Tribune's Flaccid Reply to CJR

Some ladder-climbing suit in the tower has crafted a thoroughly bureaucratic response to the Columbia Journalism Review's indictment of the Tribune, a response so phlegmatic, predictable, and tiresome that almost no one has bothered to comment upon it (except Miami media critic Bob Norman, who called it "rather lame"). And I tell you, it wasn't fun reading for us either. It reads like Fred Mitchell on Xanax. But we downed another pot of coffee in the public interest, and waded diligently through the doublespeak. Here's what we find notable:

The suit goes by the name of Gerould W. Kern. He may have been a reporter once but now the etching on his brass nameplate says "vice president for editorial," which is exactly the kind of title you get when you sign a contract in your own blood and hand it to a guy with a pointy red tail.

Gerould offers very little evidence to defend Tribune from CJR's charge that the company's resources "aren't doing much public good." He lists five stories that Tribune newspapers have published that he says represent public-interest journalism. It hardly matters what the stories are. What matters is the number: five.

Last time we checked, Tribune owned 11-15 daily newspapers (depending on what you consider to be a newspaper. Redeye, for example?), 23 television stations, two news syndicates, one radio station, at least one magazine, a last-place baseball team, and a whole bunch of other crap, and Gerould thinks he can prove it's all doing public good by mentioning five stories? I'm not very old but I remember a day when ALL newspaper stories were supposed to contribute to the public good. In other words, there ought to be five of them on the front page of the Tribune every day.

Gerould, being well versed in what matters most in the tower, also attempts to quantify public good through monetary expenditure. Listen to this: "We spend $400 million annually on our newspaper newsrooms and employ 3,700 journalists, both figures ranking near the top of the industry."

Wow. $400 million. That sounds like a ton of money, right? Well, sure it does until you consider that Tribune just gave $136 million to a single guy, Alfonso Soriano, who runs, catches balls, and swings a stick for a living in toothpaste-blue pajamas with a little cap on his head. Soriano's $17 million annual salary rivals what the Tribune spends annually on some of those newsrooms. It's amazing what a little context does to Gerould's argument.

Gerould also thinks we'll be impressed that Tribune opened a new $10 million media center in Washington D.C. last year. Huh, that must be right around the time that Tribune's new $13.5 million bleachers opened in Chicago. Let's see: $10 million for American democracy, $13.5 million for a bunch of drunks. We see where your priorities are.

Finally, Gerould seems to think it favors Tribune that, "in each of our markets, Tribune puts more journalists on the streets to report on public affairs than anyone else by a wide margin."

Well, what do you think, Sox fans? You're Chicagoans. Would you rather have more Tribune reporters covering Chicago or would you rather have more reporters from some other newspaper?

Yeah, me, too. But we've got no choice in the matter. Tribune puts more reporters on the streets in its "markets" precisely because it considers them to be "markets." It's hotly in pursuit of multi-media monopoly in each. And we're pretty sure it's not chasing monopoly for the public good. We think it might just be chasing monopoly so it can liberate more money from the public wallet through its vile "synergies" between editorial and advertising and between television and newspapers.

Gerould really steps in his own poubelle with that comment - "in each of our markets" - because that's precisely the attitude that CJR wants to see banished from journalism. CJR calls for Tribune suits to be replaced by new newspaper owners who "will be citizens who understand that those dailies are not mere pieces of an economic puzzle but great living institutions rooted in the lives of their cities."

Cities, Gerould, not markets. Cities.

It's sad really. Because somewhere inside Gerould is a shriveled remnant of a young reporter who must have had a facility for sentences and an aspiration to do public good. Because that's what journalists are made of. But like so many who smell the money in that dark tower, the little fella took a terribly wrong turn.

Or a right turn, if it's really just all about the money.