Truth in Advertising: The Wrigleyville Tribune

The Peace and Education Coalition has offered a $2,500 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the rapist who assaulted two girls in the Back of the Yards neighborhood this month, according to the Sun-Times and NBC5. But you won't read about that reward in the Tribune.

As we have documented many times, the Tribune often posts front-page community alerts on its website, sometimes accompanied by video reports and sketches of the suspect, for sexual assaults that occur on the North Side (especially Wrigleyville), but rarely, if ever, for sexual assaults that occur on the South Side. The Tribune covered the Back of the Yards attacks only after the second one occurred and residents called a community meeting. Had the Tribune given the first attack the attention it gives to attacks in Wrigleyville, perhaps the second would not have occurred. The responsibility for publicizing crime rests at least as much on the press as on the police.

The Tribune's emphasis is clear. It favors the North Side, and particularly Wrigleyville. Since some Tribune stories essentially consist of advertisements for Tribune properties, like Careerbuilder, the Cubs, and Wrigley Field, can we use truth-in-advertising laws to require the paper to rename itself more truthfully?

Hard to Shake Suspect Synergies

Mary Ellen Podmolik has a makeup story (you know, like a makeup quiz after you bomb the first one) in today's Chicago Tribune about some Super Bowl advertisers not owned by the Tribune Company. Better late than never, Mary Ellen. But remarkably, the piece is accompanied online by the WGN news segment that focuses exclusively on Tribune-owned Careerbuilder without disclosing the conflict of interest (WGN is also owned by Tribune). That unethical report has spread like a virus. It has now aired on WGN, CLTV, and Chicagotribune.com. Sometimes ethics just can't get the better of Tribune "synergies."

WGN Joins Tribune Promotion of Careerbuilder

Tribune-owned WGN is now promoting Tribune-owned Careerbuilder's new advertising campaign as a news story, without disclosing that both WGN and Careerbuilder are owned by Tribune Company, a disclosure required by the ethics policies that you can read on the right-hand column of this page.

WGN's News at Noon covered Careerbuilder's new campaign today as a Super Bowl story, but did not cover any of the other companies that will advertise during the Super Bowl, except for a passing mention of Anheuser-Busch. The WGN story included an interview with an executive from Cramer-Krasselt, an advertising agency with a fat Tribune contract, and an executive from Careerbuilder — in other words, a Tribune executive. The reporter was WGN's Muriel Clair.

The unethical report was then rebroadcast on Tribune-owned CLTV.

The WGN story comes on the heels of a Chicago Tribune "news" package that misled readers by suggesting Careerbuilder is the leading job-search site. It's not. But the Tribune Company seems to be marshaling all of its journalistic resources to make the deception come true.

Tribune journalists routinely defend themselves from bias charges by claiming that the Tribune Company and each of its subsidiaries are completely separate and distinct. Does Tribune expect us to believe it's merely a coincidence that both the Chicago Tribune and WGN newsrooms are hyping Careerbuilder's new advertising campaign right before its Super Bowl debut?

Are we supposed to believe that both Tribune-owned newsrooms independently decided that Tribune-owned Careerbuilder is the only newsworthy Super Bowl advertiser?

Tribune Misleads Readers About Careerbuilder

A few days ago we expressed skepticism of some unattributed statistics cited in a Chicago Tribune story about Tribune-owned Careerbuilder.com. We were right to be skeptical. The Jan. 19 story gives readers the impression that Careerbuilder has passed Monster.com as the leading job-search site, but that claim is simply false.

According to Alexa.com, which ranks websites based on internet traffic, Monster.com was the 298th most popular website over the past three months, while Careerbuilder was 373rd. Over the past week, Monster was ranked 286th, compared to Careerbuilder's 321st. And lest you think the Tribune property is catching up, it isn't: both sites saw their traffic drop about 20 percent over the past three months, probably because of the holidays.

So what was the Tribune story talking about? Mary Ellen Podmolik's story states that "CareerBuilder climb(ed) over Monster.com to become the largest online job site." Largeness, huh? Is that like bigness? What is largeness when it comes to websites? The number of pages? The amount of revenue? The number of visitors? Podmolik doesn't say. "Largest" is simply the word Careerbuilder uses in its advertising tagline, and the Tribune seems to have reprinted it as the lede of a news story. But it seems to us that the leading website is the one that attracts the most traffic.

Podmolik never mentions Monster's substantial advantage in traffic, even when citing Careerbuilder's traffic claims.

Later Podmolik cites another Careerbuilder claim that "it had passed archrival Monster in revenues," but Podmolik neither cites Monster's revenue nor gives Monster an opportunity to respond.

What we may be seeing, in fact, is a new push by Careerbuilder to try to pass Monster, using the Chicago Tribune, Mary Ellen Podmolik, and you, Chicago, as a big springboard of free advertising. Don't buy it.

The Blind Leading the Less Blind

James O'Shea, the Chicago Tribune scab sent to Los Angeles to serve as editor of the Times, announced his exciting new strategy for combating the Times' Tribunesque descent into mediocrity. What could it be? You're looking at it. The internet. According to a story in the Times:

Los Angeles Times Editor James E. O'Shea unveiled a major initiative Wednesday to combine operations of the newspaper and its Internet site — a change he said was crucial to ensuring that The Times remains a premier news outlet. O'Shea employed dire statistics on declining print advertising revenue to urge The Times' 940 journalists to throw off a "bunker mentality" and view latimes.com as the paper's primary vehicle for delivering news.

Everyone outside of Tribune seems to think the Times just needs to be liberated from Tribune, but inside the bunker James O'Shea thinks he can revitalize the Times by bringing it into the mid-1990s. Just one problem: the LA Times is way ahead of the paper where James O'Shea learned the ropes.

According to Alexa.com, the LA Times website is ranked 807th, which is pretty crappy. The New York Times, by contrast, is 109th. But the flagship of the Cubune Empire, the Chicago Tribune itself, is ranked 1,333rd. And falling. Rapidly.

Alexa also rates chicagotribune.com as "slow." 74 percent of websites are faster.

The LA Times following James O'Shea into the internet age is a bit like, I don't know, the Chicago Cubs putting Larry Rothschild in charge of their pitchers. Tribune has its own special logic doesn't it? The logic of losing.

"Don't Call it the Cubune. Call it the Sleazune"

That's what one sleazune watcher wrote to us, protesting a story, video, illustration, and poll splashed all over the front of the Chicago Tribune's online edition this morning devoted to Careerbuilder.com's decision to change its advertising strategy.

What's wrong with this picture? What's really, really wrong with this picture? Tribune owns Careerbuilder.com, of course.

And Careerbuilder's decision is hardly newsworthy. In a decent newspaper it might merit a two-paragraph blurb in the back of the business section. But Mary Ellen Podmolik's 1,000-word front-page story reads like an advertisement for Careerbuilder (In fact, if you click on the video link, you'll be watching an advertisement for Careerbuilder). Podmolik notes that the Tribune property has passed Monster.com as the most popular site exploiting unemployment and job angst. It cites some of those fishy Tribune statistics we've grown to love — unattributed numbers of unique visitors, no doubt retreived from Tribune's IT Dept. Or manufactured there, we can never be sure. It lovingly describes Careerbuilder features such as monk-e-mail and age-o-matic. And it raises expectations for the Superbowl Sunday debut of Careerbuilder's new advertising campaign. Oh, gosh, what will it be?! How will they ever top the Chimps?! This isn't news.

But the story does seem cleverly timed to demonstrate to potential Tribune buyers how easily the company can exploit one media asset to promote another. Nice, Sleazune. Very smooth. Y0u may put out a mediocre newspaper, but you make a damn fine snake-oil salesman.