Tribune-Times-Mirror's Historic Florida Newspaper Connections and Union-Busting

(Most of the following article appeared in the April 13, 1994 issue of the now-defunct Lower East Side alternative newsweekly, Downtown).

The Tribune-Times-Mirror media conglomerate has also been historically connected to the extremely profitable 281,000-circulation [in 1994] Orlando Sentinel and the 259,000-circulation [in 1994] Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel newspapers in Florida since the 1960s. As the New York Times (11/7/84) noted in its “The Prospering Tribune Co.” article:

“In Florida newspapers in Orlando and Fort Lauderdale remain the nation’s fastest-growing dailies…Analysts estimated that (in 1983) the Orlando-Sentinel earned about $40 million from operations and the Fort Lauderdale papers had a profit of about $30 million.

“Revenues for the Orlando papers have grown an average of 17 percent annually since 1980. And the two Fort Lauderdale papers have enjoyed 15.5 percent annual revenue growth.”

Another Tribune Company newspaper was published in Newport News, Virginia in the early 1990s.

Despite its profitability, in the 1980s and early 1990s the Tribune Company’s history of anti-labor editorial politics was matched by an intensification of its union-busting approach to Tribune media conglomerate employees.. As The Nation magazine noted in its May 7, 1990 issue:

“The $3 billion Tribune Company, the media conglomerate from the city of the big shoulders, loves to bash unions. In a 1985 strike it successfully replaced 1,000 of its craft workers at the Chicago Tribune with nonunion personnel. Masterminding its win over the employees of the composing room, mail room and pressroom was Robert (Cat) Ballow of King & Ballow of Nashville, notorious among unions as a hired gun.”

Following the 1985 strike of Chicago Tribune employees, the Tribune media conglomerate broke three of its employee unions and went on to eliminate 25 percent of its production work force.

At its Big Apple WPIX-TV station, the Tribune Company historically practiced its politics of union-busting by violating U.S. labor laws. As the New York Times reported in its June 28, 1990 issue:

“A 3-judge appeals panel has ruled that WPIX-TV, a station in New York City owned by the Tribune Company of Chicago, committed a deliberate violation of Federal labor law when it broke off contract talks in 1987 with 67 unionized employees of its news department.

“The action, by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Manhattan also upheld a finding by the National Labor Relations Board that the station had engaged in an unfair labor practice by refusing to pay contractually guaranteed wage increases…”

After the Newspaper Guild of New York’s contract with Tribune/WPIX-TV expired in June 1986, the number of union members on WPIX-TV/Channel 11’s staff had been decreased from about 70 to about 30 by its Tribune Company managers.

Prior to selling its New York Daily News operation to British media baron Maxwell before Maxwell’s mysterious death in late 1991, the Tribune Company also attempted to bust the unions of Daily News employees. Although the Tribune Company media conglomerate’s annual net profits rose 23 percent per year during the 1980s and its 1989 net profit exceeded $242 million, in late October 1990 it still dismissed 2,400 unionized Daily News workers. It then replaced many of these unionized workers with both local “scab” workers and “scab” employees which it flew in from its Chicago Tribune, Orlando Sentinel or Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel newspapers. It also again “hired the notorious union-busting law firm of King & Ballow to conduct the negotiations,” as well as an increased number of security guards. (The Nation 12/3/90)

During the 1990-1991 strike of Daily News employees, the Tribune Company’s union-busting activity was supervised by its local publisher—a Phillips Exeter Academy and Yale University preppie graduate from Park Avenue named James Hoge. Coincidentally, the union-busting local publisher at the New York Daily News in 1990-91 was the brother of the New York Times then-Assistant Managing Editor Warren Hoge.

In the 21st-century, the billionaire Chicago real estate investor who now controls the Tribune-Times-Mirror media conglomerate, Sam Zell, continues to eliminate jobs at the corporate media conglomerate’s newspaper offices. On February 13, 2008, Tribune-Times-Mirror media conglomerate executives announced that between 400 to 500 jobs were to be eliminated at its various newspapers by March 31, 2008. Both the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune newspaper operations will reduce their staff positions by 100, while 45 positions would be eliminated at both the Hartford Courant and the Baltimore Sun newspaper offices.

(Downtown 4/13/94)

Next: Tribune-Times-Mirror’s Historic Corporate and Chicago Cubs Connection

Tribune-Times-Mirror vs. The U.S. Counter-Culture Historically

(The following article appeared in the April 13, 1994 issue of the now-defunct Lower East Side alternative newsweekly, Downtown).

Not surprisingly, during the 1960s the white Corporate Straight Males who controlled Tribune-Times-Mirror were not great fans of the U.S. counter-culture. In an April 1968 editorial, for instance, the Chicago Tribune’s editors stated the following:

“Students terrorize faculties and university presidents and assert that they should govern the administration and dictate the curriculum. We are knee-deep in hippies, marijuana, LSD and other hallucinogenics. We do not need any of these…”

And when counter-cultural people from Downtown Manhattan went out to Chicago to peacefully protest the Democratic National Convention and attempt to hold a musical “Festival of Life” in Chicago’s city parks in August 1968, the editors of the Chicago Tribune also stated the following:

“We have no sympathy with the rowdy demonstrations conducted by the hippies, yippies and other young punks who have gathered in Chicago by the thousands…We do have sympathy for the Chicago police…For enforcing law and order, Mayor Daley and his police deserve congratulations rather than criticisms…”

Chicago Democratic Party machine boss Richard Daley I, incidentally, was supported in four of his six mayoral campaigns during his lifetime by the Chicago Tribune.

(Downtown 4/13/94)

Next: Tribune-Times-Mirror’s Historic Florida Newspaper Connections and Union-Busting

Tribune-Times-Mirror's Nixon Connection Historically

(The following article appeared in the April 13, 1994 issue of the now-defunct Lower East Side alternative newsweekly, Downtown).

After McCormick’s death in 1955, the Medill-McCormick-Patterson Dynasty’s McCormick-Patterson Trust—which controlled the Tribune Company—was placed under the control of the McCormick “Charitable” Trust for the next two decades, until the Tribune Company was re-organized in 1975. In the early 1980s it was again re-organized and in 1983 Tribune Company stock began to be sold to investors who weren’t either members of the Medill-McCormick-Patterson Dynasty or Tribune Company executives. In its Nov. 12, 1990 issue, the New York Times noted that the Tribune Company was now “run by men with a background in finance,” had “a buttoned-down culture untouched by the glitz of other media giants” and had three top company officials—Charles Brumback, Stanton Cook and John Madigan—who didn’t have any experience as working journalists.

But despite the organizational changes made following Robert McCormick’s 1955 death, the Tribune Company continued to support U.S. politicians like Richard Nixon during the 1960s and 1970s. As The `Chicago Tribune': The Rise Of A Great American Newspaper noted: “The Tribune was firmly against Kennedy for president” in 1960 and in 1968 "the Tribune began its campaign to insure the nomination of Richard M. Nixon for president.” The same book also recalled that after Nixon announced he was running for president again in 1968, an editorial appeared in the Chicago Tribune which asserted that “Nixon’s announcement of his candidacy for president is welcome news” and “his intelligence and experience in government are unsurpassed.”

(Downtown 4/13/94)

Next: Tribune-Times-Mirror vs. The U.S. Counter-Culture Historically

Tribune-Times-Mirror's McCarthyism Connection Historically

(The following article appeared in the April 13, 1994 issue of the now-defunct Lower East Side alternative newsweekly, Downtown).

After the Chicago-based Tribune Company was given a license by the FCC to begin operating its New York City television station in 1948, its Chicago Tribune newspaper began to support Wisconsin Senator Joe McCarthy’s anti-democratic campaign to brand all U.S. liberals and radicals as unpatriotic “Reds,” who deserved to be jailed and repressed because they were part of an alleged “international communist conspiracy.” As `Chicago Tribune’: The Rise Of A Great American Newspaper recalled:

“Throughout all of McCarthy’s campaigns against the Reds, rarely did the Tribune question the senator’s tactics…The Tribune staunchly defended him and furiously attacked his enemies…

“The Tribune continued to defend Senator McCarthy to the end of his days. The senator died on May 2, 1957, and on May 5…the paper summarized Senator McCarthy’s fight and career in a long and angry editorial, which concluded: `No man in public life was ever persecuted and maligned because of his beliefs as was Sen. McCarthy…the Republic has lost a stalwart defender.’”

On Aug. 23, 1952, Tribune media conglomerate owner Robert McCormick also had argued that “Every patriot in Wisconsin will vote for Senator Joseph McCarthy.”

(Downtown 4/13/94)

Next: Tribune-Times-Mirror’s Nixon Connection Historically

The `Chicago Tribune''s Hidden History--Part 3

(The following article appeared in the April 13, 1994 issue of the now-defunct Lower East Side alternative newsweekly, Downtown).

During the 1920s and 1930s McCormick’s Chicago Tribune first entered the U.S. broadcasting world. As early as 1947, for instance, John Tebbell noted in his An American Dynasty:

“One of the astute moves that Colonel McCormick made in building his empire was to get in on the ground floor of radio, at a time when most publishers scoffed at the idea that it could ever be a serious rival of the newspaper.

“…As early as 1921…he began the negotiations which ended in June 1924 with the purchase of WDAP, then Chicago’s most powerful station. Less than a month later the station had its call letters changed to WGN, meaning of course, `World’s Greatest Newspaper’…

“…In 1934…WGN joined WOR, Newark, WLLW, Cincinnati, and WXYX, Detroit, in a network which expanded in time to the powerful 268 stations (at last count) Mutual Broadcasting System, with WGN and WOR the key outlets. The Colonel owns 24 percent of Mutual stock, and W.E. MacFarlane, Tribune business manager, was president of the chain for several years…”

Around the time New York Daily News founder Patterson died in 1946, the value of the Chicago Tribune media empire which he and McCormick had inherited and expanded was worth about $100 million. But, despite the financial success achieved by the Chicago Tribune between 1920 and the end of World War II, it was not regarded as too great a newspaper, from a journalistic point of view, by many U.S. media analysts.

In the July 3, 1937 issue of Progressive magazine, for instance, the magazine’s editor, William Evjue, asserted that “The Chicago Tribune is the most vicious and unscrupulous newspaper in the United States today.” And, in his 1938 book, Lords Of The Press, George Seldes also wrote the following:

“I have studied the Tribune in America…I know of no newspaper which is so vicious and stupid in its attack on labor, no paper so consistent in its Red-baiting, and no paper in my opinion is such a great enemy of the American people…No newspaper has such an unbroken record of labor-baiting as the Chicago Tribune.”

An American Dynasty by John Tebbel also noted that “The Tribune is guilty of producing distorted news, and it also suppresses news in the sense that it denies evidence of truth if this evidence is contrary to its editorial policies.” The same book also recalled that on Aug. 27, 1921 the Chicago Tribune had “defended the Klan editorially.”

The Chicago Tribune opposed FDR’s New Deal and “held that Roosevelt should keep his hands off business” despite the 1930s Great Depression, according to `Chicago Tribune’: The Rise Of A Great American Newspaper by Lloyd Wendt. The same book also recalled that during the 1936 presidential campaign “Roosevelt supporters attacked the Tribune for the viciousness of its anti-Roosevelt campaign.” An American Dynasty also recalled that “In its crusade against organized labor and against the New Deal the Tribune has not hesitated to print what seems to be outright lies.”

(Downtown 4/13/94)

Next: Tribune-Times-Mirror’s McCarthyism Connection

The `Chicago Tribune's Hidden History--Part 2

(The following article appeared in the April 13, 1994 issue of the now-defunct Lower East Side alternative newsweekly, Downtown).

After Medill’s death, day-to-day management of the Chicago Tribune was handled by a journalist named James Keeley, until two of Medill’s grandsons—Robert “Colonel” McCormick and Robert “Captain” Patterson—began to make all the main day-to-day operational policy decisions in 1914. But as An American Dynasty noted:

“The gradual transfer of power only modified and did not change the Tribune’s basic principles. It was still vituperative in behalf of big business. It still opposed union labor, government regulation of business, and any politician who appeared to be on the people’s side.”

By adding comic strips like “Andy Gump,” “Moon Mullins” and “Little Orphan Annie” to the Chicago Tribune’s newspaper and printing a daily directory of what was playing at local movie theaters, McCormick and Patterson were able to increase the Chicago Tribune’s daily circulation from 261,000 to 450,000 and its Sunday circulation from 408,000 to 827,000 between 1914 and 1921. During this same period, McCormick “leased the Canadian forest lands and built the Quebec and Ontario paper mills which enabled the Tribune to save a paper manufacturer’s profit and compete more successfully with Hearst, who got papers for five dollars a ton less than the standard price,” according to An American Dynasty. As a result, Tribune/Times-Mirror owned over 2.7 million acres of Canadian timberland for most of the 20th Century.

In imitation of British press baron Lord Northcliffe’s London Daily Mirror tabloid newspaper, the Chicago Tribune launched the New York Daily News in 1919 and Patterson soon moved from Chicago into a Manhattan office building to handle day-to-day management of the New York Daily News. This newspaper remained linked to the Chicago Tribune until it was sold by the Tribune Company for $295 million to the now-deceased British global media baron Robert Maxwell in 1991, prior to it being purchased by U.S. News & World Report Owner Mort Zuckerman in 1993. In Chicago, McCormick remained to manage the day-to-day affairs of the Chicago Tribune in an autocratic way until his death in 1955.

(Downtown 4/13/94)

Next: The Chicago Tribune’s Hidden History—Part 3

The `Chicago Tribune's Hidden History--Part 1

(The following article appeared in the April 13, 1994 issue of the now-defunct Lower East Side alternative newsweekly, Downtown).

After World War II, one of my grandfathers spent his nights lifting newspapers onto Chicago Tribune delivery trucks for over 20 years. But even before he began working for the Chicago Tribune the newspaper had already been around for a century.

The Chicago Tribune was founded in 1847 by James Kelly, John Wheeler and Joseph Forest. But in 1855 a 32-year-old Cleveland publisher named Joseph Medill purchased it and he ran the newspaper autocratically until the 1890s. Medill used the Chicago Tribune in the late 1850s as a political weapon of the newly created Republican Party and, according to An American Dynasty: The Story of the McCormicks, Medills and Pattersons by John Tebbel, “by 1859 his paper was surpassed in power nationally only by the New York Tribune, and it completely dominated his own part of the country.” The same book also noted that “the Tribune pushed the doubtful Western states into the Lincoln camp, and Medill himself, in collaboration with Dr. Ray and the Illinois politicians, was largely responsible for getting Lincoln nominated in the [Republican] convention” of 1860.

Despite its opposition to the extension of U.S. slavery and its support of Lincoln, however, “The Tribune was seldom on the side of democracy after the Civil War” and “Medill in those years set the pattern for individual, irresponsible journalism,” according to An American Dynasty. And even during the Civil War Medill privately expressed imperialist ambitions in relation to Mexico and proposed that emancipated African-Americans be exploited as cannon fodder in support of Northern white corporate interests. In a May 24, 1863 letter to his brother, William Medill, for instance, the Chicago Tribune owner wrote the following:

“We shall permit no nation to abuse Mexico but ourselves. We claim the right to turn her up on Uncle Sam’s knee and spank her bottom for not behaving herself as in 1846, but will permit no one else to touch her…In future wars, black and yellow men will be freely used to fight. We will not be so careful about spilling the blood of n—gers. England holds India with Sepoy troops who hate her. How easy for us to defeat the South with black troops who love the North…Old Abe says, `Bring on your n—gers. I want 200,000 of them to save my white boys as soon as I can get them.’"

During the 1870s and 1880s Medill’s Chicago Tribune continued to prosper and its daily circulation jumped from 40,000 to 80,000 as the newspaper apparently began functioning as a classist, anti-labor propaganda instrument in Chicago. As An American Dynasty recalled, “The decade of the 1880s in Medill history is notable chiefly for the Tribune’s bitter opposition to labor in any and all disputes” and the Chicago Tribune opposed “any politician who appeared to be on the people’s side.” Medill’s Chicago Tribune, for instance, opposed U.S. labor’s demand for an eight-hour day. When he died in 1899, Medill left $2 million to his two daughters--Elinor Medill Patterson and Katherine Medill-McCormick—while his stock in the Tribune Company was left in trust to his sons-in-law and his attorney.

(Downtown 4/13/94)

Next: The Chicago Tribune’s Hidden History—Part 2