Tribune: True to Form, if Nothing Else

We had to wait two years, but the Tribune delivered, true to form. On the first day of the playoffs in Chicago in 2005 the Tribune ran a front page story about crime, pot-smoking, and curiously stereotypical African Americans in the neighborhood of U.S. Cellular Field. On the first day of the playoffs in 2007, can we count on the them to write about the rapists, racists, and rummies of Wrigleyville?

Brett Ballantini reports:

So, to herald the beginning of NL playoffs' brief stay in Chicago, Paul Sullivan earns his juicy paycheck with the fluffiest fluffy fluff fluff feature on, surprise, Cubbies who live in Wrigleyville, wherein it is written that Ryan Dempster plays "Frogger" with traffic by RUNNING FROM WRIGLEY TO THE LAKE BEFORE GAMES. No matter how delicious the notion that Dempster puts himself in harm's way sounds to the blue-pajamas faithful, that cannot be smiled upon by Cubby management given that there's a large, unencumbered patch of grass to jog on to his heart's content sitting in the middle of his workplace, Wrigley Field. What a doorknob.

Oh, and Sully says that Dempster used to ride his bike "to work," but it got stolen. Is Dempster angry? Distrustful of the raucous neighborhood? Lucky he didn't get killed after a blown save by one of the "faithful?" Dumb as a box of rocks for being a major leaguer who isn't bright enough to secure his bike somewhere other than the base of a streetlamp?

Nah, Dempster just walks to the park now, reports Sully with misty-eyed, Joe-Jackson- emerging-from-a-cornfield admiration.

Scott Eyre, a Cubbie who isn't caught up in the utter romance of the urinal trough on the North Side, is relegated to two quotes at the end before the story mysteriously truncates (more Cubbies who didn't espouse the party line, perhaps?), one portraying him as a Twinkie-gobbling porko compared to the deft and nimble Dempster.

What... did you expect a smear piece on pot smokers in the neighborhood or something?

Tribune Special Delivery for Cubs

If your Tribune isn't on your front stoop this morning, it's probably because you're part of the vast majority of Chicagoans who are smart enough not to subscribe. But the suckers who do subscribe also woke up to find themselves Tribuneless, because the Tribune delayed its deadlines and postponed delivery in order to get late news into the paper about its precious Cubbies.

I don't remember them doing that for the White Sox in 2005, do you? We were playing in Anaheim — and that was the championship series — and we seem to remember lots of late nights and even one game that ended the morning after it started, but the Tribune was perfectly content to deliver newspapers devoid of late breaking White Sox news. And those were victories it was not reporting. Oh, but no, there's no bias.

Tribune Fever: Catch It!

The Tribune's website has a cool new Cubs Fever section. I don't remember their Sox Fever section in 2005. Do you? Of course, the Tribune doesn't profit directly from Sox Fever, but they do profit directly from Cubs Fever, and so what if they violate the provision of journalism ethics that says,

"Journalists should avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived, remain free of associations and activities that may compromise integrity or damage credibility, disclose unavoidable conflicts... deny favored treatment to advertisers and special interests and resist their pressure to influence news coverage."

Hardly anyone seems to respect their "journalism" anyway. You can't polish a turd, as they say.

When you go to the Tribune's new Cubs Fever section, you can watch a bunch of mediocre Tribune videos about the Tribune's precious Cubbies and you can send a Piniella-Gram. I don't remember seeing an Ozzie-Gram in 2005, do you? Even though Ozzie tends to say more colorful things than Lou. And more true things. With an Ozzie-Gram, for example, you could call Jay Mariotti a $&$%#% #^$*&.

Or an #$%$# *&.

Let's see if we can make Lou tell the truth by clicking on him:

Let Us Compare

Today's Tribune predicts the World Series is within reach for the Tribune-owned Cubbies, in spite of the fact that the team's meteoric rise to mediocrity seems fueled largely by the bottom loving suckage of the rest of their division. This inspired us to see what the Tribune was up to on Sept. 25, 2005, when the White Sox were 1.5 games up in their division, where they had been all season, and had just thumped the Minnesota Twins 8-1.

WOE IS OZ ; The White Sox precipitous plunge has their outspoken manager's emotions on a gut-wrenching roller-coaster ride;

Melissa Isaacson, Tribune staff reporter.
You are tired just from listening, drained by the relentless questions and the patient answers, worn out from watching a man trying to explain himself, to the point where it seems even he is confused, pouring out his soul until his eyes are red, his face is moist and he finally must slump to a sitting position on the concrete steps of the White Sox's dugout. This was Ozzie Guillen's day Thursday, really just the tiniest sliver of a day, of a week that must feel like a month and a month that must seem like eternity for the manager of Chicago's slumping White Sox.

Ah yes, "precipitous plunge," worry and woe on the South Side, a World Series within reach on the North Side. The Tribune staff was apparently too busy salivating over the prospect of a White Sox collapse to consider what it meant that the team had just pounded the Minnesota Twins. It's true that the 2007 Cubs have just distanced themselves from the Brewers, while the 2005 White Sox were just beginning their streak to the finish line, but don't we expect our reporters to be a little something more than wind socks and Cub fans? In the Chicago Tribune Magazine on Sept. 25, 2005, crack investigative reporter Jeff Lyons is writing about what? You guessed it, attendance. The headline makes it clear the Magazine is writing only for Cubs fans:

IF A WHITE SOX-CARDINALS WORLD SERIES SHOULD MATERIALIZE, CONSIDER THIS:

Sox manager Ozzie Guillen would be up against his former boss, Tony La Russa, who piloted the Sox in 1985, the year Guillen debuted in the bigs. If you believe in the ex-Cub factor, the Sox have the edge. They have only one former Cub, Ross Gload, but the Cards have three-Ray King, Julian Tavarez and Mark Grudzielanek. Both teams have won in spite of serious injuries (Sox: Scott Podsednik, Joe Crede, Frank Thomas; Cards: Scott Rolen, Reggie Sanders). Chicago has 3 times the population of St. Louis, but the Cards have drawn 3.4 million to the Sox's 2.3.