Chicago Trib Readers: Advice, please.

(I posted this in GD the other day and was advised to cross-post here. Link at the bottom for earlier replies.)

I've been reading the Trib for almost 4 decades. First my folks subscribed, then I would pick up a copy at college pretty much most days, then I subscribed myself after college, taking it through four apartments and my house. I majored in journalism so I was well aware of the history of the paper and it's political leanings so I could weigh that into it's op-ed and news coverage. It's been a really good big city paper and I've gotten attached to it. I also got a big kick from writing LTTEs and knowing they'd be read all over the world.

But I think I'm going to drop it.

For some years it seemed like they'd largely laid Colonel McCormack to rest and played things slightly right of center. Lately, though, their editorial policies seem to have taken such a hard turn to the extreme right that they are willing even to sacrifice intellectual honesty.

The first time this hit me in the face was their endorsement of Bush in 2004. Not that I would expect them to endorse Kerry (taking a pass was my best hope), but those of you who read the endorsement might remember how the writer carefully documented all Bush's failings then somehow did an about face in the last couple paragraphs and twisted himself in a pretzel to go for Bush. It was stunning.

Since then I've noticed they load up on the uberconservative columnists like Krauthammer-- the Monday op ed section is unreadable and doesn't get much better later in the week. Most recently they've run this "what we knew then and now" series* about the leadup to the Iraq war that twisted reality in the very first paragraphs and buried uncomfortable facts so horribly that I've crumbled up the paper and tossed it across the room on several occasions. Then this past Tuesday they ran an editorial about the Patriot Act that completely misrepresented 'sneak and peek', implying that there is an obligation at any time to notify the invaded of the invasion.

Am I nuts? Has anyone else noticed the depths to which the Trib has sunk? I really hate to switch to the Sun-Times (I already take the Herald but frankly you can read that on a bathroom break) but I think I'm going to have a stroke if I don't!


*On edit, I'd like to add that I thought it was reprehensible for them to have run the "what we knew then and now" series on the op-ed pages while makikng it look like an investigative piece.

Earlier replies from GD here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5709895

times a week. Not now.
I even canceled my online Times and threw out my trib password.
Republicans = Liars.
If I want lies and shitty coverage, I can make 'em up much more cheaply.

i read it for many years. the bush endorsement was a big one, but the failure to really report on the contest of the ohio electoral votes was the last straw. i did hang on for a few months after that, but...
the one that really sticks in my craw is dennis byrnes. his abortion/breast cancer link crusade is just plain sick.
i'll go read the other thread, and be reminded of the cavalcade of outrage.

the trib bills them in such a way as to make them seem like guest columnists when in reality they're contributing so regularly you know they're on the payroll.

is on the editorial board. :puke:

The only reason we get a copy at the train station is so my wife can work the Sudoku puzzle.

Otherwise, it's trash.

Took me a year to remember 'etui' is a pincushion and 'els' is some golfer.

wasn't fit for toilet paper. It was funny when Dan Quayle called them liberal. I thought they might be lightening up and a number of people switched to them when they picked up Royko and others. I've always found Clarence Page interesting. I wonder, since the LA Trib is moving right and the neo-con strangle hold on the Sun Times is facing legal problems, if they are tightening the screws to pick up readers. They are Corporate so they are inclined to lean toward this Fascist regime as long as they are the beneficiaries. The Aurora Beacon had seemed to be moving to a fairer reporting style but suddenly switched back to their old ways. It could be pressure from advertisers who are only interested in promoting Corporatism also.

My Grandmother was an extreme conservative and back in the late 70's when she was living with my immediate family I (in my late teens) made a comment at the table how you couldn't tell where the Trib was politically as easily as you once could. I only meant that their conservative leanings weren't as obvious as they used to be and it made it harder to decipher their editorials. She interpreted it as a lament against the "liberal media" and got me my first Trib subscription.

Scary old broad.

I think I share your suspicions that the Trib is making a run to the right to shore up its subscription base. Seems like a dumb move to me but few of the changes they've made the last few years seem to have possibly reflected what the readers would want.

not about subscribers, it is about advertisers.

after years of reading the Des Moines Register. I had no idea the Trib was such a piece of crap. I've stopped my subscription. I now get national news and editorials from the Register online (free! And I paid for it in hard copy for all those years!!).

But I told them if they delivered it to me for free I would read it. They need circulation so that offer looked good enough to them to deliver it on Sundays. I told them that I wouldn't pay them because I didn't want to encourage them. My wife laughs when I go to the front door to pick it up every Sunday.

Wycliffe responded to my e-mails to him about their censorship of Boondocks. He was snotty. That was the last straw for me.

Screw the Tribune. You don't need them. Go to Google news on any given day and find dozens of papers, both domestic and international, reporting on news stories.

If everyone who gets pissed off at the Tribune's right-wing editorial content would cancel their subscription their big fat bottom line corporate ass would get the whipping it deserves from their advertisers.

You want to know how they keep us around? They throw us a bone with Molly Ivin's column and three or four liberal comic strips.

I can get all that on line to.

Save a tree. Cancel the Tribune.

They endorsed him but when you read it they couldn't find a damn thing good to say about him, other than he was already prez for 4 years. They still have Clarence Page and S.Chapman as columnists. They should have kept Bill Neikirk in his old position in business as he was pretty straightforward about trashing bad corporation and business moves. Also they are pretty good about printing letters opposing Bush, the war, etc. I don't like the Sun-Times. Yes I have noticed the right turn the Trib took a while back

The hardest part for me was that I couldn't fathom giving up the feel of the newspaper in my hands and the way reading the news online just didn't have the same sensory pleasure at first. Though I was increasingly disgusted with the Trib I had a hard time getting over the mental hump.

But it was easier than I thought once I made the decision to cancel the daily and just go to Sundays. Now that I'm comfortable with the electronic format, I can't imagine going back to one newspaper/day. I love, love to scan several papers online and rejoice that I'm not killing trees to just read 3 articles in the NYT, then 2 articles in the Guardian etc.

My family and I love to sit around the living room on Sunday mornings and read the paper, do the crossword, laugh together at the comics. I can't see giving up Sundays - not because I love the content - we just love the experience of getting the paper on Sundays.

I read the Tribune when I can, and always look at the site in the morning, but the Sun-Times is a little better on local news,
but to be honest, if I want to read non-local news, I'll look at the WSJ or one of the other 'national' papers.

None of the papers is that great on local news, and that's what I'd rather have in a
Chicago paper.

Case in point: the church that burned down this Friday. Unfortunately it happened
right before the weekend, so we won't be getting lots of coverage about this story.

my local paper and then other papers on line and I think that gives me a good feel for what's really happening. I think (but maybe I am wrong)I can read through the biases in various new sources. The one thing the Sun Times does better than the Trib is that it tends to concentrate on city council members more than the Trib. There may be other things the Sun Times is better at, but I don't know what it is...I just don't read it often at all...like less than ten times a year

They are all filthy republican rags. They are schills on the payroll of the repugnant party or the publishers and editors are being blackmailed to report the lies the repugnant put out.

If I want to read the news I buy a NY Times if I MUST but normally I get my news from trusted LIBERAL NEWS outlets. News stories in those ass wipe papers are slanted one way and ignore the truth. We have gone back to 1898, newspapers provided the major source of news in America. At this time, it was common practice for a newspaper to report the editor's interpretation of the news rather than objective journalism. With this sort of influence, the newspapers wielded much political power.

GET RID OF THE TRIBUNE - SEND THEM A MESSAGE. YOU WON'T PUT UP WITH YELLOW JOURNALISM!