The Tower Is Crumbling: What the Decline and Fall of the Chicago Tribune and the Shattering of Local Media Means – New City

"The problem we’re facing now is that we’re losing the common conversation that binds us as a society...But the weaker our journalistic institutions become, and the greater the diversity of news providers, the more likely we’ll find that we have nothing in common anymore. And that is dangerous for democracy."
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rick1099
5 years ago

It seems to me that the article by New City is taking the well worn path of failed news outlets that have one goal, bash conservatives, bash Republicans, bash Trump while informing (?) the public about what courage reporters of fair and unbiased news they have on their staff.

Dr Nemo
5 years ago

If the Trib had not told us for 30 years how lucky we were to have a smart politician like Mike Madigan running our home state, while failing to report during those same years anything about his tax abatement racket, I might have mourned its fall In its current iteration, it can’t be gone soon enough. Hard to conclude that its pattern of reporting the good and concealing the bad deeds of its favorites was due to incompetent reporting rather than biased editing. I am willing to concede that it may have been both.

American Eagle
5 years ago

It was quite a long article that started with some good history. Then it got very muddy. Let me summarize it for those who don’t have the time to read it. “Waaah, waaah, waaah. Journalists can do no wrong. Owners are bad. Orange man is bad. Waaah, waaah, waaah.” I used to love the Trib, I even delivered it as a kid on an early morning paper route. Too bad it became a rag with only one view which has been hammered into it’s dwindling readership every day. You can’t ignore half of your potential customers and survive.

Last edited 5 years ago by American Eagle
debtsor
5 years ago

Sometime over the last two decades, the Tribune took a hard left in a progressively left City. But unfortunately, the majority of people still willing to pay for a subscription – mostly older conservatives – abandoned the Tribune a long time ago. I stopped daily delivery nearly two decades ago and I stopped Sunday delivery in the run up to Trump because they were so biased. They keep shooting themselves in the foot. My local reporter for my suburb, who publishes in trib, is a freaking communist, who writes most of her articles with a social justice angle, and at… Read more »

DixonSyder
5 years ago
Reply to  debtsor

I have fondly referred to it for 20 yrs as The Fibune

CTC alum
5 years ago

I don’t think you could have found a worse take on why the Chicago Tribune crumbled than what New City has surmised . A promising article that not only veered into the ditch but for good measure crossed the center line and ended up in the ditch on the other side of the road. Good grief based on this take they should have buried the hollowed out husk about 20 years ago.

Chicago Tribune Company RIP

A Freedom Center alum

Admin
5 years ago
Reply to  CTC alum

Agreed.

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