Tribune Uses Hoy To Promote Cubs Only

Even though Tribune officials routinely deny a pro-Cubs bias, their true colors show wherever they think we're not looking — in the Tribune's Spanish-language media, for example.

Hoy, a Tribune-owned Spanish-language daily, recently launched an ongoing full-page feature called "Conoce a tus Cubs" — Know Your Cubs. Hoy has no such feature for the White Sox.

"Conoce a tus Cubs" is an obvious effort to counter the White Sox's advantage among Latino fans — an advantage built in part upon a history of great Latin players like Luis Aparicio, Minnie Minoso, Jorge Orta, and Ozzie Guillen.

In its campaign to overtake Latino Chicago, Tribune lets no journalistic principle stand in its way. It blurs the lines between journalism and advertising and between reporter and subject:.

Above the headline of Thursday's story in the paper edition of Hoy — an interview with Cub Ronny Cedeño — appears the Cubs logo, the URL of the Cubs' Spanish-language webpage, and an ad for Chevy, framed in ivy. Yet the feature is no advertisement: Hoy promotes it with a front-page puff box, a practice reserved for editorial content.

If we do happen to pay a visit to LosCubs.com, we also find "Conoce a tus Cubs" featured there as an integral part of the Cubs website. Try to imagine the Tribune running parts of the White Sox website in their editorial space, packaging it as news. Hard to imagine? That's exactly what Tribune-owned Hoy is doing for the Tribune-owned Cubs, and to the exclusion of the White Sox. Balance? Fairness? No, greed rules the Tower.

Conoce a tu Tribune, amigos. Es sucio.