'Chicago Sun-Times' Looks to Redefine Itself as 'Liberal, Working-Class' Paper

[RamboLiberal]

Source: Editor & Publisher

The Chicago Sun-Times is turning left.

The tabloid that shifted toward political conservatism under the brief ownership of Rupert Murdoch more than two decades ago now says that it is "rethinking our stance on several issues, including the most pressing issue facing Americans today: Bush's war in Iraq."

Under marching orders from Publisher John Cruickshank and Editor in Chief Michael Cooke, new Editorial Page Editor Cheryl L. Reed introduced a new Commentary section Tuesday with a promise to turn the tabloid into the liberal-leaning paper it was for decades before the Reagan administration.

"We are returning to our liberal, working-class roots, a position that pits us squarely opposite the Chicago Tribune -- that Republican, George Bush-touting paper over on moneyed Michigan Avenue," Reed wrote. "We're rethinking our stance on several issues, including the most pressing issue facing Americans today: Bush's war in Iraq."

Reed, who did not immediately return a phone message seeking comment about the change, is the paper's former book editor who was asked by Cruickshank and Cooke to "conceive an editorial and opinion section that looked like the future," she wrote.



Read more: http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003609413

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Good! I'd love to the RW media empire crumble!

[onehandle]

1. Good. nt

[sutz12]

2. But, but, but....I thought ALL papers were already liberal....

:sarcasm:

[DavidDvorkin]

3. Great! I remember the Sun Times from the old days

It was good, liberal paper.

[dysfunctional press]

17. back when royko was royko...

before the 'alien' invasion.

[karynnj]

19. Wasn't Royko in the Chicago Daily News?

I grew up near Chicago and he was the first thing I read on days his column was in.

[dysfunctional press]

22. when the daily news folded, he went to the sun-times...

when murdoch(the alien) bought the sun-times, he moved to the trib.

when he died, the trib replaced him with asshat john kass.

[karynnj]

50. Thanks - I loved his columns whan I read them in the 60s and very early 70s

The Sun Times - which I haven't read since the 70s must have swung very very far to the right if he was more comfortable at the Tribune.

[followthemoney]

62. His name is John but I call him Jack. Jack Kass sounds better to me.

[dogfacedboy]

34. Yeah, he was. The Daily News was an afternoon paper.

Back in the day there was the Sun-Times and Trib in the AM, and the Daily News and Chicago American in the PM. I know--I delivered about a million of 'em. Had a morning and afternoon route.

[never cry wolf]

41. You and me both

I didn't have the morning and afternoon route at the same time but did em both, back when you put the paper inside the screen door. I also did sundays.

[ovidsen]

52. Me, too.

(This is a little off topic, but what the hell?)

And I hated Sundays. Especially in the winter. 50-plus huge papers stuffed with ads to deliver to as many homes in a suburban DuPage County development. This was back in the early-mid 1960s when much of DuPage was still farmland. I built a trailer for my bike to hold them all. Ever try to ride a bike hauling a trailer loaded with newspapers in snow? Maybe you did!

I laugh about it now, but still wonder how I survived those 30 below wind chills. Brrrrrrr.......

[dysfunctional press]

54. the only time they get my paper inside the screen door is when they throw it thru the screen...

it's happened 3 times(so far), and the delivery company has purchased me 3 screens.

btw- it's no longer kids on bikes doing the delivery...apparently it's one of those jobs that "americans don't want to do" at least around here.

[back2basics909]

4. But will they now fire...

... Novak?

[Cha]

44. Be interesting to see how

THAT all turns out!

[kestrel91316]

5. Can I get a subscription to it - sent to me here in LA?? 'Cause the LA Times

isn't exactly my cup of tea. It's faux-liberal......

[Iris]

23. I'm certainly going to see if I can. n/t

[pschoeb]

27. The LA Times is owned by the Tribune Company

Which owns the Chicago Tribune, it has owned it since 2000, when it also gained the Hartford Courant, Baltimore Sun and Newsday. The Tribune Company is Conservative.

[Cha]

45. This time "conservative" reads

fascist in my book.

[Paulie]

31. I just checked, you can get an e-subscription

They have a 7 day trial. Interesting so far.

www.suntimes.com/epaper

[angstlessk]

67. Thanks I just did the free trial...will decide it they are liberal in time n/t

[Robbien]

6. They have to do something

People have been saying why buy the SunTimes when you can get the exact same thing, and more of it, from the Trib.

[Joe Chi Minh]

7. Does Murdoch still own it? It would be great if he does still own it.

It means to sell his papers he's having to capitulate and face the sunlight, garlick, elevated crosses, brandished stakes, the lot. Running with the hare wasn't on his agenda.

Even if he doesn't still own it, it will still have been a rout. Maybe he's had to sell it!

[ovidsen]

35. Sold it a long time ago...

Within a year of buying it in the '80s, as I recall. The only daily paper Murdoch owns in the US is the NY Post, which is basically a loss-leader for Rupert's media "empire".

[Joe Chi Minh]

46. Wow. I suppose his other media keep the wolf from the door.

I wonder what precipitated his divestment of his press interests.

[SheWhoMustBeObeyed]

65. Have you noticed that the NY Post is now carried by Walgreens?

It infuriates me. The only reason I go there is for a med situation that is too complicated to move to another pharmacy right now. I won't buy anything else there. Why that rag should be distributed outside NY is beyond me.

[More Than A Feeling]

8. Pretty sweet.

It isn't right that such a blue city should be cursed with a Murdoch paper AND another conservative paper. I like most of what they have to say in their editorial: http://www.suntimes.com/entertainment/reed/461674,CST-EDT-reed10.article

[iconoclastic cat]

9. And yet they'll still give Novak a column. Not impressed. nt

[closeupready]

12. Yes, that IS a problem.

n/t

[closeupready]

10. OMG - that's great. I never thought I'd see the day

when this would happpen. Good for them!

[ovidsen]

11. What's that I hear??? Cheers?? Thunder?? Belches???

Nope, it's the late, great Mike Royko applauding the Sun-Time's decision to be rational. The Sun-Times (which gobbled up Royko's original perch at the "left leaning" (that's a compliment) Chicago Daily News in 1978 or so) was once the voice of the "common man" (that's a compliment, too) until the media upheavals of the last couple of decades.

I remember when he left the Sun-Times back in '93 or so, the DAY that Rupert bought the paper, saying something like "A Murdoch paper is something no self respecting fish would want to be wrapped in".

As for the Chicago Tribune? Old timers here probably remember when it was run by the late "Colonel" Robert McCormick, who hated FDR so much that, days before the US attack on Iwo Jima or Okinawa (I forget which, have to look it up) in the middle of WWII he published news that the US had cracked Japanese encryption! How's THAT for patriotism?? And supporting the troops??? PS - the "colonel" was never charged with a crime for this. While the Trib has mellowed (had to) it's hard to shake that kind of history. And it's still kind of elitist.

Yeah, Mike ended up at the Trib. And he didn't like it. But I used to email him sometimes (like why he was praising California's Jerry Brown, whom he once dismissed as Governor Moonbeam) and damn if the man didn't answer me almost every time.

His email signoff was "Take it easy.... but take it."

I'm glad to see the Sun-Times returning to it's roots.

[closeupready]

13. They are NOT mellowing, in my opinion.

they endorsed Bush in 2004.

[ovidsen]

14. You've got a point.

But it's all relative. I remember when the Trib was just slightly to the left of Attila the Hun. ;-)

[dysfunctional press]

21. and they're now turning back to their roots...

is it really that difficult to understand...?:shrug:

[closeupready]

24. Wait - I was responding to his claim that the Trib is mellowing, not the Sun-Times.

I applaud the Sun-Times, and they endorsed Kerry if I recall correctly. The Tribune endorsed Bush and I have no knowledge that their strong Republican stances have mellowed. That's what I was saying.

[dysfunctional press]

28. sorry- my mistake...

i didn't read the post you had responded too, and someone else down thread was bitching that the sun-times couldn't be changing if they still have the same columnists- even though the editorial change was just announced.

as to the trib- you're correct that they are still shill for the repugs- dennis byrne is an idiot of the highest order.

[dogfacedboy]

36. Different opwnership now. n/t

[never cry wolf]

25. God, I miss Royko

My dad got me hooked on him in high school in the early 70's, what a marvelous columnist he was. I followed him from the Daily News to the Sun-Times and finally the Trib when "the foreigner" bought the Times. I never wrote to Royko, or met him except one time to get one of his books autographed. I wonder what kind of things he would be writing about the commander bunnypants era.

John Kass can't hold his jockstrap, imho. Don't even read him.

[closeupready]

26. A friend and I were leaving Le Coq D'Or @ the Drake one night, and he was

on his way in (or at least, leaving a cab in front of the hotel, who knows where he was going). :D I didn't recognize him immediately, but my friend did, then I was like, oh, yeah. He passed away not too long after that, unfortunately.

[dogfacedboy]

37. If Royko were around in these times, he would be on fire! n/t

[ovidsen]

39. You can still read Mike. I do.

Roger Ebert, some other Sun-Times staffers,and his wife Judy (among others) have put together several book anthologies (I think that's the right phrase) made up of stuff he wrote dating back to the 1960s. I'm re-reading one of them. "For the Love of Mike" right now. It's on the bedstand, and if I'm looking for a snicker before bedtime or something better than cable news to relax with when I'm up in the middle of the night, I just open it to any old page and read the glorious words written by the best American writer (IMO) since Mark Twain.

I'm a long ways away from Chicago now. But that's where I grew up, and lived (minus 4 years in college) until 1979. Mike captured the spirit of that city like nobody else. IMO, of course.

[never cry wolf]

42. This thread spurred me to look up some stuff online

I found a couple of pages of excerpts so I could get my fix.

http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/730735.html
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/730719.html

An excerpt from the 2nd link:

October 25, 1972
(Mike wrote this column the day Jackie Robinson died.)

Jackie's Debut a Unique Day

All that Saturday, the wise men of the neighborhood, who sat in chairs on the sidewalk outside the tavern, had talked about what it would do to baseball.

I hung around and listened because baseball was about the most important thing in the world, and if anything was going to ruin it, I was worried.

Most of the things they said, I didn't understand, although it all sounded terrible. But could one man bring such ruin?

They said he could and would. And the next day he was going to be in Wrigley Field for the first time, on the same diamond as Hack, Nicholson, Cavarretta, Schmitz, Pafko, and all my other idols.

I had to see Jackie Robinson, the man who was going to somehow wreck everything. So the next day, another kid and I started walking to the ballpark early.

We always walked to save the streetcar fare. It was five or six miles, but I felt about baseball the way Abe Lincoln felt about education.

Usually, we could get there just at noon, find a seat in the grandstand, and watch some batting practice. But not that Sunday, May 18, 1947.

By noon, Wrigley Field was almost filled. The crowd outside spilled off the sidewalk and into the streets. Scalpers were asking top dollar for box seats and getting it.

I had never seen anything like it. Not just the size, although it was a new record, more than 47,000. But this was twenty-five years ago, and in 1947 few blacks were seen in the Loop, much less up on the white North Side at a Cub game.

That day, they came by the thousands, pouring off the northbound Ls and out of their cars.

They didn't wear baseball-game clothes. They had on church clothes and funeral clothes·suits, white shirts, ties, gleaming shoes, and straw hats. I've never seen so many straw hats.

snip----- HIGHLY I recommend reading the entire collection for any DUers not familiar with Mike.

[ovidsen]

51. Thanks!

I'll be up all night reading the stuff you've shared.

Mike was about as genuine a writer as they come. If I remember correctly, when I was reading him in the old Chicago Daily News in the 1960s and 1970s before it was finally shut down, he was writing at least 4 or 5 columns a week. And they were all at the very least good. Every damn one of them.

[never cry wolf]

53. he did 5 columns a week for most of his 33 years

we'll never see the likes of him again.

[Doctor_J]

66. The Trib replaced Royko with an ultra-right-wing loon

in keeping with their philosophy of being WAY to the right of all mainstream rags.

[UpInArms]

15. so are they firing that asshat, No-Facts?

http://www.suntimes.com/news/novak/index.html

[UpInArms]

16. and look at their line-up for "columnists"

Columnists
Monroe Anderson
Tom Bevan
Mark Brown
Esther J. Cepeda
Cathleen Falsani
Ed Feulner
Stella Foster
Andrew Greeley
Betsy Hart
Jack Higgins
Jennifer Hunter
Steve Huntley
Jesse Jackson
Mary Laney
Carol Marin
Ralph Martire
Tom McNamee
Rich Miller
Mary Mitchell
Robert Novak
John O'Sullivan
Suzanne Ontiveros
Other Views
QT
Cindy Richards
Richard Roeper
Dick Simpson
Michael Sneed
Neil Steinberg
Mark Steyn
Lynn Sweet
Laura Washington
George Will
The Fixer

a left turn, my ass :sigh:

[dysfunctional press]

18. afaik, that's the current list...

if they just announced the new editorial policy, it may very well be that they haven't assembled a new staff of columnists- or they may have contractual obligations to some, who may or may not then be replaced through attrition.

[ovidsen]

20. Aw c'mon. give 'em a chance and all that

Rome wasn't built in a day, and the OP is from "Editor and Publisher", not the newspaper itself.

Plus, I don't mind if they let a few righties hang on, if only for "balance" (snicker) and a chance for them to hang themselves with their own ropes. Cons can be very good at that.

Let's see what happens over the coming months. Changing the Sun-Times editorially is a challenge comparable to turning the Queen Mary around in the East River. Or the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, if you prefer.

[Zodiak]

58. Gotta keep at least one rightie

After all, who are the readers gonna bitch about in their letters to the editor? Put him there to be refuted by readers who know their stuff far more than a CIA-outing traitor like Robert Novak.

[pschoeb]

29. No mention of Conrad Black?

Editor and Publisher mentions Murdoch who owned the Sun-Times from 1984-1986, but fails to mention ownership by crazed and convicted conservative Conrad Black from 1986-2004. Ya think that might also have effected the Sun Times, and might be the reason they completely need to remake themselves.

[mopinko]

30. now if they can just deliver the damn thing every day

i can go back to having a daily paper. hopefully this will permeate all the way down to the comics, which are the smarmiest available.
i read the trib for years, because the editorials did not used to slop over into the news. they had a fine staff of foreign affairs reporters.
we tried the sun times for a while, and the service was so INCREDIBLY bad that we gave up. i'll be a little more patient waiting for a GOOD paper.

[MetaTrope]

32. Seems a little coy to ding the Tribune for being on "moneyed Michigan Avenue" though

When the Sun-Times is quartered one block from there.

[Paulie]

33. Didn't they move like 10 blocks away?

Trumps building is supposed to go on the lot by the river.

[MiserableFailure]

38. They endorsed Bush in 2000

I think they also endorsed him in 2004, although I'm not sure about that.

[RamboLiberal]

40. The test will be who they endorse in 2008

It said they just changed.

[Cha]

43. It's only fucking smart..multitudes

will be flocking hungrily to read some real news and find out :wtf: is going on the this world of ours!

I'm in a wee bit of a shock, though, because it's falling out of lockstep with the corporatemediawhores!

[Socal31]

47. I wish all papers would just abolish editorials...

and report straight, hard, indisputable FACTS. No slant right, no slant left, just fucking FACTS. But hey, I can dream cant I?

[Voltaire99]

49. "Facts all come with points of view..."

"...facts don't do what you want them to."

--D. Byrne

[Voltaire99]

48. Rebellion in the air!

We stand on the verge of a new populist era. War fatigue, Sicko rage, despair over outsourcing and crumbling schools and collapsing home values, contempt for a corrupt political class: this is its fuel.

I doubt that in the post-newspaper era, the Sun Times is motivated by more than a desperate bid to lash its tattered sails to these angry winds. Nor will it please or long retain corporate advertisers if it does not repeat the mantra of arbeit macht frei that the US press endlessly pounds into its dwindling audience.

But every realist knows reform is only going to come if we shake power from our oligarchs and their servants in office. If the Sun Times wants to help, great. Get started already.

[madrchsod]

55. easier to read that`s for dam sure

certainly will be nice to read something other right wing crap here in northern illinois

[badgervan]

56. Like the Washington Post?

I'll believe it when I see it - on a continual, day to day basis.

[David Zephyr]

57. The goddamned Tribune destroyed the Los Angeles Times.

Here's wishing the Chicago Sun-Times the best.

[Doctor_J]

59. If this is true, ti will be nice. Counting the NY Observer, that will make 2

dailies that lean left.

Getting to the left of the Trib won't be hard - the last Dem they endorsed for Pres was LBJ.

[HowHasItComeToThis]

60. WHERE DID MURDOCH GET HIS DIRTY MONEY

[Peace Patriot]

61. Glad to hear it! McClatchey is also going for the left market. A lot of folks

were worried when they gobbled up Knight-Ridder. K-R was the ONLY news outlet in the country that was doing honest, reliable reporting on the Iraq War. But McClatchey seems to be making a genuine effort to follow in that K-R tradition.

Who owns the Sun-Times now? Anybody know?

When they boot out that slimebag traitor Novak, we'll know they're serious.

[LeftyMom]

63. McClatchy tends to be pretty centrist, only in the current climate that seems sorta left.

At least that's my opinion based on having read the Bee pretty much every day for most of my lifetime.

[Peace Patriot]

64. Just caught up with your reply. I totally agree on the Bee. In fact, I consider

the Bee to be pretty much a corporate craprag. But I meant the McClatchey news service, which seems to have picked up on the Knight-Ridder journalistic standards and has done some hard-hitting investigative stories on the Bush regime, the war and other topics of importance.