Tribune Traffics in Perception

The Tribune loves to defend itself from evidence of bias and other malfeasance by interviewing people who can't possibly be foolish enough to criticize the Tribune in its own pages. The latest example comes from Fred Mitchell, a living, breathing example of a biased sportswriter if there ever was one. Mitchell has ignored White Sox news to get to the Cubs news, he has lain down to let Cubune executives use his body as a soapbox, and he has given inequitable treatment to the two sides of town even in the course of writing about whether the two sides of town receive inequitable treatment. It's all documented, Fred.

In an April 4 column, Mitchell asks White Sox Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf if he thinks the Tribune has been biased. What's does Mitchell think he's going to say? Was Jerry born yesterday? Did he just fall off the turnip truck? First of all, why would Jerry alienate the Tribune now, right after his friend and partner Sam Zell purchased it? Secondly, what is the ethical posture of a reporter asking someone on the record about the ethical performance of that reporter's newspaper for a story to appear in said newspaper? Third, what position does that put Jerry in? The very same position Ken Williams has to occupy every time he answers questions from reporters who represent his competition in the baseball market.

So Jerry says, 'Oh, no, the Tribune did a swell job.' Because that's the only sensible answer coming from the White Sox chairman at this point in time, especially with the winds of change shaking the Tribune Tower down to its fishy foundations. Just ask any White Sox official off the record, and there's no question they think there's a bias.

But Fred also thinks his readers were born yesterday.

Mitchell writes that Tribune ownership of the Cubs "created the perception of conflict of interest." Actually, it created a conflict of interest. Tribune reporters don't just work for the company that owns the Cubs, they're invested in the company that owns the Cubs through the Tribune stock in their benefits. That's not a perception. It's a fact. "Perception" is just a lubricant certain reporters use to slip out of their responsibility to the public trust.

Across the paper Rick Morrissey uses that slippery word, too:

This is a good day for those of us at the newspaper who have been uncomfortable with Tribune Co.'s ownership of an entity we writers have to cover. I never once questioned the professionalism of the people in our sports department, but the perception around Chicago was that the Chicago Tribune sports section somehow was in bed with the Cubs or that it favored the Cubs over the White Sox. I'll go to my grave knowing that wasn't the case, but perceptions are as resilient and poison-resistant as cockroaches.

You can see the strength of the Tribune Tower's commitment to denial if writers vow to carry their denial all the way to the grave, but the Cubune Watch has been about dispelling perception and documenting the Tribune bias in facts. Rick Morrissey will go to his grave not facing the fact, for example, that during the 2005 and 2006 regular seasons, during which the White Sox won and defended a World Series championship, the Chicago Tribune published almost 1,400 more stories that mention the Cubs than stories that mention the White Sox.

Are we supposed to believe that was just a coincidence? Were we born yesterday? Did we just fall off the turnip truck?