Tower Struggles to Cover Lesser Buildings

Cell Trounces Wrigley Again in SI Fan Poll

The White Sox play in the eighth most popular ballpark in America, according to Sports Illustrated's annual fan poll, while Wrigley Field (that "sacred garden" revered by the people who own it and their army of pajama-clad followers) finished 15th. The Cell consistently stomps on Wrigley in that poll, but the Tribune always finds a way to circumvent the comparison, which would, of course, debunk the Wrigley Field myth at a moment when it is poised to earn the Tribune several hundred million dollars. The Tribune's take this year? Neither stadium finished in the top five. Hmm. Now why do you suppose the Tribune only looked at the top five instead of, like Sports Illustrated, honoring the top ten?

-- Thanks to Lone Ranger for this post.

Tribune: Wrigley Building to Remain in Chicago

Both the Tribune and its yuppie-pandering Redeye edition published this marble-mouthed sentence, reassuring us, to our great relief, that the Mars Corporation is not going to hoist the Wrigley Building onto the back of a flat-bed truck and haul it out to Mars' headquarters in Maclean, VA:

Though most of Wrigley's operations will remain in Chicago, including its executive offices and ornate white building on Michigan Avenue, the shift in Wrigley's power base, including the fact that the founding family will no longer be owners, means something, experts said.

The sentence was penned by none other than David W. Greising, by all accounts one of the nicer and more talented scribes in the Terrible Tower, who nonetheless remains most famous among White Sox fans for somehow overlooking 1.75 million of them crowded on the streets of Chicago in October, 2005. Some fair maiden needs to rescue poor David from that Tower and free his prose from the nefarious influence of the Ring of Power.

-- Patrick Sheehan

Tribune: All the News that Makes Us Richer

On page 5 of the Tempo section in today's Tribune we find a charming feature about some people who built a one-third-size replica of Wrigley Field in Freeport, IL. But we don't know anything about those people except for one name — Denny Garkey — and the word "organizers." And the story doesn't tell us anything about the community that hosts the field. Instead of emphasizing the people who built this field or the community in which they built it, the Tribune predictably emphasizes itself. That is to say, it emphasizes its own assets, without disclosing that they are assets, and at a time, we note, when those assets are for sale.

The first paragraph, ostensibly describing the mini-field, mentions the Cubs, Wrigley Field, the "Friendly Confines," the green scoreboard, the red marquee sign, and the WGN press box. Need we remind you that Tribune owns WGN?

The second paragraph mentions a person, Dutchie Caray, whom it describes as "the widow of famed Cubs announcer Harry Caray." If the Tribune didn't constantly promote its selective memory of Harry's biography, he might be more appropriately described as the larger Chicago area actually remembers him: "famed White Sox and Cubs announcer Harry Caray."

The third paragraph mentions those anonymous "organizers" of the new field in the course of getting to another mention of Tribune-owned Wrigley Field. Did we mention it's for sale?

And then, best of all, the final paragraph is devoted to the billy goat curse, the Tribune's favorite strategy, for the last quarter century, to attract fans to a losing team. The lovable losers, cursed by a goat.

The story hardly manages to be about its topic — the miniature field — at all, and never gets around to asking the "organizers" why they built it, how they raised the money, how the community has reacted, etc.

And most importantly, the story never discloses that the Tribune owns the assets it is describing, despite ethical codes and a Tribune policy requiring such a disclosure. Why is it important to include such a disclosure in such a cute little feature story? Because as a Tribune editorial recently admitted, "The future of our parent company—conceivably, the future of our jobs—rests to some unknowable extent on the successful sale of the Cubs and Wrigley Field, and the resulting reduction of corporate debt. "

-- Patrick Sheehan

Fitz Falls; Tribune Censors Reader Comments

Dennis Fitzsimmons, the Tribune Company CEO who will be best remembered for wearing a business suit to a baseball rally, was shitcanned today by new Tribune boss Sam Zell, a partner with Jerry Reinsdorf in the Chicago White Sox and Chicago Bulls.

In a final act characteristic of the respect the Chicago Tribune has shown to the First Amendment during the Fitzsimmons era, the Tribune removed public reactions to Fitzsimmons' firing from the forum attached to the online edition of the Tribune story. Instead comments like these now appear:

What happened to all of the other comments?

---

Really...what DID happen to all of the previous comments? This happens in other strings as well and this very question of what happened goes unanswered. No wonder the Trib is in trouble.

Ah, Fitzy, we're really going to miss you here at the Cubune Watch, for our job will never be this easy again.

It's Not a Curse — It's Karma

May that be the last game ever played by a sports team that's owned by a newspaper.

What's Wrong with this Picture?

This photo was taken from the Cubs rally in Daley Plaza on Monday, and why are these guys wearing business suits? Is this a Cubs rally or the Enron trial? There was only one guy on stage in a baseball uniform, and you can see him here to the right, picking his nose. I think that's Billy Williams. These other guys look like the Bored of Directors. There are four suits in this picture, for a total of about $8,000 at Saks, but you can't see the biggest suit of all — Dennis Fitzsimmons, the CEO — because he's hiding directly behind the guy at the lecturn, probably so no Cub fan can get a good shot at him. Dennis has the snazziest suit of the bunch, but if you ask me, any guy who can't loosen his tie at a baseball rally is no freer than a slave. But back to fashion: They couldn't even find a Cubs cap to cover those balding white pates? Didn't they have to pass the Tribune Store to get out of the Tribune Tower? Couldn't they be bothered to stop and load up on blue pajamas? Or do they just sell that crap to the suckers who made them rich? The suckers in the audience.


Seriously, there was only one suit on stage at the White Sox rally in '05 and that was the suit worn by His Honor da Mare. As it should be. That's why even this year, We are Chicago baseball. The Cubs are nothing but an elaborate white-collar crime. The Cubs are slumping into the playoffs (to use the Tribune's own words) like sub-prime loans slumping into the lending market.

And we'll root root root for the Assets, if they don't win it's a shame...

Tribune Powders Cubbies' Bottom

Does it seem to you that the Tribune is going awfully easy on a Cubs "juggernaut" that has lost seven of its last 10 games? We seem to recall that just about every time the White Sox lost a game in the second halves of 2005 and 2006 the Tribune compared them to some spectacular collapse of the past, such as the 1969 Cubs, but so far the 2007 Cubs have been spared such indelicate comparisons. Last night, for example, they were pummeled 15-2 by the Colorado Rockies. Tribune headline: "Rocky stop for Hill." Well, it's a cute headline anyway. Almost as cute as the little cartoon baby bear on the toothpaste-blue pajamas worn by the company team.

In the midst of this darkening of Cubbie fortunes, Cubs beat reporter Paul Sullivan writes a thoughtful column titled, "Tribune Years Could End With a Bang." And we don't think he's referring to any Tribune executives eating a bullet in the tower's most stratospheric offices because here's the subhed: "No pennants but team in far better shape than in 1981."

Team in far better shape than in 1981? Isn't baseball in general in better shape than in 1981? If the Tribune has gotten the Cubs in better shape than in 1981, it has less to do with baseball than with an ingenious marketing strategy that, by casting journalistic ethics to the wind and exploiting all the Tribune's media properties, successfully redepicted, in the public mind, an empty crumbling ballpark as a "jewel" that now fills to the gills with drunks 81 times a year. On that basis, and that basis alone, the Tribune will get a billion dollars for selling the Cubbies. But, as Jesus might ask, "What does it profit a newspaper if it gain the whole world and suffer the loss of its soul?" Even with an extra billion in cash, the widely disrespected, increasingly irrelevant, and financially troubled Tribune will be in much worse shape than it was in 1981.

Tribune Discovers Columbia Journalism Review

A front-page story in the Chicago Tribune today quotes the Columbia Journalism Review, a publication the Tribune has been pretending doesn't exist for about six months. Michael Oneal, who covers Tribune for the Tribune, quotes CJR executive editor Michael Hoyt in a front-page story announcing that the Tribune will start running ads on its front page. Hoyt, like most journalists, thinks that's a real bad idea.

But Hoyt couldn't get his name in the paper for the life of him six months ago, when CJR ran an editorial urging Tribune to get out of the newspaper business entirely because it "isn't doing much public good."

America's leading journal of journalism accused Chicago's largest media company of doing no public good, and not one word about it appeared in a Tribune publication.

What emerges in this little contradiction is a telling glimpse of Tribune ethics. If Tribune putting ads on the front page is newsworthy enough to quote Hoyt, then certainly Tribune doing no public good is NEWSWORTHY ENOUGH TO QUOTE HOYT.

Apparently there's an upper ceiling to newsworthiness, too. That last item was perhaps just a little too newsworthy for the tender eyes of Chicagoans. So your Tribune withheld it from you.

Yet More Reasons A Newspaper Shouldn't...

... own a baseball team. In today's Tribune, business reporter Michael Oneal, who covers Tribune for the Tribune, reveals a new potential buyer of the Cubs:

The family that founded discount broker TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. has joined the list of potential bidders for the Chicago Cubs, the Tribune has learned.

Note: "the Tribune has learned" is reporter code language, feigning modesty while actually meaning, "hot diggity dog we gotta scoop!" Oneal goes on:

Sources close to the situation said the Ricketts family of Omaha and Chicago has signed a non-disclosure agreement with Cubs owner Tribune Co. and is readying the application Major League Baseball requires of all parties wishing to bid on one of its franchises.

You see the problem already, don't you. In the first paragraph, the Tribune discloses the new buyer. In the second paragraph, we learn the new buyer has a non-disclosure agreement with the Tribune.

When confronted with this sort of contradiction, Tribune reporters and editors gather in Les Nessman's office and insist there is no contradiction because, they sigh exasperatedly, Tribune and the Tribune are different. And if you believe that load of Indiana farm-fresh fertilizer, we've got a baseball team to sell you for a billion dollars.

A storied franchise, to be exact

Later in his story, Oneal refers to his precious (billion-dollar) Cubbies as one of baseball's "most storied franchises."

That they are. They are the most storied because the Tribune has written far more stories about them than any other baseball team. Even during the two seasons when the White Sox owned first place wire-to-wire, won a World Series and defended it, the Tribune published 1,400 more stories mentioning its storied Cubbies. Read all about it, if you haven't already, here.


Thanks to Lone Ranger for assisting with this post.

Tribune Promotes 'Los Cubs' Nationwide

If you happen to be a Spanish speaker living in South Florida, you might find yourself wondering why you're reading a regular feature in your local newspaper, El Sentinel, called "Know Your Cubs."

The Tribune's new weekly feature Conoce a Tus Cubs is not only appearing as editorial content in Hoy, the Tribune-owned Spanish daily in Chicago, and simultaneously as promotional content at the Cubs' Spanish website, it's also appearing in Tribune-owned newspapers and websites from sea to shining sea. Click the images to the right to see Conoces a Tus Cubs in El Sentinel of South Florida and at the homepage shared by the Hoy newspapers in Los Angeles and New York. (Tribune sold Hoy Nueva York yesterday, so expect that newspaper to excuse itself from this sleazy affair when it changes hands).

This should erase any doubts anyone has ever had about the Tribune's willingness to exploit its editorial resources to promote its financial interests. The Cubs are for sale. A higher profile among Latino fans nationwide certainly won't hurt the price.

Hoy Chicago Editor Alejandro Escalona has not returned a message we left him, but reporter Jose Luis Sanchez told us that Hoy is working to have a similar feature for the White Sox. Sanchez did not respond when we asked him when work on the Sox series would actually begun. If it ever does, will the Tribune promote the White Sox in New York, Los Angeles, and South Florida? We're looking forward to seeing that.

Some of you may be wondering, why shouldn't the Tribune be able to use editorial space to promote a baseball team it owns? Here's why:

"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.." -- the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics

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.

Sam Puts His Feet Up

There appears to be some question whether Sam Zell has the requisite arrogance, the uniform of the Tribune company man:

Zell tells plans for Tribune

By David Greising, Tribune chief business correspondent

In his first full day as the prospective buyer of Tribune Co., real estate investor Sam Zell looked around the stately office of legendary Tribune figure Col. Robert R. McCormick and signaled that a new era is at hand.

"I think this would be a good place to park my motorcycle," Zell said.

McCormick is the white-collar criminal that Nelson Algren lampoons in Chicago, City on the Make as "the Only-One-on-Earth, the inventor of modern warfare, our very own dime-store Napoleon, Colonel McGooseneck." I think Algren and Zell might get along okay.

The Tribune tends to portray McCormick as some kind of hero, and of course he is a hero to those who profit from compromising journalistic principle. McCormick was the master, and he solidified that grand tradition at Tribune. We hope Zell ends it. And uses McCormick's office as a motorcycle garage. It's already greasy from the Colonel's palms.


Amazing Cubs Inflation!

One year ago Forbes valued the Cubs at $448 million, citing as the primary factor the team's ownership of Wrigley Field without debt. Suddenly the local papers are putting the Cubs at $1 billion, and it doesn't seem to matter whether the crumbling real estate goes with the team or not. Here's the recent history of the amazing Cubs inflation phenomenon (and please read the footnotes):

April 16, 2006 (Forbes): $448 million
November 2006 (Tribune): $600 million*
March 30, 2007 (Crain's): $600 million**
April 2, 2007 (Tribune): $500-$650 million
April 3, 2007 (Crain's): $1 billion***

Damn. We should have bought in when it was only $448 million. Or could there be a little irrational exuberance at work here? We'll find out.

* Tribune began throwing this number around in November without naming its source.
** March 30, 2007 figure attributed to "a serious study" with "econometric rigor" by Anderson Economic Group.
*** April 3, 2007 figure attributed to Marc Ganis, a Chicago-based sports industry consultant. The number is repeated, but unattributed, in the Daily Southtown.

Sox Partner Buys Cubune, Slices Off Cub- Part

This does not feel like Konerko's grand slam or Podsednik's walk off in Game Two of the World Series. It feels more like something from the days of Richie Zisk, Chet Lemon, Dick Allen, something from the long era when the stars rarely aligned for us in a universe profoundly maligned against us. It feels like one of those rare moments when a grainy image on Channel 44 made you leap up from the couch in your parent's living room or when you pulled your car to the side of the road to catch every nuance of the broadcast voice of Bob Elson or Harry Caray (before the Tribune bought Harry's soul). This feels like the kind of rare victory we only knew at Old Comiskey, back in the day when we were so used to losing that the thought of a championship was nothing more than a pang of foolish hope.

But it's happening: The Tribune Company, just bought last night by White Sox minor partner Sam Zell, is selling the Cubs.

But let's not uncork the champagne quite yet. This isn't the fall of Berlin; it's only the landing at Normandy. The Tribune has stocked its staff — particularly its sports staff — with Cubs fans and filled the heads of its reporters and editors with a strange world view in which they actually seem to believe that "everybody loves the Cubs" and nobody sees their bias. It's hard to imagine the mentality inside the Tower changing as soon as the team is sold. Indeed, once they're liberated from an easily documented financial association with the Cubs, many inside the Tower will undoubtedly feel free to let their bias fly (like an L flag). Someone has to change the corrupt thinking inside that newspaper — a new editor with old-fashioned scruples. Dennis Fitzsimmons, Ann Marie Lipinski, everyone who presided over this culture of corruption, really ought to go.

Zell is buying Tribune with the help of an Employee Stock Ownership Plan, which means the reporters and editors who work for Tribune media will become even more invested in Tribune assets than they already are, and with the Cubs expected to sell as early as October, they stand to profit personally and profoundly from the season that opens today.

The Tribune has still never mentioned Sam Zell's partnership with the White Sox nor his longstanding friendship with Jerry Reinsdorf. Strange, no? Maybe they thought no one would notice. Because a man who wears a Sox cap just walked into the Tower, sat down at the biggest desk, and kicked the Cubs out the back door.

A Slight Acquaintance with Ethics

Today New York Times theater critic Ben Brantley discloses in a review that he knows Joan Didion, the author whose memoir and life inspired the play Brantley is reviewing.

Brantley writes, "For the record I have a slight social acquaintance with Ms. Didion." A slight social acquaintance. At moments like these I can't help but think of our own small-town rag, The Chicago Tribune, which printed an 8,000-word series about a Field Museum project without disclosing that managing editor James O'Shea was married to the Field Museum's publicist, or that president of Tribune publishing Jack Fuller was dating a Field Museum scientist featured in the series.

The Tribune is Dirty. It's as dirty as an El station elevator. I don't know how they can still deny it. The evidence is overwhelming. We object to this sort of thing routinely on this page, because it happens so often with the Cubs. The examples are preserved in print for ethicists to study in the Tribune autopsies of the future:

Tribune Architecture Critic Blair Kamin writing an absurdly saccharine review of the new bleachers at Wrigley Field — without disclosing that he is directly invested in that building, not just as an employee of the company that owns it, but as a stockholder. (Because Tribune employees receive Tribune stock in their benefits).

Tribune Business Correspondent David W. Greising writing that the White Sox aren't as "big" as the Cubs just days after the Sox won the World Series — without disclosing that he is directly invested in the baseball market, not just as an employee of the company that owns the Cubs, but as a stockholder.

Chicago Magazine Editor Richard Babcock steering tourists to Wrigley Field in the magazine's tourism edition — but wait, there's more — and steering those who can't get a ticket to his own office building, the Tribune Store in the Tribune Tower, to buy a Cubs cap to wear while watching the game on television (on WGN, no doubt) — without disclosing that he is directly invested in the Cubs, not just as an employee of the company that owns them, but as a stockholder.

"But wait!" the suits are howling, in their joint offices in the Tribune Tower, "Chicago Magazine is different from the Chicago Tribune!"

If only it were. It's all one big ethically-compromised monolith of mediocrity. Consider:

WGN reporter Muriel Clair producing a "news" segment about Careerbuilder's new ad campaign right before the campaign's Super Bowl debut, without disclosing that both WGN and Careerbuilder are owned by the Tribune Company, meaning that Clair is invested in Careerbuilder, not just as an employee of the company that owns it, but as a stockholder. The unethical report was then repeated on Tribune-owned CLTV and embedded on the front page of chicagotribune.com. It's all one big ethically-compromised monolith of mediocrity.

Dirtier than the doormat it lands on.

Tribune Preaches Ethics in LA

A Los Angeles Times editor resigned today after Times Publisher David Hiller — a former publisher of the Chicago Tribune — cancelled a planned special section because of an apparent conflict of interest. You can read the details about the whole messy LA divorce here. What we find fascinating, in particular, is Hiller's sudden discovery of ethics, and specifically, of ethical concerns about conflict of interest. There is something truly startling about hearing these words come out of the mouth of a Tribune executive:

"The problem with conflicts is, how do you know" what someone's motivation was, Hiller told the gathering of the newspaper's managers. "It might appear that something might not be quite right."

Excuse us for being flabbergasted.

The problem with conflicts is, how do you know what someone's motivation was? Indeed. How do we know the Tribune fairly covers the Cubs, a team it owns, and fairly covers the White Sox, who compete in the same market?

How do we know that Tribune reporters, who are directly invested in the Cubs through the Tribune stock in their benefits packages, fairly cover the Cubs and fairly cover the White Sox, who compete in the same market?

It might appear that something is not quite right when, for example, the Tribune prints 1,400 more stories mentioning the Cubs during the two regular seasons that the White Sox won and defended a World Series.

It might appear that something is not quite right when the Tribune enhances the color in photographs of the Cubs and diminishes the color in photographs of the White Sox.

It might appear that something is not quite right when the Tribune declares, the day after 1.75 million people celebrate the White Sox on the streets of Chicago, that the Cubs are still "biggest."

It might appear that something is not quite right when the Tribune declares, as the White Sox pass the Cubs in popularity polls, that the Cubs are still "the most lovable" team in Chicago.

But this isn't just about baseball. How do we know what someone's motivation was when the Tribune and WGN collaborate on stories promoting Tribune-owned Careerbuilder's new advertising campaign and declare, in those stories, that Careerbuilder is "the largest" job-search site?

How do we know what someone's motivation was when the Tribune gives front-page coverage to sexual assaults in Wrigleyville, home of its chosen people, and ignores them on the South Side?

How do we know what someone's motivation was? We don't know.

By the example Hiller has just established in Los Angeles, the Chicago Tribune ought to be cancelled, and its staff ought to resign. And that should have happened a long time ago, when Hiller was still publisher here. But it didn't happen. Nor was the Tribune cleaned up, so that the people of Chicago can have confidence in its journalism. Not only does the Tribune routinely indulge in conflict of interest here, it openly exploits its conflicts of interest, and it doesn't even try to meet the minimum ethical standard by declaring its conflicts in print.

I think this is called hypocrisy.

Attorney General Monitoring Tribune

In January, the Columbia Journalism Review urged Tribune to get out of the newspaper business because its newspapers "aren't doing much public good." Now the Illinois Attorney General is monitoring the McCormick-Tribune Foundation because of worries that Tribune executives may be compromising the foundation's obligation to the public good.

In both cases, major watchdog institutions cast doubt upon Tribune's fidelity to its public obligations, and in both cases the Chicago Tribune has withheld these facts from the public by ignoring the story. What does that tell you about the newspaper's devotion to the public good?

The latest revelations appeared in the March 5 issue of Crain's Chicago Business. We won't repeat all the details here, since they are so cogently presented there, but here's a quick summary:

The McCormick-Tribune Foundation invests its assets almost entirely in Tribune stock, making it Tribune's second largest shareholder, which lets Tribune executives wave it around as a major chip in battles with the Chandler family and other parties. But because the foundation is invested almost entirely in Tribune stock, it is overexposed to the fortunes of that stock. The foundation lost about half of its value, about $1 billion, from 2003-2005, according to Crain's. During the same period, the S&P 500 Index rose about 13 percent. According to Crain's:

Foundations with more diversified investments have fared much better. For example, the Chicago-based John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation's assets climbed by nearly $1 billion during the two-year period ended in 2005 when McCormick's were declining by nearly $1 billion. The MacArthur Foundation posted an 18% investment return last year, boosting its assets to more than $6 billion.

As the McCormick-Tribune's fortunes have dwindled, so have its charitable contributions. So as Tribune stock declines, Chicago suffers, too. And that's just fine, apparently, with Tribune.

Notice the pattern: the foundation takes the shape of a charity but violates the best practices of charities to promote the financial agenda of the Tribune Company. The Chicago Tribune takes the appearance of a newspaper but violates the best practices of American newspapers to promote the financial agenda of the Tribune Company.

This is what we mean when we say Cubune: Whether it adopts the shape of a newspaper, a television station, a radio station, a magazine, a charity, a baseball team, Tribune acts in its own self interest — public good, public trust, and ethics be damned.

The Attorney General's Office is confirming what we wrote in January.

Tribune Continues to Charm Los Angeles

Tribune is sitting on a powderkeg of anger in Los Angeles and, it turns out, playing with matches. The Tribune-owned Los Angeles Times is receiving another dose of angry letters and subscription cancellations after a Tribune executive implied that Times readers don't care about national and internationl news during an interview broadcast Tuesday on Frontline. A representative of the capital firm that is Tribune's fifth largest investor, Charles Bobrinskoy, said the LA Times doesn't need foreign bureaus to cater to its audience:

They've decided that they have to be a national newspaper with international coverage. They've got over 20 foreign bureaus, including bureaus in Istanbul and Cairo. Nobody is reading the L.A. Times wanting to find out what's happening in Istanbul, so it's critical that the L.A. Times figure out what it is, which is a provider of local news about what's going on in Southern California.

Below you'll find a sampling of letters to the editor printed in today's Times. These are just the few letters the Times saw fit to print. There are more comments in forums on the Frontline site.

Tuesday night on PBS' "Frontline," the Tribune Co. is reported as directing the focus of the Los Angeles Times toward local news. The company apparently feels that The Times should no longer aim to be a leader in national and international news. What it fails to realize is that Los Angeles is not just another city. We are a world-leading city and are not willing to put up with the backwater status that Chicago has always felt we deserve.

Yes, we want good local coverage. But we are better than relying on other news sources for information about our world and nation. The direction of the Tribune Co. is insulting and further evidence it should sell the paper to someone who cares about it.

PHIL HOSKINS
West Hollywood

•
On "Frontline," a man from a management company that owns a great deal of Tribune stock said people in Los Angeles aren't concerned about world events; that L.A. is concerned about style and fashion and culture and sports and where to find a really good sushi bar, and that that's where the L.A. Times should focus its energies.

The world's a really scary place. Please keep feeding us, the vapid masses from L.A., more mindless crap. Put Paris Hilton on the front page and stay away from places like Walter Reed hospital, the Middle East and Africa because, according to the gentleman from the management company, some other news organizations are already covering the world.

MICHAEL SACHS
Los Angeles

•
I have just watched "Frontline" on KCET on the problems of journalism in our country, with an in-depth section on the L.A. Times. I was filled with deep anger and resentment at what has happened to our newspaper. I feel personally offended at the Wall Street gentleman telling me that I want to read only local news or news of the entertainment industry. I am shocked and can think of nothing but canceling my subscription to The Times.

LUBA FISCHER
Los Angeles

•
The people of a great city want and deserve a great newspaper that will deliver the world to their doorstep, while delivering their own distinctive voice to the world. We can get local news from plenty of other sources.

Why should I have to buy the New York Times in addition to the Los Angeles Times in order to feel like I am getting the big picture?

The problem with that man from the management company is that he sees Los Angeles as a small town that only cares about style and entertainment. He seems to think that the citizens of Los Angeles don't have any interest in the world beyond our own borders. He doesn't understand what it means to our city to have a newspaper of national importance. The Tribune Co.'s pursuit of short-term profits has nearly ruined our newspaper.

MICHAEL GASTALDO
Santa Monica

•
It is a shame that you are turning this world-class paper into a shell of itself. How much profit is enough? Stop the downsizing and maybe I'll renew my subscription.

WILLIAM TURCHYN II
Los Angeles

Some Good News and Some Bad News

First the good news: According to the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times — both of which cover the Tribune better than the Tribune covers the Tribune — it now appears likely that the Tribune will split its broadcast division away from its newspaper division and sell the broadcast arm to someone else.

According to the LA Times, the Chicago Cubs are part of the broadcast division.

That could mean a newspaper free of its unethical alliance with a baseball team, as well as a break in the newspaper-tv-radio media monopoly that smothers Chicago with mediocrity.

Chances are a new owner for WGN won't be much more colorful or imaginative than Tribune, but at least it will be someone other than Tribune.

Now the bad news: Under this scenario, WGN's unethical alliance with the Cubs would continue, and we really have no assurance that anything substantive would change. After 25 years of collusion between the Tribune and Cubs, can we really expect the newsroom culture to change? Not without a purge. Old habits die hard, and we're talking about a group of people fanatically committed to publicly promoting their strange attitudes as reality.

We would rather see the whole corporation split apart, purged of its unethical tendencies, and rebuilt under new ownership. But that scenario looks unlikely now, and we'll take what we can get.

Also, we can't be certain the Cubs will go with the broadcast stations. The New York Times seems to be under the impression that even if the broadcast division is split off from the newspaper division, the Cubs will go with the newspapers. That's probably because the profitable Cubs could help offset the shrinking value of the newspapers. Yep, dupes and drunks in Wrigleyville, now subsizing "journalism."

White Sox Partner Expresses Interest in Tribune

The Chicago Tribune reported yesterday on Chicago real estate mogul Samuel Zell's interest in purchasing a portion of the troubled Tribune Company. It did not mention, however, that Zell is a friend of Jerry Reinsdorf and a partner with Reinsdorf in several ventures, including the Chicago White Sox and Chicago Bulls. The Tribune-owned LA Times did mention the connection.

Considering that Tribune owns the Cubs, we would think Zell's partnership in the White Sox would be newsworthy, but the Tribune views the news through some curious filters.

We suppose it would be a fitting kind of justice if a Sox partner bought some Tribune, with the Cubs as an expensive little accessory. It would be particularly nice to see Zell leverage his interest to bust apart the media monopoly, sell off the television and radio stations, split off the Cubs, and re-dedicate the Chicago Tribune to clean journalism. It's a tall order in Chicago, but it's just the sort of thing champions can do.

By the way, Zell is rolling in dough. He just sold his real estate conglomerate for $23 billion, an estimated $1 billion of which reportedly will go to him alone. Reinsdorf was also a director and shareholder in that venture. The LA Times published a colorful portrait of Zell, also better than the Tribune coverage. Here's how it starts:

He's about 5 feet 5 and has a bald dome and a beard like an Amish farmer. He revels in the nickname he gave himself years ago: "the Grave Dancer."

At 65, Chicagoan Samuel Zell is still apt to arrive at a cocktail party by motorcycle and walk in wearing bluejeans and a Chicago Bears jersey. He thinks like an economist but can talk like a dockworker. He has vacation homes on the beach in Malibu and on the slopes in Sun Valley, Idaho, where people say he skis like a maniac. He's also a paintball fanatic who Forbes says is worth $4.5 billion....

Zell, the son of Polish-Jewish World War II refugees, is all about buying at the bottom. He's the Grave Dancer because of his history of snapping up distressed properties — assets so out of favor nobody else would look at them. He specializes in real estate but has owned companies in a variety of industries over the years, including Schwinn Bicycle Co. and Chicago's Midway Airlines. One Zell acquaintance joked that there would be a conflict of interest if he got involved with Tribune because he also holds a minority stake in the Cubs' cross-town rival, the Chicago White Sox.

Tribune Toots a Lonely Horn

This much is certain: if the Tribune doesn't toot it's own horn, no one else will.

The Chicago Tribune is disregarded by most people in its own city and despised by many. It's distrusted nationwide. Its management has been urged out of the newspaper business by the leading journal of the newspaper business. Its business model of journalistic compromise and advertorial synergy has led the whole Tribune corporation to the guillotine, and yet it continues to receive lavish praise from a single source: the Chicago Tribune.

The latest dose comes from Tribune correspondent Charles Madigan, a good company man who wrote this about his officemates in their Tribune Tower cub-icles: "They are great colleagues and very serious about journalism.... The Tribune is an info-pimp free zone, from its snappy bloggers to boring old me."

Very serious about journalism? Did someone say they weren't? The Tribune whitewashed the Columbia Journalism Review's editorial indictment of the Tribune. The nation's leading newspaper journal called for Chicago's largest media corporation to get out of the newspaper business, and Chicago's largest newspaper printed not a word about it. Pretended it never happened. But from quotes like Madigan's, we can see that some in the tower do read CJR, and it makes them a little insecure.

"Info-pimp" is Madigan's term for "people who pick up questionable things and present them as real." Is the Tribune really an info-pimp free zone? Let's see:

1. Tribune repeats Tribune-owned Careerbuilder's advertising slogan -- "the nation's largest online job site" -- in the lede of a news story without scrutinizing or explaining what it means by "largest." The story does not mention that in reality, far more people use Monster.com. Largeness: Questionable thing presented as real.

2. Similarly, Tribune declares Tribune-owned Cubs are still Chicago's biggest baseball team, with no substantiation... the day after 1.75 million White Sox fans appear on the streets of Chicago. Have you ever seen more than 1.75 million Cubs fans? Bigness: Questionable thing presented as real.

3. Tribune sportswriter David Haugh writes that the Cubs are Chicago's most lovable baseball team... while reporting on a popularity poll that shows the White Sox and Cubs in a statistical dead heat. The Sox have since passed the Cubs in that poll. Lovability: Questionable thing presented as real.

4. Tribune reports that the White Sox will not re-sign Mark Buerhle, then invents a controversy when that report turns out to be false. Williams-Buerhle controversy: Questionable thing presented as real.

5. Tribune values Tribune-owned Cubs at $600 million without attribution, ignoring a more widely-circulated Forbes valuation of $450 million. Tribune reporters also forget to mention the Tribune stock in their benefits package. $600 million: Questionable thing presented as real.

To mention just a few.

As Madigan says, "It's better to hang with people who at least have a passion about checking things out." So I guess we should subscribe to The New York Times.

Beleagured Tribune Lashes Out at Internet

Madigan's column closely resembles a Jan. 27 Tribune editorial. Madigan compares reading the Tribune to sleeping with someone you know (if only it were that enjoyable), while the less-sexy editorial asks, "Do you know who's giving you your news?"

The editorial assumes we know who's giving us our news when we read the Tribune, as if the Tower is full of old friends who often meet us for lunch rather than arrogant suits who routinely ignore public concerns about their dubious investments and ethical compromises.

Both the editorial and Madigan's column were inspired by the heinous false report about Barack Obama's education that first appeared in Insight, a Washington Times-owned internet magazine. Since Insight appears on the internet, Madigan and the rest of the editorial board seized the opportunity to malign all new media with a broad brush and assert the reliability of mainstream print media like, um, themselves. From the editorial:

It also is a sign of the growing indifference Internet "journalism" presents on the question of truth. Rumor is good enough. Bibles of blogging are created based on nothing more than rumor.

But Insight and Tribune have a lot in common: both are conservative publications that advance a self-serving political and economic agenda, compromise ethics, pick up questionable things and present them as real. And while Insight appears on the internet, it is published by a print newspaper much like the Tribune. So maybe paper vs. pixels isn't the real issue.

And while the Tribune excoriates bloggers and other pixelated sources of information, former Tribune managing editor James O'Shea is trying to move the Tribune-owned LA Times to the Internet. According to the LA Times, "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."

It's all so discordant, isn't it? A bunker mentality is bad... except when the bunker looks like a tower. Bloggers are bad... except for those "snappy" Tribune bloggers. Lying to readers is bad... except when the Tribune does it.

We think the tooters need to work on their harmony.

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.

Tribune to Old and Poor: Get Lost

The mission statement for Redeye actually admits the paper is for young rich professionals. So if you're old or poor or working class, your eyes are unfit for their paper, apparently. Here is Redeye's official mission statement:

RedEye is Chicago's free daily newspaper that provides a concise and authentic take on news, sports, entertainment and social buzz. RedEye, an edition of the Chicago Tribune, has become the leading vehicle in Chicago for advertisers wanting to reach young, urban professionals who are short on time and long on disposable income.

This is a fine example of Tribune's celebrated "synergies" between advertising and editorial, which have been slammed by both the Columbia Journalism Review and the American Journalism Review for compromising journalistic integrity. No self-respecting journalist would write a mission statement that targets a specific advertising demographic, but then, Tribune journalism isn't really about self-respect, it's more about another kind of self-love. This kind:

The Joke's on You, Tribune

Last week's season premiere of American Idol helped us all feel superior by mocking mentally disabled, autistic, or obese people trying to sing while we all sat bravely in our armchairs. Redeye readers got to relive the thrill during next morning's commute with a back-page splash describing the performers as "a parade of oddballs" and featuring an enormous picture of performer Darwin Reedy.

Thanks for the recap, Tribune, but when we think of those who are deluded about their own talents while everyone else is appalled, it's hard not to think of Tribune itself.

At moments like this, it also becomes easy to imagine Rupert Murdoch, the broadcaster of American Idol, taking a chunk of Tribune. The "synergies" are already there.

Redeye isn't the problem. Redeye is just a window into Tribune's soul. Redeye, like baseball, provides an obvious handle on Tribune's preference for its chosen people — the young, urban professionals, typical of Wrigleyville, who are short on time and long on disposable income — and Tribune's bias against Chicago's poor, her old, the subcultures of the West Side and the South Side, the White Sox and their fans, anyone it can't sell as part of its idealized Chicago advertising demographic. Isn't that just the problem with you, Sox fans? Aren't you just a little too discriminating with your dollars? If you want to be a part of Tribune's Chicago, you'd better get shorter on time and longer on disposable income. And you'd better spend that time and income at Tribune-owned Wrigley Field.

Tribune Calls Kettle Black

The Tribune criticized City Hall in an editorial Sunday. Here's why that criticism failed.

We need a free press that keeps its nose clean so it can serve as an effective watchdog of government and business. Someone at the Tribune must have known this — once upon a time — because someone wrote it into their ethics policy:

Credibility is an indispensable asset of the Chicago Tribune Company ("Tribune"), as it is of any serious newspaper. To insure that our credibility is not damaged, editorial staff members have a special responsibility to avoid conflicts of interest or any activity that would compromise their journalistic integrity.

Notice that this ethics policy makes no distinction between the Tribune Company and the Tribune newspaper. Notice the current status of the Tribune Company's credibility. And notice that the Chicago Tribune neither follows its own ethics policy nor follows its own advice to City Hall:

In a Sunday editorial the Tribune criticized the city "for shrugging off an internal watchdog's recommendation." But the Tribune routinely disregarded the very few recommendations ever made by the watchdog it used to keep around, apparently only for appearances, former public editor N. Don Wycliff.

In a column on Aug. 18, 2005, Wycliff wrote that the Tribune's policy is to disclose its conflict of interest in all but routine game coverage of the Cubs: "The newspaper's policy is to explicitly mention its connection with Tribune Co. or a subsidiary 'when relevant.' As a practical matter, 'when relevant' means in almost any story except routine game coverage of the Cubs."

The Tribune ignored him.

In another column just three months later, on Nov. 17, 2005, Wycliff again criticized Tribune reporters for failing to disclose their conflict of interest when covering the Cubs: "The story failed to mention that the Cubs and the Tribune are siblings in Tribune Co. How many times must we be reminded of the need to err on the side of openness in acknowledging those relationships?"

The Tribune ignored him. It continues to ignore him.

Certainly the Tribune's coverage of the Cubs is only the most obvious handle of much larger ethical problems crippling the Tribune. The newspaper abuses its position just as much as any City Hall boss to promote assets like the Cubs, Careerbuilder and Wrigley Field, but no Tribune public editor has ever been willing to take a serious look at the dire ethical issues afflicting that newspaper, and it took months of imploring just to get Wycliff to take the tiny stand that he finally took when it comes to coverage of the Cubs. A tiny stand but a righteous stand, and the Tribune ignored him.

Now the Tribune is deeply immersed in very hot water not just for its ownership of the Cubs, but for the greater business strategy behind that dubious alliance — the "synergies" Tribune offers its advertisers between editorial, advertising, and content, synergies that no one outside of the tower wants to touch, synergies that have done nothing but damage the Tribune's credibility and destroy its journalistic integrity.

In its Sunday editorial, the Tribune tries to teach City Hall about integrity: "The message we'd like to see broadcast at City Hall is this: If you defraud the city and endanger the public, you'll lose your job. But that's a little too straightforward, apparently."

It's a little too straightforward for Tribune too, apparently. Instead of a pink slip, CEO Dennis Fitzsimmons is still taking home an $11 million paycheck after defrauding Chicago (and Los Angeles and Hartford, etc) of a decent newspaper while simultaneously depriving Tribune shareholders of billions in equity. That's two strikes. How did the Cubs do last year?

Here's what Tribune told City Hall on Sunday: "The city says it's sending a message to its employees. The real message: If you're politically connected and you defraud the city, you'll still get paid."

It's easy to blame the mayor for corruption at City Hall, but that blame also rests on local newspapers that squander their credibility for profit and fail in their vigilance of other institutions because they can't even keep their own noses clean.

"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.

Venerable? No. But Verifiably Vilified

The Chicago Tribune's Jan. 18 coverage of the bidding for Tribune Company differed from everyone else's coverage in one obvious way — only the Tribune complimented itself:

The deadline for Tribune Co.'s four-month effort to find a buyer came and went Wednesday, producing few clear options and leaving the fate of the venerable Chicago media conglomerate still up for grabs.

Venerable? According to the Oxford American Dictionary, venerable means "respected, venerated, revered, honored, esteemed, hallowed, august, distinguished, eminent, great, grand." If you do say so yourselves. In fact, Tribune is being auctioned to the highest bidder because it is considered anything but venerable. It's been hated in Chicago, despised in Los Angeles, detested in Hartford, and told to get out of journalism by journalists. Vilified seems the more appropriate adjective. Let's try again:

The deadline for Tribune Co.'s four-month effort to find a buyer came and went Wednesday, producing few clear options and leaving the fate of the vilified Chicago media conglomerate still up for grabs.

There we go. The question is... do the writers of this story, Michael Oneal and Phil Rosenthal, really aspire to be ad copy writers when they grow up? or have they been drinking the kool-aid in the Tribune Tower water kooler so long that they actually believe themselves to be venerable? or are they just trying to boost the venerable Tribune stock they picked up in their venerable benefits package? or do they think they can actually fool readers by slipping the wrong adjective into their alphabet soup?

Since Rosenthal, who fancies himself a media columnist, didn't even cover the CJR story this month, and since the word "venerable" tries to efface that whole controversy, we're betting they're out to fool readers.

Tribune's Flaccid Reply to CJR

Some ladder-climbing suit in the tower has crafted a thoroughly bureaucratic response to the Columbia Journalism Review's indictment of the Tribune, a response so phlegmatic, predictable, and tiresome that almost no one has bothered to comment upon it (except Miami media critic Bob Norman, who called it "rather lame"). And I tell you, it wasn't fun reading for us either. It reads like Fred Mitchell on Xanax. But we downed another pot of coffee in the public interest, and waded diligently through the doublespeak. Here's what we find notable:

The suit goes by the name of Gerould W. Kern. He may have been a reporter once but now the etching on his brass nameplate says "vice president for editorial," which is exactly the kind of title you get when you sign a contract in your own blood and hand it to a guy with a pointy red tail.

Gerould offers very little evidence to defend Tribune from CJR's charge that the company's resources "aren't doing much public good." He lists five stories that Tribune newspapers have published that he says represent public-interest journalism. It hardly matters what the stories are. What matters is the number: five.

Last time we checked, Tribune owned 11-15 daily newspapers (depending on what you consider to be a newspaper. Redeye, for example?), 23 television stations, two news syndicates, one radio station, at least one magazine, a last-place baseball team, and a whole bunch of other crap, and Gerould thinks he can prove it's all doing public good by mentioning five stories? I'm not very old but I remember a day when ALL newspaper stories were supposed to contribute to the public good. In other words, there ought to be five of them on the front page of the Tribune every day.

Gerould, being well versed in what matters most in the tower, also attempts to quantify public good through monetary expenditure. Listen to this: "We spend $400 million annually on our newspaper newsrooms and employ 3,700 journalists, both figures ranking near the top of the industry."

Wow. $400 million. That sounds like a ton of money, right? Well, sure it does until you consider that Tribune just gave $136 million to a single guy, Alfonso Soriano, who runs, catches balls, and swings a stick for a living in toothpaste-blue pajamas with a little cap on his head. Soriano's $17 million annual salary rivals what the Tribune spends annually on some of those newsrooms. It's amazing what a little context does to Gerould's argument.

Gerould also thinks we'll be impressed that Tribune opened a new $10 million media center in Washington D.C. last year. Huh, that must be right around the time that Tribune's new $13.5 million bleachers opened in Chicago. Let's see: $10 million for American democracy, $13.5 million for a bunch of drunks. We see where your priorities are.

Finally, Gerould seems to think it favors Tribune that, "in each of our markets, Tribune puts more journalists on the streets to report on public affairs than anyone else by a wide margin."

Well, what do you think, Sox fans? You're Chicagoans. Would you rather have more Tribune reporters covering Chicago or would you rather have more reporters from some other newspaper?

Yeah, me, too. But we've got no choice in the matter. Tribune puts more reporters on the streets in its "markets" precisely because it considers them to be "markets." It's hotly in pursuit of multi-media monopoly in each. And we're pretty sure it's not chasing monopoly for the public good. We think it might just be chasing monopoly so it can liberate more money from the public wallet through its vile "synergies" between editorial and advertising and between television and newspapers.

Gerould really steps in his own poubelle with that comment - "in each of our markets" - because that's precisely the attitude that CJR wants to see banished from journalism. CJR calls for Tribune suits to be replaced by new newspaper owners who "will be citizens who understand that those dailies are not mere pieces of an economic puzzle but great living institutions rooted in the lives of their cities."

Cities, Gerould, not markets. Cities.

It's sad really. Because somewhere inside Gerould is a shriveled remnant of a young reporter who must have had a facility for sentences and an aspiration to do public good. Because that's what journalists are made of. But like so many who smell the money in that dark tower, the little fella took a terribly wrong turn.

Or a right turn, if it's really just all about the money.

Sportswriters Bored During Games

There are many reasons why the wall between Tribune and The Tribune is a fictitious wall, not the least of which involves the Tribune stock in the benefits package that The Tribune reporters receive in return for their souls. In today's Tribune, columnist Phil Rogers confesses to checking his stock prices while sitting in the press box during games. Just what you want in a sportswriter.

Tribune Staff Hides in Les Nessman's Office

Chicago Tribune employees apparently have convinced themselves that a Columbia Journalism Review editorial calling for the Tribune to get out of the newspaper business because it isn't "doing much public good" does not apply to them. Cubune Watcher Patrick Sheehan tells us Tribune staffers have told him the CJR editorial only applies to "Tribune" and not to "The Tribune."

Patrick wonders if there's tape on the floor in the Tribune Tower where Tribune ends and The Tribune begins, because we can't help but think of Les Nessman, news anchor for WKRP in Cincinatti. According to Wikipedia: "Before approaching (Nessman's) desk, one has to 'knock' on the nonexistent door, attached to the nonexistent walls of the nonexistent office he feels he deserves; those who don't face his ineffectual wrath."

There are many reasons why the wall between Tribune and The Tribune is a fictitious wall, not the least of which involves the Tribune stock in the benefits package that The Tribune reporters receive in return for their souls. In today's Tribune, columnist Phil Rogers confesses to checking his stock prices while sitting in the press box during games. Just what you want in a sportswriter.

There's also that question of "public good." If Tribune isn't doing much public good, doesn't it necessarily follow that The Tribune isn't either? After all, were Tribune to do some public good it would have to do so through institutions it owns, like The Tribune, that interact with the public.

And then there's this: when Tribune fired LA Times editor Dean Baquet, they replaced him with Chicago Tribune managing editor James O'Shea. Notice: Tribune sends Chicago Tribune editor to Los Angeles as an agent for the suppression of journalism.

That's not all. When Tribune fired LA Times publisher Jeffrey Johnson, they replaced him with former Chicago Tribune publisher David Hiller. Tribune sends Chicago Tribune publisher to Los Angeles as an agent for the suppression of journalism.

Ken Reich, a retired 39-year LA Times reporter who blogs on this catastrophe, doesn't see any wall between O'Shea, Hiller, and Tribune CEO Dennis Fitzsimmons. He refers to the three of them as the "axis of stupidity." If there's obviously no wall in Los Angeles, do you really expect us to believe there's a wall in Chicago? I guess so.

So let's just make this perfectly clear: if you walk from one end of the axis of stupidity to the other, you'd better knock on the invisible door in the invisible wall that's somewhere in between.

CJR Calls for Tribune to Quit Journalism

The Columbia Journalism Review is the nation's leading journal covering the Fourth Estate. In its editorial this month, CJR calls upon Tribune to get out of the newspaper business:

Tribune has great resources, but those resources aren’t doing much public good. The company seems less than the sum of its parts. And so, like Rumsfeld, it should go. We’ll take our chances with the gaggle of billionaires who are lining up to buy those newspapers. Some of them may turn out to be pirates (see Santa Barbara). But others will be citizens who understand that those dailies are not mere pieces of an economic puzzle but great living institutions rooted in the lives of their cities.

This is no small kick in the chops. In a profession with no institutionalized accountability, CJR has emerged as journalism's leading voice, moderate and serious, anything but radical. This is equivalent to the Chronicle of Higher Education calling for the closure of a university on the grounds that it no longer serves its students. Think how low a university would have to sink for that to happen: that's how low Tribune has sunk in the world of journalism.

CJR mentions the Tribune's failed strategy to "use its print-TV overlaps to create editorial and advertising synergies." That's reporter code language for the kind of sleaze we've been telling you about. And the endless grievances of White Sox fans prove that even and especially in Chicago the Tribune has failed to be "a great living institution rooted in the life of its city."

Happy New Year, Sox fans. May we end 2007 with another trophy and a newspaper in our city that greets our championship with sincere celebration rather than token celebration that soon turns to envy and denial. And may we begin 2008 with a reformed Tribune or no Tribune. Either will do.