EXTRA: No more “tab” for Trib

The idea of the tabloid format for the Chicago Tribune (rather than its long-standing broadsheet format) will soon be no more.



It just looks better



And a part of me is very pleased to learn that. Because I’m not one of those people who gets a newspaper home-delivered. I pick my copies up out of a newsbox or a newsstand (or the occasional convenience store).

WHICH MEANS I have been subjected to the Tribune’s tabloid edition ever since is became reality just over two years ago. It has gotten to the point where I don’t really read a hard copy of the Tribune unless I happen to be at a public library that subscribes – or if through some distribution error my local store got broadsheet copies of the newspaper rather than tabloid ones.

Now I don’t oppose the tabloid format (those smaller pages) for newspapers. It can be a convenient format, and the smaller pages can allow for some interesting graphics elements that make for better-looking pages that give big stories a real punch!

But reading the Tribune in tabloid always made it seem like a lesser paper to the Chicago Sun-Times, which has been a tabloid for all but its first year of existence in the mid-1940s (when the Chicago Sun and the Daily Times merged into the Chicago Sun & Times – before dropping the ampersand for a hyphen).

The Sun-Times is comfortable with the format and knows how to use it to best advantage. The Tribune never got a clue.

LOOKING AT A tabloid edition of the Tribune always made me feel like I was looking at a 14-year-old girl who has tarted herself up with too much makeup and an extremely short skirt out of the belief that it makes her look older and more appealing.

Chicago's real tabloid

It was really just ridiculous, and I doubt that it caused the newspaper reader equivalent of a horny 18-year-old boy (who that girl was trying to attract) to take the paper seriously.



So it was with joy that I read about how the tabloid edition will disappear after Friday. Next week, I should be able to get ahold of a broadsheet copy of the paper with ease.

Which means the Tribune circulation will increase by at least one copy per day – mine!

AND IF YOU absolutely need to see Tribune-inspired copy in a tabloid format, then read Red Eye!

Or at least look at the pictures.

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