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This is very interesting.

Moving Greising off page one was one of the dumbest moves the Trib ever made. He drew readers--like me--who otherwise would disregard the business section. This is another example of how focus groups diminish quality and encourage lowest common denominator pandering.

Although, as you probably know, in this economy, anyone who leaves the Tribune probably dislikes the Tribune, and that includes readers. And unlike Greising, who left because the ship is sinking, or has sunk, there are a lot of people who have worked for the paper (and are working for the paper) who find it a complete sad and somewhat predictable disaster, where the lower-middlebrow rules, and the rulers are scared to death of the News Coop gang, who they always thought overlooked their genius. They're just afraid of retaliatory legal action. Which is also interesting. What about free speech and all? It seems rather puffy to even bother asking if those who leave (or are fired or find the situation at newspapers too demoralizing to continue) have hard feelings. Of course they do. And what's wrong with that?

Kate makes a good point. And it was now-martyr Jim O'Shea who made that lousy decision -- not the current regime. The fact is under O'Shea, de Lama, Warren, Lipinski, et al, the Tribune made plenty of bad moves and was often boring.

Also interesting: Greising says the CNC wants to appeal to readers that want "substantive public service news, who are interested in policy, who believe politics affects their lives, who don't get bored by the guts of the story." True. But what has the new Tribune, flaws and all, dedicated itself to? That, basically. They might tart it up with that silly "Watchdog" tag, but it is deep and thorough reporting. Ask Richard Herman.

to whet, re Trib: "This is not about my leaving because I'm unhappy or have a grudge over the years. That's not what's going on here."

And to Casper, you sound like the ghost of. . . .the Tribune!

Dave Greising is a fine reporter and writer. But has Mr. O'Shea sworn off "readership surveys"? How much light has he seen in his Martyr period?

As "Casper McMullens Jr." notes -- "O'Shea, de Lama, Warren, Lipinski, et al.," that's who ran the paper and worked to please their then corporate owners and managers when Sam Zell was still making money hand over fist in real estate investments.

Love that "frenzied families" and "carefree couples" business, basically pigeon-holing potential readers as folks who can't be bothered with politics, world events or unspecified news. Wonder how many of them would, nonetheless, be grossly insulted by such crappy little focus-group-driven labels.

Speaking of focus groups, the Lipinski coven referenced by Casper McMullen did indeed use them as their pole star, didn't they? Wasn't the Tribune renowned for this kind of hand-wringing, supplicant customer outreach? I understand that focus groups can be valuable in some industries, but it strikes me as utterly asinine for a newspaper to lean on them and still try to pass itself off as a news organization--as if it could mold news to fit customer preferences.

OK, so I'm being a little harsh. But an editor who's worth a damn would charge ahead with some vision and energy of his or her own, I should think. MAKE the newspaper a compelling read. That didn't quite happen at the old Tribune.

Unfortunately, it is possible to do much, much worse than that, as we've seen under Zell. I think the ship has sunk and am only glad that the very fine Mr. Greising, along with the Trib's former city hall reporter, have managed to resurface.

Even so, that roster of CNC honchos doesn't exactly inspire.

All I know is the notion, implied here by Greising, that the Anne Marie Lipinski era was one of an abundance of "substantive public service news" that routinely got to the "guts of the story" is ludicrous. The paper during that time generally was extreamly conservative (as in the lack of deepness of reporting, not the political sense of the word). If there was a choice between providing an in-depth article on a subject that perhaps discovered new things that would challange people's conventional wisdom or reporting it in a simple manner by quoting a few people on both sides of the issue or dispute it was nearly always the latter that ended up happening. This was especially true with local news which clearly wasn't a priority.

This has all gotten better to a certain extent after Kern replaced Lipinski. It probably isn't completely a result of the editorship change. I would guess that part of it has to do with the fact that the proliferation of blogs and comment pages has caused newspapers to need to pay more attention to reader scruntity of the way things are reported. If an article is simplistic there will generally be people who call then out on it. And if they are credible, people will listen. But there is no doubt to me that the Tribune seems to be making more of an effort to provide better context, more new information, and to frame stories in a more creative manner so that the reader gets a better idea of how something effects them. I felt this was also true with the Tribune's foreign and national reporting between the time Kern took over and when those areas were consolidated and, from my understanding, became edited at the Los Angelas Times out of Kern's control. Foreign and national news is now almost completely "just the facts maam" reporting of events instead of anything substantive. That is unfortunate. I agree in principal with consolidating the foreign reporting across the company but there could be a little more effort at finding interesting stories that illustrate something worthwhile. There are still more than enough foreign reporters to do that.

I don't really understand the objection that people have in principle to focus groups. As with every measurement, you have to be careful how you use the results and make sure don't overrely on it but it seems to me that it is an important way to measure whether the product is achieving the results you hope. If readers are not responding to articles in the expected manner I think it is essentual that you know that so you can figure out how to correct the problem. Why should the Tribune deny itself this information?

By the way, I'm not sure exactly what you are referring to, Dack Rambo, when you mention "Celeberty-orientedness" of the Kern ragime. I haven't noticed any increase in the amount of celeberty journalism. As far as I know, there still isn't even a gossip columnist. There hasn't been for years.

Oh. I should also mention that I think that Greising is one of the best columnists in the city. He is always level-headed and well-researched, which is something that is in too much of a short supply. He doesn't write colums based around witty phrases or angry rants that sound good but don't arise from anything relating to reality. So it is unfortunate for the Tribune that he has left. I am a bit surprised that he decided to take this risk. It seems to me that the CNC has its work cut out for them. I have never heard of any organization starting out as a non-profit funded by donations and then eventually tranforming itself into a for-profit company. But that is what they say their plan is. The question that arises is why they didn't receive any venuture capital funding or start out in some other more conventional form. Was nobody willing to give them any money?

Has it been reported anywhere how much money the CNC has available to it? Given that the two Tribune reporters recruited by CNC were making somewhere in the neighborhood of $70,000 per year -- not counting benefits -- it begs the question as to how far the MacArthur money might go, especially when the contributions of other staff members are factored into the equation.

What other revenue streams are expected to keep the enterprise afloat? Can't imagine the New York Times getting many more subscribers out of the deal, as the same people who would be interested in CNC copy already get the Times. Will the four CNC pages contain ads?

In response to Dack Rambo's question, I'd say that both regimes sucked/suck ... equally, but in entirely different ways. Ann Marie Lipinski and Jim O'Shea's bunch treated the paper and readers much in the same way as Mayor Daley and his cronies treat the citizens of Chicago, and with the same degree of entitlement and arrogance. Their biggest crime was using the award-winning features sections, writers and critics as loss-leaders. Ever since Koky Dischon was ousted as Features czar/diva, no subsequent DME/Features has had a background in features or a desire to stay in that position for more than two or three years, before moving back into news.

Kern & Co. are grasping at straws. Page One hits the target some days, but more often misses it completely. Everything beyond Page One is an afterthought. The Tribune's sister paper, the Los Angeles Times, continues to turn out a decent product everyday, despite the fact it's considered to be a shadow of its former self. That would be the model to follow, if the Tribune's infrastructure already weren't so decimated.

Another question. Is Mr. Warren going to be a part-time publisher at the Reader? Seems like a big responsibility for someone with no prior experience in the job. And, yet, it sounds as if he will contribute columns to CNC -- a conflict? -- and, perhaps, maintain his columnizing at Huffpost and various other outlets. No one I know at the Tribune or Reader expects Warren to maintain the wall between church and state, so it's worth asking how he'll be able to keep all of those balls in the air simultaneously.

Or, perhaps, the Reader's future is of less interest to O'Shea and Warren than that of the CNC, and, someday, the Reader will become the de facto features department of a more ambitious CNC.

@Dack Rambo

Here's my take: The Tribune was bland under Lipinski & Co. and is much worse now under Kern. It is sadly and entirely possible to go from bland to worse, or from respectable-but-that's-about-it to pretty-much-a-daily-disgrace (apart from some decent investigative pieces, which they seem to do more as window dressing than anything else).

I part from your assessment that the Tribune was more suburb-driven under Lipinski. Their silly Kern-inspired focus on "frenzied families" is all about the 'burbs; the "carefree couples" part could, I suppose, apply to city dwellers, but I'm told that even that aspect of the Trib campaign is aimed at the fairly new phenomenon of childless couples in the outer 'burbs.

Of course, if they're "carefree," why would they need a newspaper?

@Dack Rambo

Pretty much what Pelham said -- except under Lipinski & Co., the "blandness" was frequently interrupted by inspired work. Including:

The brilliant Salopek story tracing the journey of crude from oilfield to your neighborhood gas station (and more Salopek reports from faraway places); much greatness by Possley, Mills and other investigative clusters; a commitment to coverage of the Iraq misadventure beyond the initial imbedding (thank you, Liz Sly and others); the Pulitzers, in particular the airport epic and Julia Keller's gripping series on the Utica tornado -- both terrific reads; and more.

For anyone who cared about what was going on in the city and beyond, the Tribune -- flaws and all -- was far more an essential read on a day-to-day basis under the previous regime than it is today. How much that's attributable to Kern & Co., and how much can be attributed to reduced resources (budget, staff), I'll leave to others to dissect.

"Skeptical" raises good points about CNC funding and viability. It's hard to see how it would survive more than a year or two if public TV and the MacArthur Foundation were all it had behind it. As such, the CNC is set up pretty much along the lines of other foundation-funded journo projects, the best of which have just a few reporters and editors and are hobbling along. No one has come up with anything very journalistically impressive so far.

But the difference that could make the difference in the CNC equation is the New York Times, which is as old-school as you can get. If the Times wants to make big inroads into metro markets where the local papers have, in effect, abandoned the field, they might put some real money and effort into it, and CNC may thrive.

As noted, though, the Times is old-school--a big ink-on-paper product delivered by truck and hand. And the funny thing is, that model is still far and away the most viable. The damage that CAN be done to print journalism by new media largely HAS been done. And newspapers in most markets still make a more than respectable profit and can afford to support reduced but still large teams of decently paid reporters and editors.

Can't say that about any other model out there, really. Except, perhaps, for what CNC is trying, with a hand in the pocket of a conventional-as-it's-possible-to-be newspaper.

I think we can all agree that the Chicago Tribune is pitiful, now. Please. Anyone who defends it is most likely on that Kern, Hirt, Adee Christmas card list. Or has no idea what it's like behind the doors now.

just chiming in on a couple blasts from the past mentioned in this thread - koky dishon (RIP) was absolutely great - best thing jim bob ever did during his tenure was give her free reign - as for geoff brown, given what he has to work with, is still a fine editor.

Actually, Tony, Mr. Squires eventually began to envy and resent Koky's autonomy, which she'd earned and expanded under Max McCrohan. When the budget ax began to descend on the paper as a whole, he and Koky often butted heads about who would be in control of the substantial features budget and personnel. It was tough to argue with success, however. One way Jim got under her skin was by planting George Langford and Jack Fuller in the features section to monitor certain eccentricities and budget lines. George didn't deserve to be marginalized in such a way, but would go on to carve a niche as public editor. By this time, though, Fuller already was the editor-in-waiting and used the experience as background.

Ultimately, Jack would stick Koky in a new special-projects division and install another editor-in-waiting, Howard Tyner, in her place. He basked in the glow of the resurgent Tempo and other hugely profitable features mainstays, but, later, demanded of his successor, Owen Youngman, the implementation of the much-scorned rotating-Tempo-writer experiment and unlamented "all-entertainment Tempo," as well as the destruction of the live Overnight section. Owen was kicked upstairs to develop a very decent digital strategy -- earlier than most observers suggest, but largely ignored on the 4th floor -- and Kern was brought in to further destroy Tempo and Arts coverage. One of the reasons that Warren was brought back to the Tower in 2001, from Washington, was to "fix" Features and get "soft" copy on Page One. (The pre-print deadlines negatively impacted that strategy, as well) His eyes, like those of all post-Koky predecessors, naturally were on a greater prize.

Don't underestimate the impact of the long-ago decision to pre-print Tempo, either, on how the Tribune was perceived inside and outside the Tower. Suddenly, large chunks of Tempo and other pre-printed sections were 24 hours stale by the time the paper hit the news racks. All Arts reviews were affected negatively; the newly introduced gossip column, Inc., was put under supervision of News and moved to Section One; daily media coverage was hobbled; and three of Bob Greene's four weekly columns effectively had a Friday-ish deadline. After the reassignment of Charles Leroux and other Tempo mainstays, several editors -- mostly from newsside -- were given a chance to run Tempo, but with the exception of Warren and Rick Kogan, their hearts and heads were elsewhere. The pre-print proved to be a bummer for everyone, involved.

Meanwhile, though, the Food, Travel and Friday sections continued to win awards and make oodles of money for the paper. Tellingly, the turnover of editors in those sections was appropriately glacial, by comparison to that in the rest of the paper.

Meanwhile, the budgetary ax kept cutting deeper into the trunk of the sheltering tree, and overworked staffers were required to supply content to CLTV, as well. Most grinned and bore it, but it extended their day ... mostly for no extra pay. (Jack also eliminated the practice of compensating staffers for book reviews, magazine articles, radio interviews and other non-beat work, even when it was done on their own time, forcing editors to assign more freelance stories.) Inc was allowed to die for lack of interest on newsside. Fortunately, daily media coverage was restored when Business agreed to adopt the orphan and promote its new vitality.

One other thing, about the whole missing-the-digital-boat business. Several Tribune editors were ahead of the curve there, but to no real avail. Before leaving for SoCal, in 1995, I can recall spending many hours -- including a three-day stint at Cantigny -- discussing the future of newspapers and how the Internet could be exploited. All sorts of so-called visionaries were called in to challenge editors, including reps of the MIT media project. Our publisher had been an early backer of AOL and the company made some money off it, before it imploded.

Of course, with the exception of branded website material, the ideas went almost nowhere. Tribune brass were pre-occupied with pleasing Wall Street, which only concerned itself with the present of newspapers, not the future. Eventually, too, the broadcast side of TRB became the loudest voice in the company, and TV-radio-cable interests took precedence within the Tower. Broadcast, too, would operate under the Mainstream Media gravestone, er, banner. The bargain-basement CLTV concept -- with a newsroom studio -- never took hold in Los Angeles. Neither did the strategies for chain-wide synergies and the Tribune's overriding obsession with Wall Street and personal retirement packages.

Enter Herr Zell, and the rest is misery.

@gary - many sincere thanks for the expanded info/insight into features ... (but it's anthony, not tony - i don't deliver pizzas, at least not yet).

didn't intend to make jim bob a hero by any means - my own personal run in with the gentleman over some documents i covertly obtained, but refused to simply hand over, would make a most intriguing book...was especially interested in your take on the overnight page - which was my bread & butter for more than 3 years - so it was a re-born christian who did it in...ditto for the all-entertainment tempo - never fully understood why my trib-regarded 'cutting- edge' features fell out of favor ... most interesting...i owe ya...maybe when i start delivering those pizzas.

lastly, regarding moves that forced editors to assign more freelance stories - while i loved it, i did during my many years there ask to be put on staff exactly 3 times - all are wonderful stories, but i'll spare you, except for the day i hit on koky ... she looked me in the eye & explained she would love to add me to her staff, except for one important reason - if she did, i'd end up sounding like everyone else & my independent voice was just too valuable to her ... recall leaving the newsroom that day feeling my ego stroked & my pocket picked -- man-o-man was she good.

What they said.

Another thank you for Mr. Dretzka. Thanks for taking the time to tell that fascinating story. Think there's a book in this? Or is this what O'Shea is writing about? Also, it's odd to note that big money-making sections like Food and the others mentioned are the ones that could basically run on autopilot while most of the talent and thought seemed to be devoted to the unlikely-to-ever-be-profitable Tempo.

So as I read Mr. Dretzka, Trib management under the old regimes from Squires through Lipinski was, by turns, inspired, focused, distracted, clueless, generous and penny-pinching with an overlayer of inscrutability leavened by the occasional dram of real talent. What I wonder is, how did the rank-and-file take all this, the folks whose writing, reporting and editing all these big names (some of whom I had never or only vaguely heard of) took internal credit for? Did the staffers just roll with the punches or what? For instance, did Ellen Warren and Terry Armour just shrug as Inc was being showcased, shuffled and then forgotten? How does that work?

And what does the Tribune have now, something like 400 journalists? Most of these would have to be pre-Zellites, a large subset of the 700 the Trib had under Lipinski and previous regimes. So what do they think of the transition from corporate, Wall Street-focused, bland but respectable journalism under Ann Marie and the pre-Lipinskis to the current leadership, where it's goodbye to all that and the previously sacred rules and standards are all shit-canned? I just don't see how you intellectually traverse that gap between being a top-drawer journalist for a respectable publication to being a sock puppet for radio clowns? I mean, for heaven's sake, it would've been like going from the Reader's Digest to the Cartoon Network. There just had to have been a bump in that particular transition, one would think.

And Trib employees OWN the place (at least, they did before the bankruptcy filing), right? Do they, as owners, get together and talk about stuff like this? Roger Ebert reminisced recently about the bar culture that latter-day (1970s) Chicago journos were a big part of. Does anything like that exist anymore? If so, what are these folks saying to one another in their soon-to-be storied haunts? Why aren't they taking up pitchforks and torches and storming the tower?

Or, at the end of their workday, do they just switch off the computer, the mini-cam or the twitter feed or whatever the hell it is they work with these days (to little effect) and slink home in the dark?

(Also, speaking of all those Lipinski darlings' concern with their retirement plans, just exactly how well did they do as they so decorously abandoned ship and crew to the Zellites? I'd think those many "owners" since canned by the "hired help"--as Mr. Miner accurately phrased it--would like to know.)

@Pelham: Re this statement: "I just don't see how you intellectually traverse that gap between being a top-drawer journalist for a respectable publication to being a sock puppet for radio clowns?"

In 1984, a couple of dozen Sun-Times people (including me and, as it happens, Mr. Warren) left that paper rather than be a sock puppet for new owner Rupert Murdoch. Most of us found refuge at respectable publications without missing more than a paycheck or two -- which, in 1984, was possible.

Different world in 2009.

If conditions had been this way in 1984, I can assure you those same dozens (including me and, very likely, Mr. Warren) would have found a way to do our jobs while holding our noses, intellectual traversion be damned.

My ex-colleagues have kids in college and mortgages and not many options. Sure, there are semi-talented toadies rising in the Tower -- I could name names -- but the bulk are the same talented folks who made me proud to be among them, and they need the paychecks.

We have the freedom to intellectualize. They gotta do what they gotta do.

I love 'em still.

@Alan Solomon

I stated that too harshly. I don't mean to condemn the non-toadies at the Tribune. I can see, from time to time, that good people still work there. And I'll go further than you and say that it's not only tough to give up a paying job in journalism, it's also illogical to give up a paying job at a newspaper in particular. From what I've been reading, most of them are still quite profitable and viable, contrary to what the scary corporate and rapacious real-estate overseers would like us to think. (In that regard, I'm not so sure David Greising is making a smart move to the CNC.)

Still, in all, I'm not quite sure what I would expect from good journalists laboring under the especially lousy circumstances at the Tribune. Something, I guess. Maybe, for instance, dozens or even hundreds of contributors to New Bites, venting veiledly over the sad and even maddening situation at the Trib. Better yet, something more organized and iron-fisted. Perhaps a union-organizing effort?

Having said as much, if I were working there right now, I'd certainly try to hang on. But, golly, I'd sure be trying to find a way stick at least a figurative paring knife into the Zellites. The difference that makes the difference at the Tribune (as opposed to other chain newspapers) is that the employees are the owners, the people who've watched their colleagues take the long walk and their own futures pointlessly compromised without their rightful consent or approval. That's are a tall disgrace, but pile on top of it what has happened to the product and I don't see how so many owners can so quietly just let it pass.

Also, have I missed something? I may well have. But has Jim Warren spoken out publicly about events at the Trib under Zell? How about Lipinski, or Hanke Gratteau? People like that, with some standing, could serve as a rallying banner, even from the outside, if they spoke up. Or maybe not. Maybe that's just not in the culture there. But it ought to be. Where's that swashbuckling bar culture camaraderie?

I've heard only good things about Warren. Can't say I'm a fan of his Huffpost columns today, but back when he was in Washington talking about the comfy conflicts of interest common in the press corps there, he was quite enlightening. He was willing to speak out of turn then. Why can't he now?

Where's the Tribune's Lech Walesa?

@pelham re Lech Walesa: And look what happened to him . . .

Sorry, Anthony, for the name change ... no diminuation intended. I doubt my former boss would fancy being referred to as Jim Bob, either. Maybe that's what they call pizza deliverymen in the South, if you catch my drift. No matter.

You're correct in assuming that the time-honored freelance kiss-off was used more than once in features. A few freelancers made the Great Leap -- Marla Donato, Brenda You, Ron Grossman -- and I don't remember them losing their voice. Others deserved to be given a shot at residency, at least. Fact is, though, there were very few openings in Features during my tenure.

The Overnight page wasn't done in by the editor you cited. He didn't have much choice in the matter. Newsside coveted the open space for its combined "jumps page" and used a focus group to bolster its case. Subscribers were asked if they would like to see such a gathering of jumps, and, naturally, they voted in the affirmative. The group wasn't asked, however, if that jump space should have been allotted at the expense of the Overnight page. The Tribune became famous for steering focus groups toward the preferred response to any question.

The Overnight Page was scheduled to be demolished long before it actually was, and, in fact, the reigning Arts editor was told by the editor no such plan was being considered. A week or so later, it became common knowledge, though. When word of it leaked out to Hot Type, the local theater community raised such a stink that its implementation was delayed for more than six months. The subsequent placement of overnight reviews became a virtually unresolvable problem.

In response to Pelham's letter: 1) Food and Travel weren't ever on auto-pilot, as much as they were edited by solid journalists who knew how put out a fine product without raising any dust. Tempo was intended as a daily showcase, and, after a certain point, every editor thought he or she knew more about what was "wrong" with it than the previous editor. Along the way, it also acquired a lot of furniture -- must-run TMS material, set positions for columns, increased TV listings -- that had to be absorbed in a shrinking news hole. The pre-print had a dampening effect, overall.

2) During my 15 years working inside the Tower, there was less of a distance between editors and grunts, plus there were many more opportunities for vertical and horizontal movement along the career path. There was a great mix of skill levels, from interns to curmudgeons, which doesn't exist today, and everyone was welcome at the Goat, Ric's or Boul Mich after their shifts to vent and tell lies. Alcohol was a great equalizer. But, yes, everyone had their own personal axes to grind and common enemies. It wasn't until pay raises were cut in half, or, in some years eliminated entirely, that the current class structure took shape.

Neither did it help relations that editors at a certain level received annual bonuses -- nice ones, too -- while their subordinates, including many section editors, didn't. They were based on company performance and creating budgetary efficiencies. It explained why most middle-management types did what they were told, no matter how distasteful it was.

3) As for the demise of Inc. and other features, one did learn to "roll with the punches." I also got the distinct feeling from afar that gossip was a very low priority among editors on the 4th Floor, and resources dried up accordingly. Maybe, it simply ceased being fun. I think that Terry and Ellen found better outlets for their talents ... considering.

4) The ruse of the employee-owner likely will be resolved in court, if there's anything left to the company when the current lawsuits are adjudicated. How, for instance, can any "owner" be fired without cause or due process? How is it that fired "owners" lost all rights to future profits -- such as they might be -- upon termination? (Weren't their retirement funds invested in the new company, as well as current employees?) Aren't the employees who remain actually in a more precarious financial position than those who left and already are receiving pension checks and have complete control of their retirement portfolios? (Pension contributions ended in the late '90s.)

5) As is well known, terminated employees had to sign away their freedom-of-speech rights before being awarded compensation. That explains why many of the dearly departed have remained mum on the present product ... or use pseudonyms in chatrooms.

no offense actually taken gary, but the use of jim bob was quite intentional ... while i made mention of my 3 requests to be put on staff, neglected to mention the one time i was actually offered a slot.

you may recall one sure way for an established freelancer to get hired back then (other than kissing absolutely everyone's ass) was if they started working someplace else, or were about to - that happened to me after my tempo editor asked one day what i was working on & i revealed i was about to leave town on assignment for a brand new slick glossy called chicago times magazine...then & only then did i hear the loving words - well, i've been thinking about giving you my entire freelance budget of x dollars & bringing you on staff; we'll talk when you get back ... but while out of town i fell into that intrigue previously mentioned & after my refusal to play ball w/ your former boss, although the assignments didn't dry up, my coveted sky blue checks took many, many weeks longer to be delivered & the job offer was never mentioned again....so yes, for me there will always be a very special place in my heart for that southern gentleman.

that said, history has show it was the 2nd best career move that never happened - the 1st occurred years earlier when morris janowitz, THE military sociologist at the u of c became my new mentor after i attended a NASA conference & embarrassed officials w/ questions about their lack of any 'human factors' research during any of their manned space programs...epic story short, was offered the opportunity to become the 1st social scientist on the space shuttle ... kid you not ... but just didn't like the entire military package & i don't salute very well, so turned down his offers & took a walk...must say, was rather depressed for a few underemployed years thereafter (why oh why didn't i just keep my mouth shut & play ball, was the lament) until the very 1st shuttle flight that had a civilian on board, which i knew would have been mine, took off - then, about 90 or so seconds later, blew up...sorry, i really do need a blog or something.

in any event, as for Marla Donato, they screwed her around for years before picking her up & i think she ended up buried in distant suburban bureau, no?

Couple of things:

First, in reply to Alan Solomon, it's not so much a question of where Lech Walesa ended up but where Poland ended up. I'm angry that Chicago doesn't have a newspaper that can, however blandly, lay claim to something like world class status, as well as my serious attention most mornings. I only wish the big names who left the paper had done more--either inside or outside--to leverage their and their readers' frustrations in an attempt to rescue the institution that they so clearly loved. But I very much respect your view and recall your work at the Tribune fondly. Miss it, too, as I miss so much else about the old Tribune.

And many thanks again to Mr. Dretzka. For one thing, I just find the internal structure/dynamics of newspapers fascinating, especially when so many talented people are involved. And thanks in particular for spelling out some of the questions raised by the very peculiar ownership structure. I actually made a special trip downtown one day to see the now infamous early-Zell-era banner in the Trib lobby that proclaimed "You OWN this place."

And, of course, the next thing we knew, the hapless owners were being pitched out the windows by the bushel basket. And there wasn't even a fuss! Who, I wondered, passed a wand over the Tower and turned an assembly of such fine journalists into a bunch of Kigme's (the creatures in Li'l Abner who always took the blame for others' screwups--yes, I'm that old). At least there's a lawsuit now, but even that originated in Los Angeles, didn't it?

Finally, a lesser point: "The Tribune became famous for steering focus groups toward the preferred response to any question." Yes! Final confirmation of what I've always thought.
I don't doubt that this is exactly what happened when they decided to go "local, local, local" and shit-can their entire national and foreign operation, decades of a distinguished tradition be damned. "Frenzied Families" and "Carefree Couples" indeed.

So have they also focus-grouped their plan to axe the Associated Press for a week, with a view to dumping it permanently? In part, they're going to use New York Times copy in its place. But aren't they sort of competing with the Times? I want to see how they sell this to readers: "Now in the Tribune, even less news to disturb your frenzied and carefree mornings!"

Count me a "Retching Reader."

"Details are sketchy, but numerous witnesses report that veteran feature editor Henry Allen punched out feature writer Manuel Roig-Franzia on Friday " @ the washington post.

given reader comments following a couple of miner's recent offerings, those punchs might be regarded as an example of synchronicity, a jungian concept that maintains just as events may be causally related, they may also be grouped by their meaning...in other words, meaningful coincidences.

If the paper will be using even more NYT copy than before, can it also use CNC copy that ran in the Times? I suppose that a case could be made in that regard. Greising et al could write for both papers while being paid through CNC's deep coffers.

Nothing wrong with a little guerrilla warfare among friends.

Hadn't thought of that, Mr. Dretzka. I know you're not going this far, but I wonder: Could Gerry Kern's Tribune be so shrewd as to shed the expense of keeping Greising on staff (maybe they didn't "incentivize" him to hang on) knowing he would go the CNC/NYT, where the Trib would still have access to Greising's copy? The general crappiness of the idea puts it squarely in the Kern/Hirt wheelhouse.

Actually, though, I suspect the CNC's Chicago copy won't go out on the NYT wire. Also, wonder what will happen to the NYT's Chicago bureau. Hope that voice of clarity doesn't disappear.

Whet: this is from the feed of a digital editor on Twitter:

RT @shitmydadsays "That woman was sexy...Out of your league? Son. Let women figure out why they won't screw you, don't do it for them."

Ew. Nice.

If Times doesn't send CNC copy out on wire, Tribune's website could provide links to CNC copy via an aggregator or blog. Or, would Times choose not to add CNC copy to it's website and archives, thus diminishing value to subscribers? Drudge links to everything ... why not CNC columns, at least?

Consumers aren't particular how news finds them or financial deals, as long as it's there when they want it. I find Hot Type thru Poynter. Why not CNC, too?

BTW, has anyone figured out if Trib staffers lost all equity in previous ESOP and new 401K starts from zero? At one time, all retirement funds were measured by stocks in portfolio. Could be a huge personal disaster for old-timers who became faux owners. (Pension plan was eliminated in 90s in lieu of stock contributions.)

Hey, Tony D'Italian ... yo ... don't lump me in with the Tony-haters. Some of my best friends are named Tony and don't deliver pizzas, either. Heck, there's even a guy named Tony who manages the Cardinals. For the record: I don't care who delivers my pizzas ... or newspapers, either.

In case you haven't noticed, though, the best pizzas in Chicago are made by Greeks and the Mexicans in their kitchen.

And, BTW, it's MISTER Sad Sack of Crap to you.

ok, tone, no offense intended...had both a father & grandfather called tony...that's the only reason i'm not.

as for dissing the delivering of anything, haven personally driven a cab, forklift & bookmobile & liked doing it....also love pizza.

the issue here was anthony dim tony w/o asking.

but happens all the time, unlike, it seems w/ robert = bobby, richard = ricky, jonathan = johnny...no, there seems to be a built-in tony bias.

in any event, they're not the same name to me, yet both most noble.

hope that helps.