Free Republic

APART FROM THE DEATH of a journalist, the saddest story for anyone in the news business--and the one most likely to waste expensive newsprint--is the martyrdom of an editor at the hands of his proprietor. There have been quite a few lately, and with the crisis of the newspaper business, there will be more. The most recent episode involves Dean Baquet, editor of the Los Angeles Times for the past year. Since 2000, the Times has been owned by the Tribune Company of Chicago; and while that merger/acquisition was widely hailed at the time, it came at the height of...

When a reporter for The New York Times Magazine recently asked White House political adviser Karl Rove if President Bush is too closely identified with big business at a time of corporate scandal, Rove began reciting the latest poll findings. "Forty-five percent of the people think Bush's proposals for reforming accounting go too far or are about right," he noted, "versus 39 percent who say they do not go far enough. Now that's compared to 39 percent who said they go too far or are about right a month ago, and 43 who said they do not go far enough."...

Groups of private-equity firms are beginning to wade into the auction for media concern Tribune Co., and likely stand the best hope for a company trying to sell itself amid weak financial results, an uncertain future and a divided board of directors. The company -- with a market capitalization of $8.3 billion -- has asked that bidders submit nonbinding indications of interest by the end of the month, say people familiar with the matter. So far, three main contenders have emerged, these people say. One group consists of Madison Dearborn Partners, Providence Equity Partners and Apollo Management. A second is...

LA MISION, Mexico -- Every weekend, Carmen Tetelboin joins the Baja boom. After work on Fridays, the Los Angeles resident drives four hours across the border to Baja California, where life is so good and living so cheap, it beats the other California, she contends. Owning a condo on the coast, she and her husband are part of an American colony exploding during the past five years along 75 miles of pristine beaches, cliffs and towns south of Tijuana. What's drawing them are oceanfront homes at a fraction of the multimillion-dollar prices on the U.S. side. A native of Chile...

Last Tuesday, Bill O'Reilly was indignant -- as were we all -- over the loss of our two soldiers who were captured and brutally murdered by terrorists in Iraq. So incensed was he that on his Tuesday show he called for stricter and stronger action against these thugs in Iraq. Etc., etc. On Thursday, the Chicago Tribune published a guest commentary by Don Wycliff, associate vice president for news and information for Notre Dame University. Wycliff also teaches "media criticism" for the University, or so his bio line reads. Wycliff took O'Reilly to task for his "intellectual dishonesty" with his...

"Al-Zarqawi was a small-timer who hit the big time in February 2003 when Powell made the case for war in Iraq to the United Nations. Powell identified al-Zarqawi incorrectly, we now know, as a major link between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden"

Illinois voters are blessed with an excellent candidate for state treasurer. No, not Alexi Giannoulias, the Democrat on the ballot. He has some serious issues to explain. They first surfaced March 15 in a Tribune scoop with a striking headline: "Loans to crime figure haunt state treasurer hopeful." Six weeks later, Giannoulias has only made matters worse. The more he tries to wriggle out of fully discussing the millions of dollars in loans his family's Broadway Bank of Chicago gave to a convicted felon, the more questions he raises. Giannoulias, 30, is the senior loan officer and vice president of...

NEW YORK The conservative Chicago Tribune editorial board apparently is fed up with Bush administration's explanations of its involvement in the ever-expanding CIA leak case. In an editorial on Tuesday it declared that Vice President Dick Cheney had "been in his bunker long enough. It's time for him to answer some questions--and not in the friendly venue of Fox News." Instead, he should appear at "an unscripted news conference" where he would take all questions from reporters.

Tribune directly impacted by prohibitions against owning newspapers, broadcasting outlets in same city Addressing a matter of crucial importance to Tribune Co., the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission called on newspaper publishers Tuesday to help his agency revive a push to lift a ban on the ownership of both newspapers and broadcasting outlets in the same city. Chairman Kevin Martin, addressing a gathering of publishers at an annual industry convention in Chicago, said newspaper owners should do more to educate the public about the vast changes that have occurred in the nation's media marketplace since 1975, when the ban...

March 7, 2006 Expect Journalistic Tongues to Loosen By Jack Kelly Journalists will be paying rapt attention when Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman go on trial next month for violation of the Espionage Act of 1917. Mr. Rosen and Mr. Weissman were officials of the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee. They received classified information from Lawrence Franklin, an analyst at the Department of Defense, which they passed on to an Israeli diplomat, and to journalists. They are the first private citizens ever to be prosecuted under the Espionage Act. Mr. Franklin pled guilty Jan. 20th and was sentenced to more than...

LONDON (MarketWatch) -- Media group Tribune Co. (TRB) said fourth-quarter net income fell 38% to $134.4 million, or 43 cents a share, as revenue dipped 4.7% to $1.41 billion. Tribune's profit figures included net charges of 10 cents a share for eliminating 900 positions and closing a printing facility and a net non-operating loss of 4 cents a share. The company said the plant closure and job cuts will result in up to $60 million of annual savings from 2006. Analysts polled by Thomson First Call were expecting earnings of 56 cents a share on revenue of $1.42 billion.

A picture similar to the one below attracted to me to an op-ed by Jon Margolis, who used to write about politics regularly for the Chicago Tribune. Jon's moved on and out-- he lives in Vermont. An author, he wrote this book, The Last Innocent Year: America in 1964 : The Beginning of the "Sixties." Yes, another book about "the Sixties." If it wasn't for a picture of Republican rocker Ted Nugent, would've skipped the article, Tribal America defends right to ignore facts. Free registration may be required. It's a typical, "Man, most Americans (but not me) are dumb" piece....

Sure enough, the holidays brought only a temporary reprieve from the mainstream media's strange and endless fascination with Al Franken, where fluffy coverage is routine. Isn't it more of an affliction for these reporters, like a Frankenflu? And what an especially astounding example of Frankenfluff we have today, coming from the Chicago Tribune's Nina Metz. Get a load of these brutal, probing questions on the contents of his soon-to-be-vacated New York City flat, from "The Truth (and a Joke) About Al Franken's Apartment": .......snip........

CHICAGO The story has ended for Chicago's venerable City News Service. Saturday was the final day of business at the agency that trained generations of journalists and writers and inspired "The Front Page." "I'm sad," said City News Editor Paul Zimbrakos. "What can one say?" The Chicago Tribune, which owned City News since 1999, announced Dec. 1 that it would eliminate the service and its 19 jobs at the end of the year to cut costs and to stop serving up news to the Tribune's online and broadcast competitors. The newspaper said it will replace City News with a 24-hour...

To say that the Chicago Tribune’s front page is coordinated with its editorial page is such a gross understatement. One need only remember the hatchet job of GOP Senatorial candidate Jack Ryan last year. Today, the Tribune’s front page signals an editorial rejection of Justice Samuel Alito for the U.S. Supreme Court. Abortion is the theme of both of the stories in the right-hand two stories.

No, this isn’t about Maureen Dowd or Paul Krugman. That’s too easy. It’s about a story on flooding in New Orleans today (1 September). Here’s the lead: “The 17th Street levee that gave way and led to the flooding of New Orleans was part of an intricate, aging system of barriers and pumps that was so chronically underfinanced that senior regional officials of the Army Corps of Engineers complained about it publicly for years.” The second and third paragraphs say: “Often leading the chorus was Alfred C. Naomi, a senior project manager for the corps... [who] grew particularly frustrated this...

ASSOCIATED PRESS CARBONDALE, Ill. -- Kodee Kennings' story was pure gold. For nearly two years, the motherless 8-year-old spoke and wrote movingly of her struggle to deal with her soldier father being shipped off to fight in Iraq, and Southern Illinois University's student newspaper chronicled her thoughts in its pages. But there was no Kodee Kennings, and the elaborate hoax exposed Friday left The Daily Egyptian embarrassed. "Certainly for us it's a sad day," said Eric Fidler, Daily Egyptian faculty adviser for the past year. "Some good can come from this, but it doesn't help our reputation. All we can...

Published August 17, 2005 Some distant day, when students curl up with their history books to learn about the U.S. invasion of Iraq, they will read about the moment when the tide of public opinion turned. That's the cliche the history book will use: "The tide of public opinion turned." And I'm guessing that the rest of the phrase will be "around August 2005." It's hard to detect a turning tide, even a tide that laps at your shoes. "Is the tide coming in or going out?" a friend said not long ago as we walked along an ocean. We...

To devout Muslims around the world, the Koran deserves great care and reverence, and preserving it is a lifelong responsibility By Manya A. Brachear Tribune staff reporter Published May 27, 2005 Before Ahsan Arozullah touches his fingers to the spine of his Koran and slides it off the topmost bookshelf in his office, he cleanses his body--just as the verses of Islam's holy book cleanse his soul. In a centuries-old ritual performed and prescribed by Islam's founder, the Prophet Muhammad, Arozullah washes his hands up to his elbows, rinses his mouth and sprinkles water on his bare feet and head--washing...

May 3, 2005 — Shareholders have filed a federal class-action lawsuit against Tribune Co. and some of its officers, alleging circulation fraud that affected the Chicago-based media company's financial results, attorneys announced Tuesday. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago, contends Tribune violated the Securities and Exchange Act by intentionally overstating circulation at "numerous" newspapers, including Newsday and Tribune's Spanish-language newspaper Hoy, which meant the papers could charge more for advertising. Also named as defendants were Tribune chairman Dennis J. FitzSimons, senior vice president for finance Donald C. Grenesko and retired president of Tribune Publishing Jack Fuller, according...