What really goes on at Tribune Tower
 Historic front pages line the walls at Tribune Tower, where talented journalists still produce awe-inspiring work. (William DeShazer, Chicago Tribune / October 20, 2010) http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/ct-met-kass-1020-20101020,0,6975460.column |
Awe-inspiring work by talented journalists provides the real story of this newspaper
Each morning for more than 25 years now, as I come to work at the Chicago Tribune, I engage in a private ritual.
Standing on Michigan Avenue, I look up at the magnificent Tribune Tower and feel a mixture of awe and pride. Sure, it sounds corny, but it's true. Every morning, the same thing:
Awe at the responsibility we've been given to do this work, and pride in my colleagues and the history of this great newspaper. If you ask others who work here, or have worked here, many will tell you the same.
The Tribune Tower has bits of stone on the walls brought back by orders of Col. Robert McCormick from around the world, including a piece of the Cave of the Nativity. And there are those wonderful quotations on the lobby walls. My favorite belongs to the great Roman Catholic writer Flannery O'Connor:
"The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it."
Truth is, the past several years have been heartbreaking, with regime changes and layoffs of good people and the downturn on the business side. The empty desks are testament to all that. But the work continues.
We've had to stomach a lot lately, but today I want to tell you what the Chicago Tribune is not. It is not a frat house.
That's the impression readers got from a recent article in The New York Times that portrayed this place as a "frat-house complete with poker parties, juke boxes and pervasive sex talk."
The article contained allegations of boorish behavior by top Tribune Co. executives, replete with breast and sex fixations, and poker games upstairs in the Colonel's old office.
One exec who sent a vulgar parody of a bad newscast to Tribune employees has resigned. And now there are doubts about the future of CEO Randy Michaels, who has been accused of lewd behavior.
I'm not excusing it. The suits have to deal with it. The whole thing has been embarrassing.
What galled me most about the Times article was the implication that the top execs pull the strings on our political coverage. For the record, no Tribune boss — not Sam Zell, not anyone — has ever told me what to write or not write about politicians.
Yet what most readers have been fixated on is the frat house business. Sorry to disappoint you, but there are no beer bongs or toga parties at the City Desk. Editors don't do keg stands in the Page 1 meetings.
I told you what the Chicago Tribune is not. Now let me tell you what it is. It's reporters, photographers and editors, analysts and designers, and others who help us with the work. Our newspaper is just one part of Tribune Co., and what the corporate bosses do is separate from what we do.
Chicago Tribune reporters work in difficult and sometimes dangerous conditions. They do not blog from mommy's basement, cutting and pasting what others have reported, while putting it under a cute pen name on the Internet.
Instead, the Tribune's reporters are out knocking on doors in violent neighborhoods late at night, looking for witnesses after murders. Or they stand in the morgue and talk to the families of the dead. Tribune reporters are not anonymous. They use their own names, put them at the top of their stories and are accountable for what they write.
Tribune investigative reporters pore through thousands and thousands of pages of documents. They have to fight to get those documents, because the political warlords try to keep them secret.
Sometimes they nail down stories that the powerful don't like. They write stories about kids clouted into the University of Illinois while more deserving students are left behind.
Stories of greedy nursing home owners who treat the elderly like livestock. Stories of doctors allowed to practice even after committing sex crimes.
Or the story of Jeremiah Clark, the 9-year-old who was under the watch of a state-regulated facility for disabled children and was allowed to die.
Chicago Tribune reporters have revealed how a suburb knowingly let its residents drink well water tainted with cancer-causing chemicals.
Others have exposed the conflicts of interest of the truly powerful politicians who have bankrupted the city and the state. Warlords like House Speaker Michael Madigan and Chicago Mayor Richard Daley. And the list goes on.
When Tribune Co. comes out of bankruptcy, there will be another cadre of top execs. There has been regime change going back to the days when Abraham Lincoln was a loyal Tribune subscriber.
In Roman times, a tribune was an official with the job of protecting the citizens against the arbitrary actions of the patricians. And today's Illinois emperors don't like the Chicago Tribune, either.
One of the most apt quotations in our lobby comes from Lord Macaulay: "Where there is a free press the governors must live in constant awe of the opinions of the governed."
What continues is the journalism. That's what we're accountable for. And we'll keep doing it as long as we can.
So when we stand out on Michigan Avenue, looking up at the tower, we're not looking at some frat house.
We're looking at our Tribune.
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