Chicago Sun-Times transportation reporter, Mary Wisieneski, has worked as a journalist in Chicago for over 20 years. She weighs in on the debate.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
The Chicago Tribune and Sun-TImes: Two Pieces in a Much Larger Crisis
Sitting on the train every morning, at least one individual hides behind the broadsheet Chicago Tribune, another holds the tabloid Chicago Sun-Times and, yet another, reads the tabloid Tribune. In addition to these print papers, one individual reads their publication of choice on his Blackberry, another on his tablet device and, yet another, through updates from a downloadable app. The Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times have competitive histories but their situations have many similarities. As print journalism struggles, the newspapers look at how best to keep readership, even if this means combining some resources and changing their appeal.
CHICAGO TRIBUNE: HISTORY
The Chicago Tribune distributed their first edition June 10, 1847, making it the “city’s oldest, most influential newspaper as well as one of the ten largest dailies in the United States.”[i] In the same time period, ten daily Chicago newspapers published in English saturated the market. The Chicago Tribune embraced technology from the beginning, utilizing the telegraph in 1849 before many other newspapers even knew the telegraph’s possible benefits for newsgathering. The paper also relied on wired dispatches during the Civil War. In 1847, the circulation of the first edition was 400 papers, but by the Civil War, the circulation had increased to 53,000 papers.[ii]
In the late nineteenth century, Joseph Medill took over the Tribune, and he embraced technology changes as well. He more importantly saw what readers wanted and “included liberal use of foreign correspondents, political cartoons, household hints for women, market tables, farm and garden reports, and a horse-care column.”[iii] The Tribune was also the first paper to effectively include a weather map in the publication. The turn of the century saw half the Chicago dailies fold, but when Colonel McCormick bought the Tribune in 1912, they saw circulation increase from 230,000 to 650,000 in the following 13 years.[iv] This followed a much larger trend in which a “one-household-to-one-newspaper circulation ratio existed by 1900 that would continue for six decades.”[v]
CHICAGO SUN-TIMES: HISTORY
Less Chicago dailies and increased newspaper readership made room for the Chicago Sun-Times. On February 2, 1948, Marshall Field III combined the weekday versions of the morning daily Sun and the evening tabloid Daily Times. The resulting Sun-Times acted as “the city’s liveliest paper of the time, and years later it would call itself ‘The Bright One.’”[vi] The Sun-Times focused on local news while other papers at the time were looking at national and international issues. The Tribune, however, was looking beyond print and embracing broadcast media at this time. In April 1949, the Tribune, under McCormick, established WGN Television. WGN stands for “World’s Greatest Newspaper,” the Tribune’s original slogan.
POLITICAL VIEWS
The Tribune and the Sun-Times had very different political views during the early to mid-twentieth century. The Daily Times “took a liberal Democratic editorial stance and targeted the working class and mass transit riders with big photographs of commerce and industry.”[vii] After the merger, the Sun-Times made its name as a pro-New Deal publication. The Tribune, under McCormick, however, supported Republicans in editorials and was anti-Roosevelt, anti-New Deal and pro-Senator Joseph McCarthy’s anti-communist witch-hunts. The Tribune’s Republican support continued until the 2004 election.[viii]
TECHNOLOGY CHANGES BEGIN
Despite political differences and a strong competitive rivalry that still exists, “there are many interconnections between the competitors and dynasties of commerce and industry.”[ix] Both newspapers found the need to increase their speed of newsgathering. Beginning in the 1930s, newspapers in Chicago could receive photos from the Associated Press’s Wirephoto in only eight minutes. The Tribune had helped establish this service.[x] Additionally, two-way radios became commonplace, first at the Tribune by 1952 and later at the Sun-Times.[xi] Newspapers increased their speed, but they could not account for the large number of people who moved to the suburbs in the 50s and 60s. Chicago news decreased in importance for those in the suburbs, especially those who drove their cars to work instead of riding the train and, therefore, chose not to take the time to read the paper anymore.
FINANCIAL TROUBLES
Newspapers have had a difficult time targeting a changing audience throughout the years, and the corporate takeover of the industry since the seventies and eighties has not helped. Since 1970, “newspaper circulation began to drop so that by the new millennium, U.S. readers were purchasing half the number of papers consumed per capita in Japan, Sweden, and Finland.”[xii] As circulation declined, newspapers needed to find ways to make up for the lost revenue and hold on to current advertisers. In some cases, this meant making up circulation. In 2004, the Tribune Company and the Sun-Times admitted to inflating circulation numbers. This practice is “viewed as a form of theft from advertisers, since advertising rates are based largely on circulation.”[xiii] The rates, however, are not based solely on circulation. The Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) discovered the Tribune Company's inflation at their Newsday publication and at their Hoy papers. The Sun-Times admitted to their own inflation since a new publisher arrived and spotted the errors.
The inflation of circulation numbers was one early indicator of what was to come for the Tribune and the Sun-Times less than five years later. In December 2008, the Tribune Company under Sam Zell filed for bankruptcy. In March 2009, Sun-Times Media Group filed for bankruptcy as well. These two Chicago papers, however, were not alone. At least 120 papers closed their doors between January 2008 and March 2009.[xiv] A major red flag for these corporations is that at times the “value of stock shares falls below the price of a single daily paper.”[xv] The newspapers still struggle to increase revenue but the Internet is not solely to blame; “the economic collapse and Internet have greatly accentuated and accelerated a process that can be traced back to the 1970s, when corporate ownership and consolidation of newspapers took off.”[xvi]
CHANGES IN CONTENT: BRING ON THE INTERNET
Less Investigation, More Sensation
Since the corporate takeovers in the 1970s, newspapers have seen drastic changes in content, some driven by corporate mandates and others by technology. Sensational journalism using new techniques emerged. For example, in 1977, the Sun-Times purchased, set up and ran a tavern, the Mirage, “to capture government bribery via hidden cameras.”[xvii] This story was a sensational expose. In the 1980s both the Tribune and the Sun-Times, however, shied away from investigative journalism almost entirely.[xviii] When Rupert Murdoch bought the Sun-Times, “narrowed columns left the front page feature a clutter of stories, some insufficiently checked, and a movie star’s birthday was considered newsworthy.”[xix] Advertisements even found a place on the front page alongside news. The Tribune responded to the Sun-Times with equally sensational material and increased their crime and accident coverage to keep up with their competition. Lastly, with an increasing number of women in the business, newspapers saw the eighties as a time to experiment with feature and human-interest stories.
Multimedia Content
At the onset of the twenty-first century, newspapers were well into adding Internet content to their product. Historically, “television stations were always faster to adopt new ways than newspapers.”[xx] Now, newspapers had to figure out the best way of putting their product on the Internet while competing with television stations that already knew how to use multimedia platforms. The reporters were quickly becoming familiar with electronic newsgathering equipment, but newspaper publishers “were slower to add multi-media capabilities.”[xxi]
The approach to the Internet could not be the same as the approach to print. The Internet emphasizes breaking news alerts along with crime and accidents that could be updated periodically, so “by the time you get to the print edition, you want to have all the information you can in order to make a complete story,” more refined than the web edition.[xxii] The print editions kept the analytical coverage that the first newspaper websites lacked. Since the web stories had less analysis, readers saw “a dramatic shortening of stories” since 2001, especially in the Tribune.[xxiii]
A study of the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune and the Portland Oregonian found “news after almost a decade online seems to have split into types, one that continues the older trends toward long journalism, and another that has taken a different (in cases sharp) turn, with aspects that resemble what journalists produced during earlier stages in the content of news.”[xxiv] Accident stories are the most brief. They focus simply on the who, what, when, where and why like earlier newspapers. Even sometimes the why is left out for the sake of space. Political stories, however, are the longest, offering an in-depth analysis at different candidates and issues. They even fill up editorial pages around election time. Although this trend is true for all three newspapers, the New York Times has been the slowest to change. They continue longer, more analytical stories instead of current event reports. The Tribune has a mix of both styles, but their current event stories are tied to previous, current and future events instead of standing alone like in the Portland Oregonian.
A CONTINUOUS NEWS CYCLE
All three papers analyzed received over a quarter of their news stories from wire services. The Times had the largest percentage of wire stories at over 43 percent of all news content. The wire stories give the editors of papers more flexibility since “an editor might find it hard on newsroom relations to reduce a reporter’s story to a brief in print, something much easier to justify with a wire copy.”[xxv] Sun-Times transportation reporter Mary Wisniewski said, “It was easier for me because I came from a wire so to go ahead and throw four inches up on the web, I was used to doing that.” “But for some people,” she added, “they just want to get their 16 inches in and their editors are screaming ‘We need something now!’”[xxvi]
These wire services combined with the Internet pushed for a continuous news cycle, which as we see today sometimes eliminates the time for traditional journalism methods. “With the emergence of the Internet, front page stories become stale by the time they reach the reader,” so many people do not buy the print edition of the newspaper for fear that it already contains “old news.”[xxvii] This explains, in part, the circulation declines in the six-month period ending in March 2010. As online readership increased, the Tribune’s paid weekday circulation dropped 9.8 percent to 452,144. The Sun-Times same figure dropped 13.9 percent to 268,803. Both the Tribune and the Sun-Times had increased newsstand prices for their non-Sunday edition during the past year, which may explain some of the circulation decline. The figures, however, were negative for the industry as a whole, which saw a paid weekday circulation drop of 8.7 percent.[xxviii]
CORPORATIONS CUTTING BACK
The papers are expected to handle more news content with less manpower. Technology has made cuts. Just like copy boys and switchboard operators were pushed out of papers years ago from new technology, staff is being pushed out today. From January 2008 to March 2009, 67 newspapers lost 21,000 jobs from cuts.[xxix] A large portion of these job cuts has come from editorial staffs and foreign correspondents. The Sun-Times does not have any foreign correspondents while the Tribune often utilizes and shares foreign correspondents at other Tribune Company publications. These cuts pained the credibility of newspapers as “by 2003 Chicago papers were doing what had been forbidden a few years before, substituting some of their own reporting with news stolen off the television set.”[xxx]
EXPERIMENTATION
Red Takover
With so much information available, newspapers still need to figure out first what readers want and second what readers will pay for, both in print and online. One corporate experiment with print that appealed to audiences ages 16-34 came in 2002 with the RedEye and Red Streak. Both publications hoped to fill the pages with celebrity updates, short news blurbs, large colorful photos and eye-catching text. Red Streak, published by the Sun-Times, beat the RedEye, published by the Tribune, to the market by one week. Both papers sold for 25 cents at their launch. In 2005, the Tribune, however, began distributing the RedEye for free. They knew they would be operating at a huge loss, but this was part of their plan. Once Red Streak was pushed off the market, advertisers flocked to the RedEye. The RedEye gives a large dose of sensational news with short stories or blurbs on hard news. Critics say that “no wonder young people find mainstream journalism uninviting; it would almost be more frightening if they embraced what passes for news today.”[xxxi] Many young people, however, are embracing this form of news. The RedEye remains a profitable publication, distributing over 250,000 copies every weekday.[xxxii]
Hyperlocal Content
Both the Tribune and the Sun-Times have struggled to find a balance between local, regional, national and international news coverage. In the 50s, newspapers focused on local crimes and accidents. In the 60s, they moved towards regional and national news. In the 70s and 80s, the two papers split; “the Tribune paid increasing attention to the suburbs, the Sun-Times continued serving Chicago from South Side barmaids to North Side independents.”[xxxiii] Now, both papers are placing a new focus on hyperlocal content.[xxxiv] Hyperlocal content focuses on specific communities, whether neighborhoods or suburbs, that do not get adequate coverage in the local paper. Sun-Times Media Group operates the Pioneer Local, which covers hyperlocal stories in the Chicago suburbs. The Tribune launched Triblocal.com in April 2007, which relies “on people who live in these communities to report a significant amount of news.”[xxxv] This idea of citizen journalism leads to people on the ground, covering the events, but not getting paid a salary from the paper. Although citizen journalism may not be as reliable as traditional journalism, in a time of so many cuts, the events would not get coverage if it were not for those nontraditional reporters in the community.
AN UNKNOWN FUTURE
The Tribune and the Sun-Times both provide readers with free online content, but now with smartphones and tablets, newspapers need to figure out what content readers would pay to obtain. According to Sun-Times CEO Jeremy Halbreich, the downloadable apps on many mobile devices do not provide substantial revenue.[xxxvi] He, however, hopes to set up a pay model for the new tablets. In order to get people interested in paying for their newspaper on a mobile device, the product needs to offer something new and innovative to the reader. In the digital age, advertising revenue cannot sustain the publications. The impact of these tablets is still largely unknown though.
The word unknown appears to describe much of the print industry today as a whole. The newspaper industry still employs about 50,000 journalists, but their jobs are rapidly changing and potentially in danger.[xxxvii] The industry has certainly downsized, so “even if newspapers survive, they have precious few resources for actually doing journalism.”[xxxviii] Many cities can no longer sustain two city papers, and the bankruptcy of both the Tribune and the Sun-Times does not look favorable in this current crisis. As of October 18, 2010, the Tribune Company took over all distribution of the Sun-Times. These two huge competitors are now business partners. Many people have differing opinions on which newspaper is better, but Wisniewski says, “We need to have two papers to keep each other honest.”[xxxix]
Wisniewski believes that the crisis of newspapers is in part an American problem, citing Toronto, Ontario, Canada as one city with three thriving, major newspapers.[xl] American newspapers’ struggles today can be blamed in part on media corporations, which “after running journalism into the ground, have determined that news gathering and reporting are not profit-making propositions.”[xli] Instead, newspapers need to publish what is determined as the people’s right to know. Some people, like the article in The Nation, argue government intervention is the only way to save a free press. They say that the current state is not a free press, and “our founders never thought that freedom of the press would belong only to those who could afford the press.”[xlii] Government intervention cannot be equated with censorship, but quite the opposite could be true. The Canadian government spends 16 times more on public media than the United States. Government intervention could be a viable option to keep newsrooms staffed with well-paid journalists and inform the public with the information they need to govern their democracy.
Newspapers have entered into uncharted territory with new technological devices. The industry has seen layoffs and major content shifts before, but the current situation seems to be more critical than in the past. Much of the experimentation by the current corporations has yet to pan out. The next few years will tell if newspapers will cease to exist in the traditional print form.
_________________
NOTES
[i] Mike Conklin. “Chicago Tribune,” Encyclopedia of American Journalism, (New York: Routledge, 2008) 93.
[ii] Conklin 94.
[iii] Conklin 94
[iv] Conklin 94
[v] Ronald Zboray and Mary Saracino Zboray, “Newspaper Readers,” Encyclopedia of American Journalism, (New York: Routledge, 2008) 360.
[vi] Wayne Klatt, Chicago Journalism: A History (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2009) 190.
[vii] Norma Fay Green, “Chicago Sun-Times,” Encyclopedia of American Journalism, (New York: Routledge, 2008) 92.
[viii] Conklin 95.
[ix] Green 92.
[x] Klatt 208.
[xi] Klatt 194.
[xii] Zboray 360.
[xiii] John Morton, “Hyping the Numbers,” American Journalism Review. 26.4 (2004) Communication & Mass Media Complete, EBSCO, Web, 11 Dec. 2010.
[xiv] “Chicago Sun-Times files for bankruptcy,” The CNN Wire, 31 March 2009, 3 Dec. 2010 < http://cnnwire.blogs.cnn.com/2009/03/31/chicago-sun-times-files-for-bankruptcy/>.
[xv] John Nichols and Robert W. McChesney, “The Great Death and Life of Great American Newspapers,” The Nation, 6 April 2009, 28 Nov. 2010, <http://www.thenation.com/article/death-and-life-great-american-newspapers?page=0,0> 1.
[xvi] Nichols and McChesney 3.
[xvii] Green 93.
[xviii] Klatt 244.
[xix] Klatt 249.
[xx] Klatt 271.
[xxi] Kevin Barnhurst, “The Internet and News: Changes in Content on Newspaper Websites,” Conference Papers – International Communications Association (2009) 1-15, Communication & Mass Media Complete, EBSCO, Web, 23 Nov. 2010.
[xxii] Mary Wisieneski, Personal Interview, 3 Dec. 2010.
[xxiii] Barnhurst 10.
[xxiv] Barnhurst 19.
[xxv] Barnhurst 23.
[xxvi] Mary Wisniewski, Personal Interview, 3 Dec. 2010.
[xxvii] Klatt 279.
[xxviii] Phil Rosenthal, “Newspapers, paid print circulation down again, seek new story,” Tower Ticker: The Media Business in Chicago and Beyond, 26 April 2010, 26 Nov. 2010, < http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/towerticker/2010/04/newspapers-paid-print-circulation-down-again-seek-new-story.html>.
[xxix] “Chicago Sun-Times files for Bankruptcy.”
[xxx] Klatt 271.
[xxxi] Nichols and McChesney 3.
[xxxii] Klatt 271.
[xxxiii] Klatt 213-246.
[xxxiv] Tony Hunter, “Media Rewired: Meeting the Challenge of an On Demand, Digital World,” Global Leaders Luncheon, The Executives’ Club of Chicago, Fairmont, Chicago, 22 Sept. 2010.
[xxxv] Kyle Leonard, “Going Hyperlocal at the Chicago Tribune,” Neiman Reports, Neiman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard, 2007, 8 Dec. 2010.
[xxxvi] Jeremy Halbreich, “Media Rewired: Meeting the Challenge of an On Demand, Digital World,” Global Leaders Luncheon, The Executives’ Club of Chicago, Fairmont, Chicago, 22 Sept. 2010.
[xxxvii] Nichols and McChesney 1.
[xxxviii] Nichols and McChesney 1.
[xxxix] Wisniewski.
[xl] Wisniewski.
[xli] Nichols and McChesney 1.
[xlii] Nichols and McChesney 4.
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