The Blog

The Trib should seriously consider this ... but only on the condition that the Sun-Times get a new editor in chief who has more in his playbook than T&A and Stacy Peterson. Michael Cooke isn't a fresh visionary who can return the paper to fighting shape; he's a sleazy carryover who worked directly under Radler and Black, and he has done as much to hurt the paper with his trashy editorial judgment as Radler and Black did by stealing. The famous investigations you see in the Sun-Times are the work of brilliant reporters, their news editors and a copy desk. What does Cooke do? He splashes hot chicks on the front page. That's all he's really done for years. Folding the RedEye to rescue the Sun-Times, as led by Michael Cooke, would be like giving $10,000 to a homeless alcoholic and trusting that he'll budget it for rent.

I'm thinking that giving away a paper that sells for 50 cents and which not many people buy at the news stand won't cost much anyway, but what about the subscribers? Would they still have to pay? That being said, it's a better idea than making the paper smaller, cutting great reporters, employing three (3) full-time gossip columnists, et al. And while it would bee nothing but symbolic, how about a No Confidence Vote on Cookie? He may not listen to it but it's something and you know, like Page 3 girls, it's a British kinda thing so maybe he'd get the clue.

In response to competition, the S-T turned around and started to compete with RedEye right back in the form of screaming headlines and coverage of Angelina Jolie's visit that no one actually wanted. They might convince more readers to, you know, read the paper if they stopped presenting scandal as news. You can be a tabloid-formatted paper and still not be a tabloid paper.

MM, How about Blagojevich let's people reading the Sun-Times ride the CTA for free? -- SCAM

Just as a refresher... how much did the Sun-Times waste on putting out the woeful Red Streak? How many millions were wasted on that product? How many jobs could have been saved if there was a competent management in place?

One might say the Sun-Times already is given away for free--on the Internet. Doesn't cost a dime to read every last story right there on a computer.

If Darwinism truly existed, RedEye would have died a whimpering death a couple years back. Then the Sun-Times would have followed it to the grave. Both of those publications are nearly worthless. Their only purpose now is to allow infopimps to keep polluting the world of publications.

Darwinism does exist and RedEye is the next evolution. It's the old lumbering print dinosaurs with their non-evolving brains that are about to go extinct.

Businesses exist to make money, not be charitable to their competitors. When this was a 4 paper town in the "good ole days", you can bet they were making money...until they weren't. Free markets, free people.

except newspapers are *also* a public service, designed to keep government on its toes. and that's why there's a first amendment- to make sure someone's watching our ruling class. sure, papers need to support themselves financially, but thing is, they already do. they're just not turning the 20-40% profit the stockholders continue to demand.

While the Sun-Times is free online, the entire paper is not always there. And even then, many of the articles & columns are a total mess! Whoever is the webmaster there is one step above total incompetency! As for all those RedEyes read on the L or the bus, I see them left on the seats all the time, but never see a Sun-Times anymore.

The solution to all of the Tribune's woes is to drop Dear Abby from the print edition, then suggest that people who miss it simply check it out online. If that doesn't tell all about the state of the newspaper industry, I don't know what does.

Thank God The Reader is alive and well?

What a bunch of crap. And Craig Newmark should shut down Craiglist so that every single paper in the country can get back the billions of classified revenue he's cost them? Right. Why not question why the Sun-Times didn't do a better job of creating a free tabloid, and sticking with it, when it had the chance? Red Eye circulation is now over 300,000 or so. Stop crying over spilled milk. I love the idea of a 2-newspaper town as much as anyone, but this is a thumbs-down suggestion, stinks of sour grapes and is not constructive at all.

I'm with Roger, they should fold the Redeye -- but how's this for an idea? Make it a supplement to the Tribune? The trib just increased to 75c and I AM NOT BUYING IT. It's not the NYT or WSJ, it's the Trib and Sam Zell is a fool to think somebody will pay 75c to read the Trib on a daily basis. So I propose that they just fold the Redeye into the Trib as an extra supplement if they're going to charge 75c -- make it a worthwile and thicker paper.

Ebert is spot on. The plain truth is people did buy the Sun TImes. It was the commuter paper. Now, it's every 25 year old jammed on the train with their IPOD and their free Red Eye reading the antics of Britney Spears and desperate Housewives. Sad, sad, sad.

And maybe everyone else would too--if it was offered. They should try it.

I think it is ridiculous to suggest your competition fold rather than make any attempt to improve your product. There are some really good people in that newsroom (many of which won't be there for long) but blaming the Red Eye for the Sun-Times' poor management is ludicrous. Making the ST more vital for readers would be making it noticeably better than the Red Eye, which REALLY wouldn't be that difficult with some fresh ideas and semi-efficient management.

If the next evolution is a bunch of celebrity-focused garbage handed to the young-uns for free, then we have real problems.

I don't think 50 cents vs. free is the issue... if readers weren't picking up RedEye, if advertisers weren't getting bang for their buck, it would go away on its own. The ST had its chance with Red Streak. The readers voted. They lost. Move on.

It's a sad state of affairs when a name columnist like Ebert has to address the failures of management at his paper by begging for mercy. The Sun-Times had an opportunity to crush the RedEye back when they charged a quarter for RedEye. Instead of making S-T a clearly better publication, they split their resources and launched Red Streak and then shortly after they started giving Red Streak away to kill the RedEye. At that point RedEye went free, killing the undervalued and understaffed Red Streak and leaving the Sun-Times with a gigantic bullseye on it. How smart does the move of going free with Red Streak look now? This is a lesson in not how to take on the competition people. 9 million people live in Chicago and only 1-in-9 read a daily paper at all (and that's being generous). Seriously, the Sun-Times can't think of anything they can do to go capture the 8 million that aren't reading any daily publication? Maybe they aren't the bright one afterall.

The sun-times needs to ramp up its local news reporting staff, concentrate on Chicago, and totally revamp its website. Let the Trib cover the 'burbs and the nation/world. The SunTimes can cover the City and...well...Sports. And totally revamp its website. If it built a strong, user friendly website, it could get a lot more eyes over there. And, the SunTimes should just suck it up and pay a guy $200 a week to give away the Sun Times. Given that the SunTimes is still kinda, sorta a real paper, people might even stoop down to pick it up. As far as delivery service goes, they can still charge for that. The charge is for the convenience of having the paper on your doorstep, instead of needing to go pick it up.

Doesn't Cookie have a history of contacting Mike Miner to give his side of the story when he believes he is being maligned somewhere? Has he really been that silent the past few weeks? I'm not a fan of Carlos Hernandez Gomez, but he had a great comment on Chicago Tonight last Friday -- he said how can the management at the Sun-Times talk about austerity, then live it up with their pals at Gene and Georgetti's every weekend? Guess they expect the workers to do as they say, not as they do ...