Tribune Caught Uglifying Photos of Sox?

Yesterday we criticized the Tribune for publishing washed-out Sox photos underneath vibrantly-colored Cubs photos. A few hours later, the Tribune's Sox photos suddenly became much more vibrant. We also criticized the Tribune for routinely placing Cubs elements above Sox elements on its online sports pages. A few hours later, an existing story about Tadahito Iguchi was bumped up on the sports page, and an existing story about Carlos Zambrano was downgraded. For a few hours, Tribune-owned chicagosports.com even placed its Sox photo gallery above its Cubs photo gallery, although they returned the galleries to their prior positions before the end of the night.
Should we be happy about these improvements? The improvements are only cosmetic. The issue testifies to a deep-seated pro-Cubs, anti-White Sox bias in the construction of the Sports page, and the photos raise a troubling question: Has the Tribune been doctoring photos of the White Sox to make them less attractive than photos of the Cubs? In this post, you can see the difference in color saturation in Tribune photos published online before and after our criticism, and lest you think it's the fault of the photographer, the AP's M. Spencer Green, you can see the same photo as it appeared in the Tribune and as it appeared on the Daily Southtown's website. In yesterday's post, you can see the difference in color saturation between Sox photos and Cubs photos.

All photos are copyright 2007 by the Associated Press. They are reproduced here under the fair use doctrine of criticism for purposes of illustration or comment.

When 'Beat' Means 'Tired'

The Tribune's baseball beat reporters, Paul Sullivan and Mark Gonzales, seem much more interested in covering contract negotations than in covering baseball, and they've been bungling the job. Here's another example. The following lede appeared on the Tribune's sports page Tuesday afternoon:

Carlos Zambrano and the Cubs went off to their arbitration hearing Tuesday afternoon after a last-ditch attempt at a settlement failed.

It was eventually replaced by this one:

Cubs ace Carlos Zambrano agreed to a one-year, $12.4 million deal Tuesday, avoiding arbitration just before his hearing was scheduled to begin.