Is the Sun-Times’ future becoming evident in their suburban sister papers?

It is classic newspaper news dissemination – to learn something about a newspaper’s business operation, one has to read the competition.

So it only figures that the Chicago Tribune has been giving us the details about how there might be a buyer for the Chicago Sun-Times after all, and it turns out to be one of the business executives whose name came up in talks previously.

JAMES TYREE SUPPOSEDLY is trying to put together a bid that will be used by the Bankruptcy courts as a base by which all other would-be bidders will be required to compare to, if they’re serious about wanting to take on the company that publishes the Sun-Times and all those other suburban daily papers that probably would not have severe financial problems if they were to exist on their own.

Of course, the word about the Sun-Times is that the company’s cash flow is so tight these days that they may soon not have enough money to pay off all their obligations should they have to shut down.

So this could very well be a race to see if someone is willing to buy these newspapers for something other than a complete fire sale price before they run out of cash.

In short, be sold or crash!

NOW I’M NOT about to think that the people whose names have come up as possible buyers know all that much about the news business. In fact, much of the speculation has centered around how much in concessions they could get the labor unions affiliated with the Sun-Times to make.

As though that company hasn’t already been run on the cheap for decades. That is the true legacy of the Conrad Black years in Chicago, the Number Two newspaper in town tried to operate so skimpily as though it were more like Number Four or Five.

Yet through it all, the newspaper continues to come up with stories. Just on Friday, we get the interview with the one-time gubernatorial brother, claiming he didn’t do anything wrong.

It generated talk and buzz. Any publication that can come up with stories that get people talking deserves to have a life (just as papers that fill their pages with vacuous crud to surround the little bit of space around the advertisements won’t be missed in the least if they die off).

BUT WHAT IS the future? I’m not claiming to have any inside knowledge.

I just have my belief that the Sun-Times probably is best thinking of itself as being something along the lines of a neighborhood paper, rather than a major metro daily like the Chicago Tribune, which in its own right has scaled back its ambitions in recent months from thinking it impacts Congress to trying to pressure Crestwood to clean up its water and get the University of Illinois to have an honest board of trustees.

Personally, when I hear those stories, they have the feel of the types of copy that the Sun-Times has tried to generate for years.

If the Sun-Times were to become the neighborhood paper, it’s neighborhood would be Chicago proper. Which I think makes it pair up well with all those suburban daily papers they own throughout the rest of the Chicago area.

WHICH IS WHY it is with interest that I see the changes that have been made in recent weeks to the Tinley Park-based SouthtownStar newspaper and that are being proposed for the one-time Gary Post-Tribune (which now likes to think of itself as the voice of Merrillville, Ind.)

The SouthtownStar of the South Side and suburban Cook County went tabloid (although some people who hate that word because of its modern-day connotations prefer to call it “compact”). The Post-Tribune plans to make the same change.

The Sun-Times has been a tabloid for decades, so that change in page size is not something they can adjust to.

But the SouthtownStar has taken on a change that catches my attention – no more Saturday paper. To tell you the truth, I don’t miss it much.

THE NEWSPAPER THAT comes out on Friday is labeled the “weekend edition,” and the thicker Sunday paper with a few extra feature sections has an early edition on Saturday for those people who are determined to plunk down some money to pick up a piece of newsprint (personally, I can wait until the final edition on Sunday for the late sports scores) on that day – instead of using it to catch up on errands and personal business.

I must admit that in recent years, about the only reason I felt compelled to read most Saturday editions of newspapers was because I was writing for them, and I wanted to make sure that the copy editors didn’t mangle my prose in the stories that were published on Saturday, rather than held for Sunday.

If making this change were to enable a little more resources to be thrown into improving the Sunday product, it would be one change I would not mind seeing come to the Sun-Times.

It would be a change that I would hope new ownership would consider, because the bottom line is that it is stupid to buy a newspaper company these days purely as a financial investment (which is what ultimately was Sam Zell’s downfall with Tribune Co.)

IN THINKING ABOUT who is crazy enough to want to buy the Sun-Times and its legacy, one must figure out what they would want to do with it.

At the very least, that is more interesting than speculating about how much more in concessions union workers can be pressured into giving up.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Will the Chicago Sun-Times soon have new ownership, or will it (http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-fri-sun-times-0904sep04,0,4021947.story) run out of cash first? And how many changes to the nearly seven-decade old newspaper (http://nwitimes.com/business/local/article_0d03d63e-d661-5fd4-b280-9e88d08df889.html) can be seen in the changes being made these days to the company’s sister newspapers throughout the suburbs?

A plus or a minus for Kirk

Rep. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., wants to be in the Senate, and is now having to deal with a set of campaign ads that portrays him as insensitive (if not downright ignorant) on the issue of immigration.

But in the climate of society these days when it comes to immigration, does it really hurt a Republican who is facing concerns that he's not conservative enough on social issues to be thought of as anti-immigration? It would hurt him come the general election, but there's also the chance that it is so far away that people will have forgotten the ads currently airing in places where the growing Latino population will see and hear them.

FOR ALL THOSE people who are offended at the image of Kirk's face inside the ring of a condom and think it is a shot to his reputation, I'd argue it is similar to the way Latinos felt watching Jim Oberweis fly over Soldier Field in a helicopter, spewing his rhetoric in a cheap attempt to gain votes.

For those who'd like to know more about this situation, check out this site's sister weblog, The South Chicagoan, at http://southchicagoan.blogspot.com/.

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Some need to read “1984” more closely

Before I start dumping all over the people who want to make an issue out of President Barack Obama’s intent to speak to this country’s schoolchildren next week via the Internet and television, let me state one point.

It is a cheap stunt.

OBAMA PLANS TO use the website www.whitehouse.gov, along with C-SPAN, to deliver a speech telling children about the significance of staying in school. He will be at a high school in the Virginia suburbs of Washington D.C., but all children in the United States who are in school on Tuesday will have the option of watching him.

It is a stunt meant to get the president into the news on an issue as innocuous as the need for an education. It will take place solely to give the president a few minutes of positive public relations value.

But it was no more of a stunt than the day when former President George W. Bush walked across an aircraft carrier with a banner reading “Mission Accomplished” in the background, trying to take credit for “winning” the war in the Middle East that he had managed to create.

Personally, I find Obama’s stunt to be a little bit less offensive than Bush’s now-famed stunt – which may well go into the history books as one of the all-timed tacky political stunts.

OF COURSE, POLITICAL stunts are not at all uncommon. Political officials by their very nature create stunts that are meant to put themselves in positive situations, especially if they can be staged in ways so that the only people who can get close enough to question the president will be someone harmless.

My guess is that Obama’s handlers think a group of Virginia high school students will not be able to come up with any questions or do anything else that will make the president look foolish.

And he will be able to claim he’s delivering an inspiring message to the nation’s youth, while also showing off the fact that he’s the first president who “gets” how to effectively use the Internet to deliver his message.

As though the ’08 presidential campaign wasn’t enough.

SO THE PEOPLE who are now getting worked up over this are right in thinking it is cheap public relations.

But since when has that ever been sufficient reason to dump on incumbent president, or any other political official?

I can’t help but be offended at the people who are now trying to turn this into some issue of a heinous official trying to poison the minds of the Youth of America with his own 21st Century vision of what this country is supposed to be about.

Could it be that these are people still stuck in the 20th Century (literally, I expect someone to bring up the novel “1984,” which included messages broadcast to the public in the workplaces and the schools – all as part of the effort to indoctrinate thought)?

IT TURNS OUT that some school districts in the Chicago area are giving parents the opportunity to keep their kids home from school on Tuesday, if they really, absolutely object to the idea of their young’uns sitting in a classroom and listening to the president for however long his stunt speech takes place.

They’re giving credence to people such as the man quoted in the Arlington Heights-based Daily Herald newspaper, who said Obama’s stunt, “makes me angry as an American.”

What makes me angry is that this person thinks silencing an incumbent leader is somehow the “American way” of thought.

My guess is that had these parents not decided to make an issue of this, most children would have sort of slumped through the speech paying half-attention to it, and most would have forgotten its message by day’s end.

NOW, IT IS being elevated to some sort of significant cause. People are going to be giving their kids the impression that skipping out on a political leader is somehow worthwhile.

It makes me wonder how many of these same parents were the ones who would always rant about Bush’s critics that they were being “disrespectful” to the office of President of the United States.

But now that the POTUS is someone of a different ideology, they think they ought to be able to dump on him at will?

Actually, they can. It is all part of that “freedom of expression” that is protected in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. They have the right to disagree and make that disagreement known.

BUT JUST BECAUSE someone legally can say something does not always make it right. The lesson they are passing along to their kids about “respect” is questionable.

And anyway, there’s also the fact that that same “freedom of expression” gives me the right to respond. So here it goes.

There are some parents in the Chicago area who are mental halfwits if they think keeping their kids from listening to the president for a few minutes next week will somehow make the kids better human beings.

Those people probably need to do a re-read of “1984” if they think that limiting the exposure to alternate ideas somehow expands their own minds. Because ultimately, that was what the concept of “Big Brother” was about.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Some school districts are willing to let parents exempt their children from (http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=318518) Barack Obama’s national attempt to talk to the school kids of America.

Dig up those lists of judges. Obama may get another Supreme Court pick soon

Didn’t we just finish a Supreme Court nomination process?

Now we have some people speculating that we’re going to go through it again.

THE LOS ANGELES Times is doing the political prognosticating from the word that Justice John Paul Stevens has not picked a full load of clerks as evidence that he may be thinking about retirement.

Of course, the fact that he is on the verge of beginning his 10th decade of life on Planet Earth could also be seen as evidence that his seat (for one reason or another) on the nation’s high court could be opening up soon.

Should Stevens decide to retire in the near future, it would ensure that President Barack Obama would get to pick another justice to the Supreme Court of the United States. Having multiple picks on the high court would ensure that Obama would leave his mark on the nation in the same way that presidents Nixon and Reagan got to leave theirs with justices who remain on the job all these years later.

I’m sure that fact is making the Obama bashers of our society ill. They would prefer that the man leave no mark on our society because it goes so counter to their vision of the nation that would still have us stuck in so many ways in the first third of the 20th Century, rather than moving into the early years of the 21st.

BUT THIS UPCOMING confirmation battle, should it occur within the next year or so (which is what the Times of Los Angeles implies will occur), will differ from the one that is only recently complete.

For one thing, it won’t be an ethnic battle. It is highly unlikely that any of the other qualified justices of Latin American ethnicity will be taken seriously, on account of the perception that Latinos got “their” seat on the court with the selection of Sonia Sotomayor.

So this will be a case of all those other attorneys and judges who have serious credentials being able to dig out their resumes and make their pitches for lifetime employment on the nation’s high court.

It makes me wonder if Judge Diane Wood, one of the federal judges who works at the U.S. District Court for Chicago, could get her chance for a Supreme Court seat.

SHE REPORTEDLY WAS one of a few judges who got called to the White House earlier this year to meet with the president when he was looking for the replacement for David Souter.

Could she now be the replacement for Stevens – a Chicago native who was chosen for the high court by Saturday Night Live’s favorite klutzy politico, Gerald R. Ford? Or is it going to be one of the other judicial “goofs” we now see in our fair city somehow rising up to the nation’s high court?

There would be a symmetry of sorts if one Chicagoan on the high court were replaced by another Chicagoan. Even though Wood is a Chicagoan by choice who works here, rather than grew up here, I doubt that native Hawaiian and adult Chicagoan Obama would hold that against her.

The reason I bring this up is that I always had the nagging thought that Obama theoretically would like to have three appointments to the nine-member Supreme Court.

HIS PICKS WOULD be a Latino, a woman and a Chicagoan. I remember joking that if someone could find a Latina from Chicago with legal experience, that would be the ultimate Supreme Court pick for Obama.

On a serious note, Obama technically fulfilled two of those categories with his selection of Sotomayor.

Picking Wood, whom Obama knew personally during his Chicago days (he was a law school professor of sorts at the University of Chicago), would also fulfill two categories and certainly would reinforce the idea that he is looking to balance out the high court from a gender perspective.

And should things work out that Obama did someday get to make a third nomination to the Supreme Court, it would give him great latitude to pick, since he technically would have already fulfilled his minimal goals.

IT COULD BE his chance to pick someone whom he truly wanted to have the seat, particularly if it was to replace one of the five justices who tend to vote in an ideologically conservative manner on cases before the court.

Being able to have a third of the high court of his choosing and create an ideological shift in the court’s composition would make for a significant part of the Obama legacy.

Because that hasn’t happened yet. Replacing Souter and Stevens merely means the portion of the high court that tends to vote in a less ideologically conservative manner on cases before the court has the chance to remain the same.

It could be that Souter and Stevens would have been inclined to try to hold on to their Supreme Court posts for dear life had we been burdened with a “President McCain” for the next four years.

THAT LIKELY IS the reason Obama will get his picks early in his presidency, then would have to rely on the Grim Reaper himself to get those other Supreme Court justices to leave their positions during his administration.

Of course, just envision what would happen if Obama were to somehow, during the course of an eight-year presidency, get four Supreme Court picks. Talk radio would be overloaded with people in our society who would be decrying its downfall while those of us with sense would chuckle.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: The nation could soon be enduring yet another partisan political fight (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-stevens3-2009sep03,0,5471894.story) over a Supreme Court judicial nominee.

Blagojevich = Icarus, or a Stooge?

It was Saturday night and I happened to be in downtown Chicago with about a half-hour’s worth of time to kill when I ventured into a bookstore on State Street.

It was then that I first saw a book whose very existence will make many Illinois political observers wretch and even many other people shudder. I’m talking, of course, about “The Governor.”

THE 264-PAGE VOLUME written rather quickly in the past couple of months by our state’s now-impeached governor is out there for sale.

Perhaps it was against my better judgment, but I actually snatched a copy and put down my $19.96 (plus 10.25 percent sales tax totaling $2.08, of which 38 cents went toward Cook County government) to buy a copy.

Since then, I have been snatching glances at the copy. Not that I’ve been able to read this tome for any extended length. The self-righteous tone combined with a plodding writing style (anyone who thought Blagojevich was exaggerating when he described himself as a C-student in college will realize after reading this that he wasn’t) make it tough to read for any extended period of time.

So I have skipped about, running into little anecdotes. I encountered his description about how he would have been willing to give the U.S. Senate seat abandoned by Barack Obama to Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, if it meant her Illinois House speaker father would be willing to support some of his future proposals in the General Assembly.

OF COURSE, IT never came to that, because he got indicted soon after in early December. In fact, I’m wondering if some people would think that offering a political position to a government official in exchange for political support would be considered a bribe in and of itself.

It certainly strikes me as being closer to criminal than anything that was done by, say, Dan Rostenkowski during his time in Congress (for which he wound up doing a term in prison before eventually being pardoned by former President Bill Clinton).

Yet the overall point of this book isn’t really in the details supposedly being offered by Blagojevich about Illinois government (I haven’t yet found the part where Blagojevich claims White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel asked for help in putting together a deal by which Emanuel could return to Congress in a couple of years, possibly in a high-ranking position of authority).

This is all about Blagojevich telling us repeatedly, “I didn’t do it.”

HE DECLARES FLAT-OUT that he did nothing illegal in handling the selection of a new Senator to replace Obama. “That accusation is completely and entirely false,” he writes.

He also starts out his book by telling us his impression of Inauguration Day, watching Obama take the oath of office in the District of Columbia while he was in a federal courtroom in Chicago.

As Blagojevich put it, Obama was “Zeus on top of Mount Olympus,” while he had become “Icarus, who flew too close to the Sun and crashed to the ground.”

It’s like this all the way through, saying that the end result of all the legal procedures he is going through is that he is no longer a governor who can try to take positive action on issues such as health care, unemployment and housing.

OF COURSE, HE even takes his shots at the sometimes hysterical news coverage of his arrest and indictment, noting how U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald’s line about Abraham Lincoln “rolling over in his grave” was just as over-the-top a statement, yet was given credibility by the reporter-types on hand that day at the Dirksen Building.

According to Blagojevich, the person who really was rolling over in his grave was Edward R. Murrow of CBS.

Yet in the portions of the book that I have seen (I don’t know how long it will take me to get through the volume, particularly since I also picked up another book about the life of one-time Congressman and alderman William L. Dawson that strikes me as being more interesting), there is one moment that truly catches my attention.

It probably gives us the biggest sense of how Blagojevich truly sees himself.

HE DRAWS COMPARISONS between his own plight and those of Martha Stewart and Lewis I. “Scooter” Libby – both of whom faced federal prosecutions that Blagojevich says he thinks did not do anything that ought to be considered illegal.

As Blagojevich writes of Libby’s case, “they were determined to get him. It got to the point where it didn’t matter what the truth was. The federal prosecutor had made such a big deal out of this investigation that the case became more about the prosecutor’s own self-preservation than justice.”

Then, of course, Blagojevich writes, “that same prosecutor is prosecuting me.”

I’m sure in Milorod’s mind, some sort of eerie music plays to emphasize the “unjustness” of it all.

YET IN MY mind, the theme music ought to be something more along the lines of the version of “Three Blind Mice” that used to accompany the introductory credits to the “Three Stooges” shorts.

At least that would have the right tone of buffoonery to it.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: It appears the Associated Press gave “The Governor” a thorough read (http://www.chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?id=35307) more quickly than I did.

Could this be the (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hF_rWzDlL5U&feature=related) proper theme music for anything related to Blagojevich in the future?

EXTRA: Everybody doesn’t hate Todd

Sometimes, I think people need to be reminded that their distaste for Cook County Board President Todd Stroger is not universal.

The man will have some support come next year’s election, and the trick is whether that support will be sufficient in a field with several candidates splitting up the vote.

SADLY ENOUGH, IT has become a racially motivated thing, as many of Stroger’s votes will come from people who perceive the upcoming campaign session as an excuse to take away a political office from an African-American male.

For those who would like to think that we’re beyond all that as a society, we’re probably not.

I couldn’t help but notice a couple of fellow African-American officials on the Cook County Board who, during the nearly two hours of debate concerning the sales tax issue, came to Stroger’s defense.

“You haven’t been a bad president in terms of trying to do things to benefit people,” said Commissioner Earlean Collins. “You get a bad shake, there’s no denying it.”

AGREEING WAS COMMISSIONER Jerry “the Iceman” Butler, who told Stroger he likes him personally, but is backing another candidate for county board president next year because, “the press has done a job on him, he’ll never get out from under it.”

For the record, Butler was among the four commissioners who backed Stroger with his vote on the veto override, while Collins was one of the 13 who voted against Stroger’s interests.

As she explained it, “You have to go and give (people) what they want, even if it’s not the best thing.”

Which reminds me of a line that once came from the mouth of former Illinois Senate President James “Pate” Philip, R-Wood Dale, in explaining why he voted to lower the legal standard for intoxication to 0.08 after years of opposing it. “Sometimes, you have to do what the people want,” he said.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: For those who haven’t read it anywhere else, a brief account of how Todd Stroger (http://nwitimes.com/news/local/illinois/article_d737cc6a-9416-5a33-9aff-5789ef92d83f.html) prevailed yet again on the sales tax decrease issue.

County tax “fight” more about political gamesmanship than public policy

The Cook County Board took a month off during August for a summer “break,” but it appears the political stunts will resume in earnest when they reconvene Tuesday.

Because the key issue for the county board will be the same one that has dominated their meetings for months – the county’s portion of the local sales tax, which when added up with the state and municipal portions comes to over 10 percent in Chicago proper, and close to 10 percent in the suburbs.

COUNTY OFFICIALS HAVE tried for months to repeal an increase they approved last year in their portion of the tax, or at least tried to decrease their increase slightly, all so they can spew out rhetoric claiming they are looking out for the interests of the people.

By the same token, county board President Todd Stroger keep using his “veto” power to reject their decrease of the increase, claiming that the county needs the money to maintain public health programs. That means he’s the one who’s looking out for the interests of the people.

For the record, the sales tax in the city is 10.25 percent of every dollar spent, of which 1.75 percent is the county’s share (the state gets about 6 percent, with Chicago getting the rest).

Now I know a lot of people thought this political rhetoric had finally come to an end in late July when the county board put together a coalition of commissioners willing to vote for a decrease (if not an outright repeal of the increase).

ONLY THE MOST hard-core of Stroger supporters were willing to stick with him. So it looked like even though Stroger once again used his “veto” power, he would wind up losing because the county board likely would override him when they meet Tuesday.

Yet all that became undone when county Commissioner Robert Maldonado got himself a political promotion last month to the City Council. He’s an alderman now, which gives him greater influence in his ward than he could ever have had as a county official (that’s the Chicago Way – rather parochial at times).

But it also means that the people who want desperately to repeal what has come to be seen as Stroger’s tax hike no longer have enough votes for support that veto override they were so desperately counting on.

And some got alarmed when Ald. Dick Mell (one of the officials who has a hand in picking Maldonado’s replacement on the county board) that he wasn’t in any hurry.

THAT LITERALLY GOT the anti-tax types all worked up to the point where Mell had to switch his stance, which is why committeemen from the northwest side met Monday at a Mexican restaurant (Lazo’s Tacos on Milwaukee Avenue, I kid you not) to hold a private meeting to pick a new county commissioner.

That could mean, in theory, that a replacement for Maldonado who would vote the same way he would have could be in place on Tuesday, and a tax over-ride could still take place.

But Mell has made it clear to reporter-types that the tax issue isn’t his biggest concern, and he’s not about to ask prospective county board members what they think about the issue. It just doesn’t matter to him.

This is an issue I gave up a long time ago trying to predict how it will turn out. I’m not about to venture a guess as to whether the override of Stroger will take place, or whether it will fail.

NOT THAT IT matters. County commissioners already have said they merely will pass another resolution demanding a decrease in the county’s portion of the sales tax, which means Stroger will again veto and they will again try to override him.

This roller coaster of a political battle will continue until they actually get an override, or until Election Day.

Because that ultimately is what this whole petty political battle is about. County commissioners are desperate to claim they did something that caused a tax to decline. And if in the process they can embarrass Todd Stroger, that will cause them to gain a little more support in their political circles.

Likewise, Stroger is desperate to claim that he managed to maintain some of the increase that was approved so he can claim to his supporters (many of whom these days are those less fortunate in our society) that he did something to keep social programs in place for them, and also prevented those whose interests center more around a “well-to-do” crowd from using the less fortunate as a dumping ground.

IF IT SEEMS like I’m writing that this issue has taken on overtones of class, it has. Sadly enough, it also has become a racial issue – one that will carry over into the Feb. 2 primary for Cook County government positions, including county president.

This has become a case where “the people’s business” has come to be defined by the segment of “the people” that one thinks is likely to vote for someone. Our county officials on Tuesday are going to behave in ways that are meant to benefit them on Election Day.

Insofar as the rest of the days, that just doesn’t matter. This is truly one issue where there are no “good guys,” and anybody who claims otherwise is proving the accuracy of that old cliché, “How can you tell when a politician is lying? His lips move.”

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EDITOR'S NOTE: The new member of the Cook County board of commissioners is former Gov. Rod Blagojevich's (http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/1744901,edwin-reyes-replace-maldonado-commissioner-083109.article) one-time state police bodyguard.