Mixed message on urban violence

Call it the advantage of multiple news organizations reporting happenings – we get a more-thorough picture of reality.

Or perhaps it is the concept of dueling news organizations – with the various sides unable to agree on what they want the message to be. Which still results in a greater picture of what is occurring within our society.

THOUGHTS THAT RUN through my mind as I peruse reports by the Chicago Sun-Times and WBBM-TV – both of which purport to be about the levels of violent crime and murder that are occurring in Chicago.

With some individuals of a certain ideological leaning eager to want to believe that the city of Chicago is amongst the grubbiest, grossest, most violent places that exist within the United States – if not anywhere on Planet Earth.

Which is a gross exaggeration, although there are certain neighborhoods where the levels of violence seem so intense that we have to wonder how we as a people could ever have let conditions get so out of hand in those places. Although many of us choose to cope with such conditions by ignoring such places altogether.

The Sun-Times took the angle in a story published Monday that this very weekend that marks the half-way point through 2019 is yet another of a bloody morass that is modern-day Chicago.

THE HEADLINE ALONE says it all – 56 shot – 4 fatally – in Chicago over weekend.

With a subhead pointing out one incident alone on Saturday where five people were shot on the Near West Side, although in that incident, it should be noted that all five individuals were able to get themselves to area hospitals where they were ‘treated and released’ for their wounds.

Bloodshed galore. It’s a wonder we don’t have Donald Trump engaging in yet another Twitter-motivated rant about how gory Chicago has become.

But then, there was the CBS-operated station in Chicago, which came out with a story the same morning indicating the number of shootings in Chicago are down for 2019 – compared to the past.

ALTHOUGH WBBM-TV INDICATED that this was a particularly harsh weekend of violence in Chicago, overall, it seems there are signs of improvement.

Some 1,229 shootings in Chicago through Sunday – about 100 less than the first half of 2018 and lower than any year since 2015.

Also, we have 236 murders in Chicago thus far this year – which the TV reports indicate is 21 less than the fist half of last year.

And certainly might put Chicago at about 260 or so slayings for this year – if things continue at this rate. Far less than the recent years when the homicide totals reached 700 or more (or the late 1980s when Chicago would easily come close to 1,000 murders annually.

SO WAS THIS Chicago Police Department spin control in trying to give us a bigger picture about the amount of violence and crime occurring in Chicago? Or is it ideological prattle to come up with tales of how bloody and out-of-control the city was on this past weekend?

Or is it really evidence that “facts” can be found to justify any point of view one wants to take on just about any issue.

Personally, I’m inclined to think that some people use the story of urban violence in such ways as to confirm whatever ideological hang-ups they have about life and our society – wanting to further lambast whomever or whatever they have contempt for.

Then again, to those four people who were killed this weekend prior to Independence Day in Chicago this year, it WAS a most-tragic period of time – a moment that their families will forevermore mourn for its great loss!

  -30-

It almost sounds like a writer’s dream – living off past rounds of copy

A part of me wonders if Mike Royko, the late columnist for just about every newspaper that existed in Chicago, has the ultimate fantasy assignment.

He hasn’t had the pressure of meeting a deadline in just over two decades – yet the two remaining metro papers in this city seem eager to dredge up his old columns (some 30-plus years worth of copy) and use them to fill the space they’re so desperately eager to create around the declining number of advertisements.

IT KIND OF threw me off for a second when I saw the editorial pages of the Chicago Tribune on Sunday included a Royko column amongst their choice commentary.

They dredged up a column from the 1980s (back in the days when George Bush, the elder was president) where Royko used his aging Slats Grobnik persona to mock Republicans for trying to be holier than thou and make it appear as though God himself is the ultimate member of the Grand Old Party.

I’d say they were trying to make Jesus out to be the ultimate Republican. But in today’s day, there are many Jesuses of a Latino ethnic persuasion whom the hard core of the Republican Party are looking for excuses to deport.

Meanwhile, the Chicago Sun-Times continued its trend of the past couple of months and published an old Royko column on Monday – but only online.

PEOPLE READING SUNTIMES.com could see an even older column from the 1960s where Royko told the tale of how big, corporate-minded businesses were squeezing the little guy out of work.

Specifically, he told of a one-time neighborhood cleaners where the woman who owned and operated it all by herself had to work extra-long hours, but eagerly did so to meet the desires of her customers.

Which, Royko claimed, was something that the new, modern cleaners in the neighborhood would never bother to do.

But they were able to justify charging a slightly cheaper price (you save perhaps a nickel) for their services, gambling that people would be so eager to save any money that they’d accept the lesser personal service and lack of a personal touch.

MUCH HAS BEEN made by the Sun-Times of how they’re dredging through their archives for Royko copy (both from when he wrote for the Sun-Times proper and also when he was a focal point of the old Chicago Daily News) out of the concept that what he said about issues way back when has an eerie relevance to modern times.

I’m sure the Tribune thinks the same thing. Although I also noticed that the Royko column published in the Sunday paper included a tag at the end informing the reader how the Tribune’s book publishing wing is coming out with a new book soon – one that compiles several of the Royko columns he wrote during the 17 years he was with the Chicago Tribune.

That book will be available for purchase come mid-August, and I’m sure somebody thinks (or at least desperately hopes) that somebody reading the column in the paper will choose to buy the book.

Personally, I don’t know that I feel the need to rush right out and buy a copy – largely because I actually own all six of the compilations of newspaper columns that Royko had published when he was actually alive.

I ALSO HAVE a hard-cover first edition of “Boss,” the biography he wrote of Richard J. Daley back when “Hizzoner” himself was still alive.

That book is one I have quoted from on occasion in this very weblog when trying to tell the history of Chicago politics. It may be the best piece of writing ever about our city’s political scene (although Milton J. Rakove’s “We Don’t Want Nobody Nobody Sent” has the best title ever).

You’ve got to admit, for a guy who hasn’t written a word since 1997 (he died a month after writing his final column for the Tribune), it’s impressive the staying power that the man’s copy has. Although I’m sure there are some snot-nosed brats out there reading this who are going to be taking a sense of pride in saying, “Royko? Never heard of him!”

All I know is that I seriously doubt anybody will be dredging up anything I (or 99 percent of the rest of the populace that tries to claim themselves to be writers for a living) ever wrote some two decades after my own eventual demise.

  -30-

Dueling thoughts on Blagojevich; how will they differ on Ill. Governor?

Call it one of the perks for people who enjoy the read of newspapers that compete with each other – we in Chicago now have rival thoughts for what should become of our state’s former governor who is half-way through serving a 14-year prison term.

Blagojevich, from back in the days when being governor was fun. Photo provided by state of Illinois

The fate of Rod Blagojevich, whose case has worked its way through the appeal process all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States, is now in the hands of President Donald Trump – who implied earlier this week he’d be inclined to consider some form of clemency.

THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE – the newspaper that was so opposed to the concept of a “President Donald Trump” that they endorsed a Libertarian candidate for president – came out this week with an editorial stance saying (in essence) “Hell, No!”

They literally wrote in an editorial urging Trump to back off the issue, “We have…concluded that the sentence he earned not only is fair. It’s fair warning to other criminal pols in Illinois, the State of Corruption.”

Yet the Chicago Sun-Times, the newspaper that proclaims itself to be that of the workingman and was solidly behind Hillary Clinton’s unsuccessful presidential bid of 2016, came out with an editorial stance headlined, “Trump schemes aside, Blagojevich deserves shorter sentence.”

The newspaper that at one time called itself, “The Bright One” says that having Trump commute the Blagojevich sentence to time already served would essentially mean the one-time governor would have lost the past six-and-a-half years of his life to federal incarceration.

WHICH IT SAYS is fair in that it would mean Rod would have done about the same amount of prison time as former Gov. George Ryan got for his criminal convictions dating back to actions he committed as an Illinois secretary of state.

Each newspaper has managed to take an opposing stance on the same issue, which I’m sure is part of their efforts to differentiate themselves from each other – and from other newspapers in existence.

It’s part of what gives a publication its sense of personality, and what will be lost if those people all eager to dump the printed-on-paper word for ramblings published on the Internet (including this very weblog) wind up seeing their vision prevailing in the not-so-distant future.

And yes, it will stir up resentment among many. Since I don’t doubt there are people so unsympathetic to Rod Blagojevich that they want him to suffer – and don’t particularly care that the sentence he is now serving (scheduled for release sometime during 2024) might be a tad too long.

ALL I KNOW is that if the two remaining metro daily papers in Chicago can get this worked up over Blagojevich’s future, I’m anxious to see how they wind up weighing in on the upcoming gubernatorial elections coming Nov. 6.

Back during the primary, the Tribune was the paper that found its way to endorse Gov. Bruce Rauner in the Republican Party primary over Jeanne Ives, while picking Christopher Kennedy’s failed bid for governor over that of ultimate winner J.B. Pritzker.

Their editorials made it rather clear they didn’t think much of the idea of a “Governor Pritzker” and that they were buying into much of the line of logic that Rauner presents that he needs ideological allies to do what he wants (particularly on issues related to organized labor) if Illinois is to improve.

While the Sun-Times backed Pritzker’s primary bid in ways that made it clear they don’t have a problem with him being governor – particularly if it means that Rauner winds up out on his keister come Inauguration Day in January 2019.

HOW VOCIFEROUS WILL the editorial rhetoric become?

Will we have to make the editorial pages a “must-read” in coming months? Will we have to snicker at those people who insist on saying they “don’t read” editorials, because it shows they don’t know what they’re missing?

Will the biggest loss to our city’s local news scene on that future date when there are no more dueling newspapers be that we have a lone editorial voice pompously trying to tell us what to think?

Because by reading the editorials these days, it’s quite clear there’s only one thought overwhelmingly held by all of us – nobody (and I mean nobody) wants Rod Blagojevich back in any form of electoral office!

  -30-

Blank pages = blank minds, but will that sway anybody to subscribe?

The Chicago Sun-Times on Monday tried to make a huge, sweeping statement – one of those “moments of awe” meant to inspire a deep thought within us.

Were you swayed?

They published a newspaper with a blank front page. It’s supposed to be symbolic of the quality of information we’d get if there were no newspapers being published at all.

AS IN THERE would be no stories whatsoever if we didn’t have newspapers with their staffs to actually report them. So, we’re supposed to conclude, we need to do whatever is necessary to ensure the continued survival of newspapers.

Of course, this grand statement is part of a larger gimmick. The Sun-Times’ website (at www.chicago.suntimes.com) wants to alter itself so that people can no longer just go there and expect to get the full content of the newspaper unless they have some sort of subscription.

They’d probably like it if people would take the full package that gives them a copy of the daily paper, along with full access to the website. Although they’ll also be happy if people take the digital access, by which people pay a lesser fee for the right to read anything on the website that they wish.

According to the Sun-Times’ own promotional copy, it is such a low subscription rate to do that. It amounts to “less than 25 cents a day.”

WHICH IS MY mind is a magic number of sorts – I’m old enough to remember back to when daily newspapers in Chicago cost a quarter each. That 25 cents would get you the whole paper back then, along with all the advertising supplements that were stuffed in it that supposedly had such value in-and-of-themselves that you’d save money far beyond the quarter you shelled out.

Did you "read all about it" on Waffle House?

Perhaps you can make an older generation feel like the price is returning to the golden days of old, rather than the current cost of $1 per day that a Sun-Times costs (or $2 on Sunday, but with the physical product scaled back to the point where it doesn’t have the “feel” of a traditional Sunday edition).

But a part of me is skeptical the message will take.

I have often wondered if it is going to take the outright demise of several newspapers and the loss of their content before people realize just how serious the loss will be.

I KNOW TOO many people who are foolish enough to think that television broadcasts or the Internet have somehow replaced newspapers in terms of providing information. They really haven’t.

Because if you take a serious look at the content those entities are providing, all too often they remain nothing more than retransmissions of what was first in the local paper.

The local TV news is just following up on the stories that were already in the paper, and the assorted websites are merely publishing the newspaper stories – or more accurately rewriting them in ways to try to make them appear to be their own content.

The original source

I got a subtle reminder of that fact in a story I wrote last week for the Post-Tribune newspaper of Northwest Indiana. Improvements that the Gary South Shore RailCats baseball team will have made to their stadium. Or, to be more honest, improvements that Gary municipal government will make for the ball club.

A WEBSITE, BALLPARK Digest, which covers the professional sports industry, did its own story. Which, if you read it realistically, was just a cheap rewrite of what I had did. At least they were honest enough to attribute the work to the Post-Tribune.

This kind of rewrite is all-too-common. Which is why I find it laughable when people say they don’t read the Sun-Times or Tribune anymore. But then you learn they’re getting those papers’ stories off assorted websites.

I don’t know what the future of the news-gathering business is, to tell you the truth. Only that I fear many of us are going to be a lot-less-well-informed because of the changes.

And by then, it will be far too late to do anything about it.

  -30-

Ever-changing scene that is Chicago

This is most definitely a scene from Chicago’s past.

Chicago's appearance is ever-changing. Photograph by Chuckman's Chicago Nostalgia

This particular photograph depicts what used to be in terms of the proximity of our city’s newspapers being published so close to each other.

THE PHOTOGRAPH SHOWS the old Field Enterprises building that housed the Chicago Sun-Times until they sold it off about a decade ago to Donald Trump – who erected that ugly tower that looms over downtown Chicago in an ominous fashion.

Which is particularly notable because people used to become amateur architectural critics in bashing about the old Sun-Times building (it looked like a barge or garbage scowl, they’d say).

It seems Trump has come up with something even more despised in appearance than the old Sun-Times building.

To the right, just the other side of the Wrigley Building that Frank Sinatra made reference to in his unofficial city anthem, “My Kind of Town, Chicago Is,” is the Tribune Tower.

THAT EDIFICE ERECTED back in the mid-1920s from which Col. Robert R. McCormick ruled his newspaper empire and his vision that “Chicagoland” (stretching from Detroit to Kansas City) was a unique version of our nation that made far more sense than anything occurring on any coastal point of the United States.

Tribune's new home come '18. Photos by Gregory Tejeda

It used to be from these points about one block apart along the Chicago River that our city’s two major newspapers (and as you can see from this particular photograph, the Chicago Daily News was part of the mix as well) did their part to help create the character of our city – for better or for worse.

Soon, it’s only going to be a memory that either newspaper was ever in such a prominent place along the riverfront.

The Sun-Times, of course, moved a few blocks west along the river several years ago to the building that was the annex to the Merchandise Mart. Even that building is becoming history.

THIS WEEKEND IS when the newspaper is leaving the location for a site in the West Loop. At 30. N. Racine Ave., they’ll be out of downtown altogether.

What will become of Alamo, Comiskey Park bricks?

While the Chicago Tribune reported Friday that they, too, are leaving a riverfront site. As part of the many actions of corporate restructuring, they sold their nearly century-old building to a Los Angeles developer who envisions turning the tower on Michigan Avenue into retail and luxury residences.

The newspaper confirmed they’ll be moving sometime early in 2018.

They will be relocating to the Prudential Building – which may be just a few blocks south of the Tribune Tower on Michigan Avenue. Which could give their newsroom a prime site overlooking the Millennium Park.

BUT I CAN’T help but think that the Chicago River is going to be a little less active with two such prominent residents moving away from their riverfront locations. Even though I understand that riverfront land is so precious and valued from a real estate standing that it probably makes more sense to sell it off and take the money – rather than use it for newsroom space.

One other thing does amuse me about this particular photograph. Notice off in the background that the Hancock Center building is under construction. Which means if one had turned around and looked to the south, the Sears Tower would be non-existent. Chicago’s “twin” towers (only Trump thinks Chicago has three towers, with his building completing the trio) were not yet to be.

Lake St. location won't be the same as Lower Michigan Ave.

I do have one question, though. That is the main site of the famed Billy Goat Tavern, which used to draw a significant share of its business from reporter-type people (I myself have had too many drinks there throughout the years, although it has been a couple since I last ventured to Lower Michigan Avenue) for a “cheezbugga” and a beer) from its proximity between the two newspaper buildings.

Now, that clientele will be gone. Where will they move to, to ensure their future in 21^st Century Chicago?

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EXTRA: Postponing the inevitable?

It’s kind of pleasing to see that the Chicago Sun-Times will continue to exist as a separate entity – and not just some division of the company that gives us the Chicago Tribune.
 

Union paper gives good play to union corruption story?

No matter how much corporate types said they would maintain a separate staff to continue publishing a second newspaper, the reality is that corporate types would ultimately realize that they are better off putting the resources of the company into a single publication.

MEANING IT COULD have meant the death of the Sun-Times in a year or two.

Then again, there’s always the chance that the Chicago Sun-Times will remain an underfunded and understaffed publication that will meet its professional maker in that year or two anyway.

Could this move by which a group of investors led by former Alderman Edwin Eisendrath and which will get much of its funding from organized labor be merely postponing the Sun-Times’ eventual demise? And yes, I find it cute that another financial investor is now-retired Channel 7 news anchor Linda Yu,

Could it be that the only real difference  between this ownership and the proposed tronc, Inc. ownership will be a slightly feistier competing paper to go against the Chicago Tribune in the next couple of years? In which case, maybe it is a good thing in that we’ll get to enjoy a couple more years of a sense of competition in the newsgathering process before the sense of inevitable occurs.

AT THE VERY least, it will be interesting to see the editorial processes of the competing papers as we go through the electoral cycles leading to the Nov. 6, 2018 general election for governor.

 

Tribune downplays failure to buy competition

For the Tribune is making it clear they’re backing the actions of Gov. Bruce Rauner and would be overjoyed if all his “Dump Madigan!” trash talk were to have an impact.

Could the Sun-Times become the Voice of Labor, of sorts, against an official who has made it clear his priority is to undermine organized labor’s impact on our government? The anti-Rauner, which is humorous considering that Rauner himself was once a financial investor in the Wrapports company that no longer owns the newspaper.

Or will the real impact be that there will continue to be a place for comic strips that the Chicago Tribune has deemed unworthy of its own pages. “Sally Forth” and “Arlo and Janis” live on!

  -30-

Is anyone big-enough to handle the ego-trip that is one-time Bright One?

It seems there are people whose egos are bloated enough that they’re willing to come up with cash to take on the financial obligations of publishing the Chicago Sun-Times.

Will Sun-Times columnists become 21st Century take on the "Men from 10" of one-tine Voice of Labor?

The cost is the price of being able to say one is a big-shot and a publisher of a “Major Metro Daily” newspaper in the Second City.

BECAUSE LOOKING AT the various reports about groups and individuals wishing to make a bid to purchase the newspaper, the ego factor seems to be the unifying point.

There’s that old cliché about, “Never Argue With A Man Who Buys Ink By The Barrel.” It seems there are those who think that being “that man” will mean everybody will be forced to listen to their perspectives on issues.

That’s about the only way from a purely objective sense that buying the Chicago Sun-Times makes any sense.

Crain’s Chicago Business reported that the family of billionaire Neil Bluhm is interested in making a bid for the newspaper. Bluhm is one of the wealthiest men in this country, and ranks third most wealthy in Illinois. Which would be interesting considering that the number one most wealthy in this state is Ken Griffin – the man who has been a significant financial backer of Gov. Bruce Rauner.

COULD IT BE Bluhm think he can use the pages of the city’s Number Two paper to challenge the governor? Could he think this is the cheaper route to gain influence rather than running for governor – as is billionaire J.B. Pritzker?

There also was the report by long-time local media writer Robert Feder who said that hedge fund manager Thane Ritchie (who has made past bids for publications such as Newsweek and also was a political supporter of Texas billionaire H. Ross Perot’s third-party political fantasies) is interested in the Sun-Times – along with former 43^rd Ward Alderman Edwin Eisendrath.

Once an alderman, Eisendrath now a publisher?

The one-time Lincoln Park neighborhood representative in the City Council who later served as a Chicago-based administrator for the Department of Housing and Urban Development back during the Bill Clinton presidency thinks that being the boss at the one-time Bright One is the way to get public influence.

Although what catches my eye about his alleged bid is that it’s not his money being put forth. He’s putting together a group that would gain the bulk of its funding from the Chicago Federation of Labor.

Bluth ego big enough for Sun-Times?

CONSIDERING HOW MUCH organized labor opposed Rauner’s bid for governor in 2014 and has been disgusted with how apathetic in its opposition to the governor the Sun-Times has become, I don’t doubt they would want to turn it into a hard-core voice in opposition to the Rauner vision of “reform” for Illinois.

Yes, I could see a younger generation ranting about the “bias” that such a pairing would result in. Although considering how many conservative ideologues are trying to buy their own newsgathering organizations so as to spread their take on issues, perhaps this is merely the other side engaging in similar tactics.

As for the older generations, it could be seen as a return to the world of local media. Since the Chicago Federation of Labor was the one-time, long-time owner of WCFL-AM – which used to openly boast of itself as the “Voice of Labor” just as WGN-AM was the broadcast partner of the alleged “World’s Greatest Newspaper.”

tronc Tower types watching ego maneuvers

Of course, WCFL turned rock ‘n’ roll back in the 1960s and was once a heavy-hitter on the local radio scene. “Super-CFL,” it used to call itself, which inspired Capitol Fax newsletter publisher Rich Miller to joke Monday about the Sun-Times becoming, “Super CS-T, the Voice of Labor!”

BUT THE CHICAGO Federation of Labor has been out of the local media scene since 1978 when they sold the radio station, which has gone through a few changes and has evolved into WMVP, the all-sports talk station at AM 1000.

Is this the return of local labor and its “voice” to the Chicago scene? Or are they likely to get out-bid by one of the other rich guys with egos run amok?

Although I did notice one report hinting that it might not be enough for someone to offer more money, and that the Justice Department’s anti-trust division may well decide to stay with the offer made last month for the Chicago Tribune to take over control of the Sun-Times – considering that Sun-Times management already relies on Tribune resources to print and distribute the physical product.

That might be the “nightmare” scenario for news consumers AND for the Chicago News Guild, both of which want to see a Sun-Times that remains separate of the Chicago Tribune. But whether anyone has a big-enough ego to take on the potential nightmare scenario of actually trying to run the Sun-Times remains to be seen.

  -30-

Who’s to say what becomes of Chicago's one-time 'Bright One'?

Wednesday was supposed to be the day that the corporate entity that owns the Chicago Tribune would be able to finalize a deal to purchase its long-time competitor; the Chicago Sun-Times.

Who knows how long there will be two?

It would have seen the city’s two ayem newspapers combine into one corporate entity, even though there were promises that two separate publications would be maintained at least for the short-term.

BUT THE POINT of not permitting the deal to be immediately approved when it was announced two weeks ago was to allow for any potential buyers to come forth who could keep the one-time “Bright One” as a truly separate and independent entity.

Not that anybody expected to. It seems the tronc, Inc. types who now run the Tribune (coincidentally, the same people who used to operate the Sun-Times) were confident no one would come forth.

As it was, Crain’s Chicago Business came out with a report indicating that owners of the Arlington Heights-based Daily Herald considered a Sun-Times purchase, but backed off. Along with the company that owns suburban daily newspapers in Crystal Lake, Geneva and Joliet, and Gannett – the founder of USA Today and operator of many other daily papers across the country (including in Des Moines, Iowa, Detroit, Indianapolis, Louisville, Ky., and Milwaukee – to name a few).

So who’s going to be crazy enough to want to operate a newspaper whose best days appear to be in the past, and has the drawback of being a Number Two paper in a two-paper town? Most people intrigued enough to buy a newspaper (because they think its newsgathering assets can somehow be used to serve other purposes) would want the Number One paper – or preferably a monopoly operation. Anybody who expects Amazon.com (which owns the Washington Post) to swoop into Chicago for the Sun-Times is being delusional.

BUT NOW, VARIOUS reports are cropping up saying there may be a buyer after all. Although we’re not being told who it could be.

Officials with the Chicago Newspaper Guild are saying they are aware of two entities that are expressing interest in taking over the Chicago Sun-Times. While it seems the Sun-Times chapter of the guild that represents news reporters is making statements saying it would like to see more time beyond Wednesday’s deadline to consider the newspaper’s future.

It’s hard to say whether there’s really someone with interest capable of running a newspaper that would be worth a damn. Or if this is just wishful thinking from people who see the idea of being the junior partner in a two-paper combo as being about as dreadful an outcome that could possibly occur.

It could turn out that we’ll learn by week’s end that there is NO ONE else out there willing to plunk down some token fee to buy the publication.

WHOSE TOTAL PRICE paid may wind up becoming an embarrassment for the Sun-Times; because it could be such a low figure that it would be interpreted as evidence of just how far the ship has sunk!

Of course, I can’t help but remember my former employer, United Press International, which in 1992 was sold for $3.95 million to Middle East Broadcasting Centre. Eight years later, they sold it for nearly $40 million to News World Communications – which operates it these days as an affiliate of the Washington Times and its other right-leaning publications around the globe.

It may be possible that someone could come in, take the carcass of the Sun-Times and figure out a way to dredge some bucks out of its remains. Similar to what billionaire investor Sam Zell intended to do when he bought the Chicago Tribune nearly a decade ago.

Although it’s possible that any new purchaser of the Sun-Times would wind up resembling Zell more than the Saudi royal family that had UPI for a few years a couple of decades ago.

MY POINT IS to say I’m not sure how all of this is going to turn out.

Except for the fact that it’s always a loss whenever a newsgathering organization of any type is diminished. Even for those people who want to believe that the Internet now contains a slew of places where one can find much more information than you ever could in an ink-on-paper medium.

For the reality is there are so many places that rely on the existence of newspapers and their assets to generate the content they publish. Even with the Sun-Times, which remains an entity capable of covering a news story and picking up pieces that otherwise would be missed.

One less newspaper means less content; and the eventual outcome of websites whose business models are predicated on the concept of being able to aggregate copy from elsewhere winding up with nothing but blank space to try to fill our minds.

  -30-

And then, there was one?

I remember as a kid my father used to send me to a local store every Sunday to pick up a newspaper. The Chicago Tribune, always the Tribune.

Unofficial newspaper war grave marker?

I can recall him complaining about other newspapers, and once I remember hearing him muttering "I hate that paper" when a television commercial touting the Chicago Sun-Times came on the air.

YET I ALSO can recall whenever we’d visit my maternal grandparents, I’d get to see copies of the Sun-Times. My grandfather subscribed; my mother throughout her life would pick up and read a copy (until the end when her eyesight became weakened to where she couldn’t read much) whenever she’d get a chance.

When she finally passed on a few years ago, it only seemed appropriate that my brother, Christopher and I, paid to put her death notice in the Sun-Times (which ticked off the editors of the newspaper I was writing for at the time – they would have preferred I paid them to publish the notice).

Now I’m sure none of this is particularly unique. Many of us can tell tales about why we chose whichever news sources we prefer for information about the screwy world in which we live.

But those sources are withering away, one by one, to the point where we may soon be down to the survivor. It seems the Chicago Tribune really will be able to declare itself “the winner!!!” of the Great Chicago Newspaper War. The Last News Rag Standing, so to speak.

NOW I KNOW the Chicago Tribune is claiming that the bid its corporate types is putting in to buy the Chicago Sun-Times is not going to result in the immediate cessation of publishing of the Sun-Times. I read that same Chicago Tribune editorial in which they said they envision publishing two separate newspapers.

They “savor the importance of preserving what metropolitan Chicago now enjoys; thriving competition between two large news organizations that know they serve readers best by trying to outdo each other.” Or so sayeth the Tribune.

I don’t doubt the sincerity of the editorial writer who came up with that line, and the others in the editorial that says there will remain two publications with “independent” editorial voices. It is the wish of many a news consumer, except perhaps for some snotty kid-types who think everything rotates around the Internet and that “news” is the boring content – compared to porn and YouTube videos of kids getting into fights and cutesy kitty cats for the more sensitive amongst us.

Sun-Times tries to explain move to its readership

But I’m skeptical. I can’t help but envision the corporate types who, soon enough, will decide that there are economical efficiencies to combining editorial resources into one “super paper” of sorts – perhaps one whose content can then bolster the on-line products they think will sell better to a younger generation.

IT COULD BE one year, or five or so down the line before Chicago becomes a one-newspaper town – perhaps with a few pages set aside for local news called the “Sun-Times section” of the newspaper to pay homage to the tabloid that for most of its life took pride in being the publication of choice for city-based readers.

It wouldn’t even be a new story for Chicago. Let’s not forget that both the Tribune and Sun-Times once had sister newspapers – in the form of Chicago Today and the Chicago Daily News.

Particularly at the Sun-Times/Daily News combination there was the sense of two newspapers that tried to keep unique identities on everything – until the business-types figured they could be more profitable as one larger Sun-Times rather than two separate publications.

It will be interesting to see how the next few weeks play out – since corporate types have hinted they’d like to have this deal complete by June 1, and are merely waiting for federal regulators to indicate that a Chicago newspaper combo wouldn’t violate anti-trust laws.

IS ANYBODY CRAZY enough to put in a competing bid. Would the federal government in this Age of Trump decide to meddle just to show us all who “the boss” truly is!

And what would a Tribune-owned Sun-Times look like? As things stand, the Sun-Times has for several years been printed at the Tribune-owned plant, and I argue the paper hasn’t really “looked right” (the pages seem “too small”) ever since the Sun-Times gave up control of their physical product.

Will future generations wonder why city newsboxes needed more than one slot?

It leaves a lot of questions and uncertainty, that some people I’m sure won’t concern themselves with. It does make me think of a plaque erected along Michigan Avenue south of Madison Street that pays homage to the various newspapers and wire services (including my one-time employer United Press International) that have existed in Chicago.

Is that destined to be the grave marker for the Chicago newspaper casualties that have rung up throughout the years; completely ignored by the many passersby who walk along Michigan Avenue daily without giving it a moment’s notice.

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EXTRA: Where’s the news?!?

What we saw in the news box

I almost feel like Clara Peller ought to come crawling out of the woodwork to do commercials for the Chicago Tribune – she could be the one bellowing at copies of  the anemic Chicago Sun-Times “Where’s the news?!”

For that would be particularly appropriate on Tuesday, when the “front” page of the newspaper had the “The King’s got a Whopper…” headline along with a giant photo of that ridiculous looking monarch who touts Burger King “food.”

The front page buried behind it

WHEN I FIRST saw that front page, I first thought there was some sort of scandalous story concerning the fast-food chain’s products. Perhaps lame jokes about Chipotle’s mediocre food products were going to become passe, and a new target of gags had come forth.

Then, I saw that the front was actually a four-page wraparound of the REAL newspaper, and that it was totally covered in a Burger King ad – touting the fact that the chain was going to start selling hot dogs.

Lame hot dogs covered in ketchup that have the appearance of those overpriced dogs sold at movie theater concessions stands. Not something I’m the least bit ever anxious to eat.

 

It certainly made the Tribune's front page of stories about mosque hostility, a suburban school district's boundary issues and Donald Trump's latest nonsense (about the Ricketts family) seem downright substantive by comparison.

I REMEMBER THE time when front page advertising was considered truly garish – something for tacky buffoons to engage in because they didn’t have any news product worth promoting.

You'll get a better hot dog here. All photographs by Gregory Tejeda

Now, we have the idea of the advertising being the primary product on the front – and also on Page Three of the actual newspaper, which was another full-page ad touting those Burger King hot dogs.

Somehow, I sense a flop of magnificent proportions coming upon us – while I realize there are people with a palate weak enough to think something like Domino’s pizza is actually a quality product, I just can’t envision anything from a Burger King appealing to anybody beyond the age of six.

With the Sun-Times so solidly touting this new product, how much does its eventual demise take them down?

AND WHILE I realize that the Sun-Times probably charged a significant amount for this four-page advertising wraparound plus a full-page ad in the newspaper proper, this doesn’t exactly make the newspaper the equivalent of a high-priced call girl.

 

Proper hot dog condiments

The Bright One comes across more as a cheap floozy who suckered a drunk into overpaying for said services.

Let’s just hope the newspaper is satisfied with their cash flow – as short-lived as it will be.

And somewhere, Clara Peller is rolling over in her grave – even she wouldn’t get involved in an advertisement this tacky!

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Should “We Are Family” now be the unofficial theme for our newspapers?

I’m not sure what Col. Robert McCormick, the long-time Chicago Tribune publisher famed for imposing his rigid thought process on the newspaper, would think of the latest actions regarding the management of his publication.

On the one hand, it seems that when the great Chicago newspaper war comes to an end in the future, it will be the Chicago Tribune as the “last man standing,” so to speak.

BUT THE TRIBUNE Publishing company that now controls the newspaper has a new majority shareholder – and it’s the guy whose management of the Chicago Sun-Times has turned that publication into the skimpy, scrawny sorry excuse of a newspaper that it has become.

Tribune officials announced Thursday that Michael Ferro will become the new nonexecutive chairman of Tribune Publishing’s governing board. His Merrick Media company now owns nearly 17 percent of Tribune Publishing, and Ferro himself will maintain an ownership share of Wrapports, Inc., the company that operates the Chicago Sun-Times.

Of course, some would argue that since the Tribune already is printing the physical copies of the Sun-Times, there is a tie between the two publications that makes them one.

How long will it become before the kind of copy-sharing that the Sun-Times brought to the suburban publications it used to own (and which it sold to the Tribune late in 2014) comes about between the two major metro dailies.

I REMEMBER THE Tribune’s efforts to create a tabloid format version of itself. Will we eventually get a Sun-Times consisting of Tribune copy, but put together in the smaller page format that always was a plus to people riding on commuter trails.

What would the colonel think?

At least until they figured out that those freebie papers the Tribune publishes cost less out of their pockets!

Now it should be acknowledged that such a merger is speculation on my part. Nobody is talking such talk right now. And Ferro did publicly say his purchase of the stock in Tribune publishing will cause him to cut back on the amount of control he exerts over the Sun-Times.

In theory, it’s not going to be one man running both newspapers. Which is what Col. McCormick himself would have done had he ever had circumstance to buy into the opposition newspaper.

ALTHOUGH IF YOU study your history, you’d realize the reason Marshall Field created the Chicago Sun (and later merged it with the Daily Times) was to create an alternative to the isolationist nonsense that was being spewed on a regular basis by McCormick’s Chicago Tribune.

How much times have changed. What with it now being routine for the idea of competing voices to be considered unnecessary in a city. And don’t give me the nonsense of the Internet creating all kinds of new journalism.

What it often does is merely reapportion the content that’s already out there. People who claim they “Never read a newspaper!” all too often are merely reading the stuff that was originally intended to be read on top of a girdle ad before it gets wrapped around fine china or other precious items before being stuffed into a box prior to Moving Day.

Perhaps we should hear it for Ferro – the guy whose many innovations meant to revive the Sun-Times have failed and has turned it into the shell of the newspaper I once actually used to fantasize about writing for someday.

How long will Tower be company focal point?

BECAUSE NOW HE could claim to be a part-owner of both of the daily newspapers that remain in the Second City proper. And also now has a say over the newspapers throughout the suburban areas that he sold off more than a year ago to come up with some cash to keep the Sun-Times alive for a while longer.

We’re definitely a long way away from the days when the newspapers hired thugs to harass the opposition’s newsboys and, on occasion, drive the competition’s delivery trucks into the Chicago River.

I don’t know how this all will shake out in the end between the two publications.

Although I must admit the thought of seeing the Tribune and Sun-Times turn into the equivalent of step-sisters was an outcome I wouldn’t have dreamed of back when I got into the newsgathering business in the days of Harold Washington.

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