery. For a while, the Tribune made an effort to switch those positions. ("Get Your Sox On" is also the only fan gallery that seems to be stuck with a black and white photo. Perhaps the Tribune doesn't realize that color photography has reached Third-World regions like the South Side. To realize that, they might have to dare venture down here).

Now, this might sound like a trivial matter, what's above what. But doesn't it amount to an effort by the Cubune to make sure people who turn to the Tribune for news also absorb the impression that the Cubs come first? That the Cubs are on top? That the Cubs are most popular? Even when they aren't anymore? Especially when they aren't anymore.

On today's print sports page, we have a countdown to the day that Cubs pitchers and catchers report to camp. As if everyone in Chicago is as excited about that day as the shareholding employees in the Cubune Tower. As for the White Sox, no stories. Not even one. Is that because there's no White Sox news today? Or is it because in order to find news someone from the Tribune would have to actually venture south of Roosevelt Road, where it's dangerous, they've heard, for outsiders to go.

Meanwhile, could it really be an accident that during the peak shopping season from Thanksgiving Week to Christmas Week, a picture of Alfonso Soriano appeared on top of the online sports page for 17 of 29 days. As if to say, When you go shopping, Cubs fans, remember to spend a lot of money on your high-spending Cubbies!

Combine this with the fact that during the last two regular seasons, during which the White Sox won a World Series and reigned as champions, the Tribune published 1,400 more stories that mention the Cubs than stories that mention the White Sox. Fourteen-hundred.

How can the Tribune possibly deny being biased?

Tribune Admits Outsider Status

Some lackey at the Tribune woke up tonight and changed the photo on the online sports page to a two-day-old picture from the Bears game instead of a week-old portrait of Alfonso Soriano. Makes you wonder if the Tribune's internet office smells like bong water.

Meanwhile, Phil Rogers still doesn't get it. Here's what he had to say today:

Man, did White Sox fans hate the columns I wrote from the winter meetings critical of the Jerry Reinsdorf/Ken Williams decision to rebuild the World Series rotation over the next two years rather than adjust to the increased value of pitchers in this market. I can't believe fans really want to see Mark Buehrle and Jon Garland follow Freddy Garcia out of town, but they don't want any outsiders criticizing their team, especially not someone from "the Cubune."

It's not that we don't like outsiders criticizing our team, Phil, although we are pleased to see you admit the Tribune is an outsider in its own city when it comes to the White Sox. It's just that we don't like vacuous criticism. One need look no further than the last five World Series contests to see that teams don't get there by spending tens of millions on marquee names, ala Yankees and Cubs. They get there by putting together a talented and hungry team staffed largely by players who aren't previously well known, ala White Sox and Tigers. The fact that Freddy got us there in 2005 doesn't mean he would have gotten us there in 2007. Sox fans know that. Ken Williams knows what he's talking about. You don't.

You don't even know who you work for. We like the gentle mockery of putting "the Cubune" in quotes. Next time you go to your "newspaper" office, use the entrance that takes you through the "Tribune Store" and then maybe you'll notice that you work for the Cubune.

Day Seven

A picture of Alfonso Soriano smiling has sat atop the Tribune online sports page for seven consecutive days, and for 17 of the last 29. During that time, a Bears player was involved in a shooting, but there is no bigger news at the Tribune than that Soriano smile.

Soriano Setting New Records...

... not for baseball, but for days of Tribune adoration. Six consecutive days now, and 16 of the last 28, with a picture of Alfonso Soriano smiling atop the Tribune's online Sports page.

I don't remember Jim Thome getting this kind of love last year.

If you wonder what we mean when we talk about the Tribune blurring the line between news and marketing, this ongoing Soriano celebration is a fine example. The current photo ceased to be newsworthy five days ago. Then promotion apparently took over, promotion that has prevented other newsworthy photos from appearing on the page. And since Soriano is both a Tribune asset and a $136 million Tribune liability, it's not hard to imagine why the Tribune would want to inflate his celebrity before baseball season actually gets underway. Tribune staffers usually insist they don't do these acts of malfeasance consciously, but would it be any better if they did them unconsciously?

Soriano Watch Reluctantly Resumes

Yes, it's true. You are all quite correct. A picture of Alfonso Soriano smiling has topped the Tribune online Sports page for four consecutive days now, just as one did for five days earlier this month, and for perhaps six days in late November. That makes 15 days out of the last 27 that a smiling photo of Alfonso Soriano has led the Tribune Sports page online. During football season. Yep. This really isn't that much fun anymore. It's like the Tribune is designing the Sports page just for the Cubune Watch now. It's like going fishing and the fish jumps into your boat before you can even bait the hook. But wait. It's a really smelly carp.

To explain why the Tribune is so enamored of Alfonso Soriano, let us ponder Alfonso's statistics, so far, as a Chicago athlete, courtesy of baseballreference.com:

Year Ag Tm Lg G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG
+--------------+---+----+----+----+---+--+---+----+---+--+
2007 31 CHC NL 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000 .000 .000

That doesn't do it for you? Well, there is one other statistic: $136 million. And who has to pay that amount? Yes, the Tribune. Maybe that explains why they're covering him like the Second Coming of Michael Jordan. If I were a Tribster, I would want to see the guy play at least one game in his new blue pajamas, you know the ones, with the cartoon baby bear on them, before I dropped to my knees.

Stop the Presses: Soriano Frowns

The New York Times published a story yesterday about the Cubs' renewed effort to buy a World Series. In the accompanying photo, Alfonso Soriano is not smiling. Gasp. This raises some questions. And some answers.

1. Does the New York Times know something the Chicago Tribune does not know?

Yes. A few things. Among them, that Alfonso Soriano's smile is not "ever-present."

2. Does Alfonso Soriano know something the Chicago Tribune does not know?

Yes. That a career with the Cubs usually peaks on the day the contract is signed, and usually collapses into mediocrity soon after. For example, please see Jacque Jones, Juan Pierre, Nomar Garciaparra, Mark Prior, Dusty Baker, Corey Patterson, Moises Alou, Ann Marie Lipinski, the Los Angeles Times. Behind Alfonso's less-than-ever-present smile, he's looking mediocrity right in the eye. He's come to the crossroads that has destroyed so many players before him: Clark and Addison. The only way to escape this trend, Alfonso knows, is to do the "Sammy Sosa," as it is known in the clubouse, which involves injecting a foreign substance (you know, like cork), in a place where it doesn't belong (like inside your bat).


Knowing When to Retire

Tribune columnist Rick Morrissey declared the end of the White Sox season in his column yesterday. Morrissey: "In terms of championships, this is what (Sox GM Ken) Williams is saying to Sox fans: One and done. You have your 2005 World Series. Shut up and be happy."

In terms of championships, who knows more: Ken Williams, who actually won one, or Rick Morrissey, who predicted his precious Cubbies would win their division last year. They finished last. Last. The "shut up" that Morrissey hears is actually directed at him. Rick, there's a beach somewhere waiting for you, where you can get big fruity drinks and watch your Cubbies via satellite. Go now. You'll be happier, and so will Chicago.

We Dare to Hope

Late this morning, the Tribune managed to fix the Alfonso Soriano caption underneath the Brian Uhrlacher photo, and our Soriano Watch went on standby. The Soriano Watch began as documentation of blatant corporate incest [The Tribune newspaper granting unwarranted prominence to a photo of a Tribune employee (Soriano), donning a Tribune logo (Cubs jersey), next to a Tribune executive (Jim Hendry) in a Tribune facility (Wrigley Field)] but it honestly had become something of a joke as the bungling Tribune awoke to its own corruption and complacency. A joke, that is, unless you're a Chicagoan who wishes our city had a good newspaper.

The Soriano moment speaks to feeblemindedness -- at best -- at the Tribune that one cannot really imagine in the New York Times or the Los Angeles Times. In fact, lots of American cities much smaller than Chicago enjoy much higher levels of journalistic excellence and integrity. Why, we ask, is bias and bungling so easy to imagine in Chicago journalism? And why do we tolerate it?

Why do readers of the Los Angeles Times respond with such alarm to Tribune mismanagement of their hometown newspaper that they actually band together and find billions of dollars -- billions -- to save the LA Times from Tribune? Why can we not imagine Chicago readers rallying around "our" Tribune? Because we have no sense that it is ours. The Tribune is an Us and Them paper, with one party sequestered inside its Gothic tower, and the rest of us on the outside. Can we imagine Chicago readers becoming alarmed that the Tribune might become mediocre? No, because mediocrity is what we already have. Mediocrity is what we've always had. Nelson Algren wrote about the mediocre Tribune 50 years ago, and half a century has only made things worse.

Chicagoans are so complacent to poor journalism in their morning daily that Tribune executives actually believed they could export their mediocrity as a winning formula -- compromise journalistic excellence, integrity, and ethics; spread a homogenized message across divergent media; blur the distinctions between news, advertising, and marketing; sell it all as so much content. The formula was grandfathered into Chicago, but when Tribune took its formula out to the rest of America, out where people know what journalism ought to smell like, they made the blunder that may destroy Tribune itself.

Los Angeles is experiencing some rays of hope as prominent Angelenos such as Eli Broad, Ron Burkle, and the Chandler family work to wrest the LA Times from the Tribune, even if it means demolishing Tribune in the process.

We dare to hope as well. We don't just hope for a newspaper that covers the White Sox fairly with the Cubs, we hope for a newspaper that covers all of Chicago, instead of fostering a culture of chosen people in Wrigleyville and treating everything south of Roosevelt as so much alien and surplus population. We hope for a newspaper that cares for the South Side, for the West Side, and for all this city's shadows. For "the nameless useless nobodies who sleep behind the taverns, who sleep beneath the El." We hope for journalists who actually read and adhere to our profession's Code of Ethics, who avoid conflict of interest at all costs, and who disclose their conflict of interest when they absolutely cannot avoid it. We hope for editors who value journalistic principle above financial advantage. We hope for television, radio, magazine, cable and internet voices independent from the Tribune's megalomaniacal monovocality, journalistic voices free to pursue and express their own perspectives on this diverse and dynamic city.

We dare to hope, but because we are White Sox fans, we temper our hope with a realism as cold as the black ice lurking under the white snow outside. Even if those better angels out of Los Angeles manage to dissect the cancerous Tribune, it seems likely that in Chicago, where we're used to monopolistic media mediocrity, where we've gown accustomed to a feeble press, and where some guy in a suit can always make a buck off of dubious alliances that predate anti-trust legislation, we'll still be stuck with the same bias and bungling that we've always been stuck with.

Why did Nelson Algren write Chicago: City on the Make half a century ago? He tells us: "It was written out of an awareness that multitudes live among us who share the horrors but not the marvels of our split-level bedlam. As well as from a natural resentment toward a press whose complacency could not be dented. For no man can make a dent in emptiness."

It's So Hard Letting Go

Maybe it's bias and incompetence. Tribune just took down the Soriano photo, but look at the cutline:

Day 5 of Tribune Gazing Lovingly at Soriano

The same photograph of Alphonso Soriano putting on a Cubs uniform has now topped the Tribune online sports page for five consecutive days. Not only did the Bears clinch their division during that time, but a full-blown quarterback controversy is raging in this city, and the Tribune thinks a stale photo of a guy donning a Tribune-owned logo at a Tribune-run press conference is bigger news. Bias or incompetence? Take your pick.

Day 4 of Cubune Watch's Soriano Watch

A photo of Alphonso Soriano smiling in his new Cubuniform has now been on top of the Tribune online sports page for four days. It has been one day since the Bears clinched their division, and Soriano still rules the Tribune sports dept.

Root, Root, Rooting for the New Tribune Employee

There's another photo of smiling Alphonso Soriano on top of the online sports page at chicagotribune.com. It's been there for three days. It's similar to the smiling photo of Alphonso Soriano that occupied the same spot for most of Thanksgiving week (Please see "Tribune: King of Advertorial"). In the new photo, Alphonso is wearing a Cubs jersey and standing next to Jim Hendry. Woo Woo. The cutline under the November photo read, "Images in the News," suggesting there was no other news that week. This time it says, "Sports photos of the week." We suppose it might be possible for three whole days to pass without Tribune photographers taking any other sports photos, except that there was a very photogenic Bears victory today. Devin Hester's punt return for a touchdown, Ricky Manning Jr's interception for a touchdown, Uhrlacher's interception, the safety that should have been a touchdown? No, sorry. Soriano's smile still rules the online sports page.

When it comes to the Tribune and their precious Cubbies, even the 10-2 Bears, on the very day they clinch their division, can be the second team in the Second City.

In October, Tribune columnist Rick Morrissey criticized the Sun-Times for putting a Bears helmet and a palm tree on its masthead. Morrissey's headline: "Root, root, root for home team? It's not our job." It's really difficult to see how the Sun-Times conceit can be any worse than the Tribune's overt marketing of new Tribune employee Alphonso Soriano and his smile. Dave van Dyck even started a story this way: "Alfonso Soriano is known for his ever-present smile..." Whether or not Soriano is actually always smiling, photos of his smile are already ever-present in the Tribune. In Soriano and his smile, it looks like the Cubune Marketing Dept. may have found a replacement for Sammy Sosa and his heart thump. Soriano may not be on the Tribune masthead yet, but this photo featuring two Tribune employees and a Tribune-owned logo is about three times larger than the masthead, and it's been dominating the online sports page for three days.