Tribune to Old and Poor: Get Lost

The mission statement for Redeye actually admits the paper is for young rich professionals. So if you're old or poor or working class, your eyes are unfit for their paper, apparently. Here is Redeye's official mission statement:

RedEye is Chicago's free daily newspaper that provides a concise and authentic take on news, sports, entertainment and social buzz. RedEye, an edition of the Chicago Tribune, has become the leading vehicle in Chicago for advertisers wanting to reach young, urban professionals who are short on time and long on disposable income.

This is a fine example of Tribune's celebrated "synergies" between advertising and editorial, which have been slammed by both the Columbia Journalism Review and the American Journalism Review for compromising journalistic integrity. No self-respecting journalist would write a mission statement that targets a specific advertising demographic, but then, Tribune journalism isn't really about self-respect, it's more about another kind of self-love. This kind:

The Joke's on You, Tribune

Last week's season premiere of American Idol helped us all feel superior by mocking mentally disabled, autistic, or obese people trying to sing while we all sat bravely in our armchairs. Redeye readers got to relive the thrill during next morning's commute with a back-page splash describing the performers as "a parade of oddballs" and featuring an enormous picture of performer Darwin Reedy.

Thanks for the recap, Tribune, but when we think of those who are deluded about their own talents while everyone else is appalled, it's hard not to think of Tribune itself.

At moments like this, it also becomes easy to imagine Rupert Murdoch, the broadcaster of American Idol, taking a chunk of Tribune. The "synergies" are already there.

Redeye isn't the problem. Redeye is just a window into Tribune's soul. Redeye, like baseball, provides an obvious handle on Tribune's preference for its chosen people — the young, urban professionals, typical of Wrigleyville, who are short on time and long on disposable income — and Tribune's bias against Chicago's poor, her old, the subcultures of the West Side and the South Side, the White Sox and their fans, anyone it can't sell as part of its idealized Chicago advertising demographic. Isn't that just the problem with you, Sox fans? Aren't you just a little too discriminating with your dollars? If you want to be a part of Tribune's Chicago, you'd better get shorter on time and longer on disposable income. And you'd better spend that time and income at Tribune-owned Wrigley Field.