Will anyone vote for Gary Johnson just because the Chicago Tribune said to?

It was about a month ago that I, while having lunch with some former work colleagues, made the bold prediction that the Chicago Tribune would wind up eating crow and endorsing Donald Trump’s presidential bid.

JOHNSON: Trib pick for prez

It was made clear by the newspaper back during the primary that Hillary Clinton was not an acceptable option. In fact, the newspaper back in March dissed the entire Democratic Party primary process and anyone who was looking there for national leadership.

THE ONE-TIME “WORLD’S Greatest Newspaper” actually backed Marco Rubio in the Republican primary even though it was already clear by that point that Trump was well on his way to securing the GOP nomination.

I figured that since they had so clearly rejected Clinton as an option, they’d have to find some rhetorical way of taking back their Trump hostility. Probably something along the lines of the need to support someone who’d back conservative Republican principles and pick GOP operatives to handle the actual work of governing. Which is something that Hillary certainly won’t do.

Well, it seems I was off a bit. While most newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times that shares Tribune ownership, and the Chicago Sun-Times, are begrudgingly endorsing Clinton (the Arizona Republic out in Phoenix says she’s the first non-Republican they’ve ever backed for president), the Tribune had to figure out its own way of being different.

The Chicago Tribune on Friday let word get out that they are officially backing the presidential aspirations of Gary Johnson, He’s the former New Mexico governor who has the Libertarian Party’s nomination for the Nov. 8 general elections.

IT SEEMS I was right in thinking that the Tribune would not be able to get in line with the concept of “President Hillary Clinton.” But the Tribune, which calls Johnson “a principled option for U.S. president,” is now the newspaper of choice for those political malcontents who wish they could cast idealistic votes.

Will Republic readers care more about coupons?

Although I find it humorous that the people most anxious to find an alternate political party are going out of their way to ignore Jill Stein and the Green Party. None of that liberal freakish nonsense for them.

They’re willing to ignore the portions of libertarian ideology that says laws against narcotics use, restricting abortion and a military draft are bad (on the grounds that government shouldn’t be involved in such things) because they like the idea that firearms restrictions, public schools and taxes, in general, are equally abhorrent.

Natl. Enquirer picked Trump during primary season

That’s what the Tribune has thrown its lot in with, at least for this election cycle. Come 2020, they’ll be back in bed with the Republican Party – which, I suspect, they were looking forward to rejoining this election cycle following two terms of bringing itself in line with backing Barack Obama.

BECAUSE I’M PRETTY sure the Tribune made that decision largely because they knew their readership would revolt if they had dared to go against the hometown boy – even if he was really born and raised in Honolulu (with a stint of his childhood in Malaysia).

As it is, Hillary Clinton (if elected) would be the first Chicago-born U.S. president. But she went out east to college, then followed her husband to Arkansas. Meaning she wrote us off, so they can justify writing her off as a hometown girl made good.

Oddly enough, the Tribune may have got one-upped in their attempt to gain public attention for their Libertarian endorsement.

Because it seems the Detroit News made the same selection, publishing an editorial that, like many other newspapers, apologizes for not picking the Republican for president this election cycle after generations (143 years, to be exact) of having done so.

THEN, THERE WAS USA Today, which came up with its own editorial that didn’t tell us who to vote for. It said we should NOT vote for Trump; calling him “unfit for the presidency.”

Johnson doesn't know 'Allepo?' Do voters know either of these guys?

It really is the trend this time around. “Don’t Vote for Trump!!!” Which makes me wonder how many would-be voters would feel compelled to listen. I suspect the minions who are backing Trump will react with revulsion. Just like at the Dallas Morning News, which said that its “Vote Hillary” endorsement resulted in significant subscription cancellations!

There are very few newspapers (such as the Santa Barbara News-Press) willing to publicly pick The Donald as their endorsed candidate. For two of them – the New York Post and the New York Observer – it can be argued that those publications have relied on Trump’s boorish antics for so many years to generate their news copy that they need a Trump presidency to create stories.

Something has to fill all that otherwise-white space in the paper that goes around the ads for testosterone-production pills that run on Page 17.

  -30-

EDITOR’S NOTE: As for those people who are getting all worked up now that Gary Johnson didn’t know any world leaders, I suspect 90 percent of the electorate doesn’t know either – and many probably think the people who do know have way too much free time on their hands. That may be the real problem our society faces these days -- and why Trump does as well as he does in public polling.

How long until Chicago Tribune becomes merely “the newspaper?”

I’m remembering back to an idle conversation I had with one of my colleagues back in the days when I worked for United Press International – we noticed the large number of banks that had merged with one another.

A boast that soon may no longer be possible to make

Would it someday reach the point where only one company would control the industry – and we’d all wind up being consumers at “The Bank?”

I COULDN’T HELP but remember that moment when I learned this week of the fact that Gannett newspapers (the founder of USA Today and gobble up-er of many local papers across the nation) is interested in buying Tribune Publishing.

Particularly the Chicago Tribune itself. The newspaper that long-time Gannett boss Al Neuharth praised as one of the nation’s best could someday wind up as a part of the company.

A cog in the overall machine that gives news and information to people across the country. Because I suspect if current ownership tries to resist a sale, stockholders interested only in the financial bottom line will wind up stringing them up outside of Tribune Tower, and dumping their carcasses in the heavily-polluted Chicago River.

Yet the image of a Gannett-owned Chicago Tribune bothers me in particular, even though I realize that modern-day newspapers are nowhere near as individualistic as they were in past generations.

PARTICULARLY WHEN ONE ventures outside of Chicago or metropolitan areas, there is a tendency for the “local” papers to carry the same stories – usually written by the Associated Press (and I don’t want to hear from any current or former AP snobs about how the “t” in ‘the’ is capitalized; the one-time Unipresser in me says “Shove it!”).

Even the larger metros are losing their character and becoming merely bigger (and more costly, which cuts into the financial bottom line) versions of ink-on-paper distribution of information.

Which is a medium I am going to prefer until the day I die – reading off a screen gives me a headache after too long a time.

But back to the future of newspapers, particularly the Chicago Tribune – which in the interest of disclosure I should admit I do some work for on a freelance basis. I have an interest in what becomes of Tribune Publishing, because I think about the only other newspaper in the Chicago area left that I could write for would be the Herald-News of Joliet (Shaw Media).

EVERYTHING ELSE IS gobbled up, and now someone else wants to gobble up the Chicago Tribune – which historically wanted to think of itself as the high-and-mighty voice of the Midwestern U.S. But if it becomes a part of Gannett, it would be a sister paper to the metro dailies in Indianapolis, Detroit, Des Moines and Milwaukee.

With the St. Louis Post-Dispatch owned by Quad Cities-based Lee Enterprises, it could very well wind up that the Chicago Sun-Times becomes the lone independent voice. Either that, or an isolated voice that nobody listens to.

Because the strategy behind all this consolidation is that newspapers have to grow into as large of groups as possible so they can consolidate as many of their costs as possible.

The idea that the Chicago Tribune would remain significantly different from the Indianapolis Star, the Detroit News, the Des Moines Register or Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel would be laughable. It would defeat the purpose of combining into one large company, which would require the publications to become mere versions of one another.

THE SCARY THING (to me, at least) is that I don’t think many people would notice a difference. Particularly because television news already shares so much from city to city and there often is little to distinguish (one male news anchor has a particularly ridiculous-looking toupee, while another station’s meteorologist likes to show more cleavage) one television station from another.

For all I know, there may be people who think the idea of “the newspaper” that provides the same product regardless of what city it’s being purchased in is something good.

Just like how they think being able to get the identical product from a Subway sandwich franchise regardless of where one is makes for a good business plan.

I honestly think this viewpoint is something we won’t appreciate the flaws of until it’s too late to do anything about it.

  -30-