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overview
holdings
landmarks
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overview
This profile considers the Chicago-based Tribune group,
dominated for most of its history by the McCormick family.
It covers -
introduction
In April 2007 the Chicago-based Tribune Group announced
that it had agreed to be acquired by property billionaire
Sam Zell in a US$8.4 billion takeover.
Tribune had absorbed the Los Angeles Times-Mirror
group in 2001.
The empire extends across newspaper and magazine publishing,
online services, sports teams, printing and directories,
television and radio broadcasting and production, and
property. It's currently disposing of some interests,
notably through sale of the Times-Mirror magazines to
AOL Time Warner.
The Tribune corporate site is here.
The group centres on the Chicago Tribune, given
a kick-start by funds from Cyrus McCormick - the robber
baron who built International Harvester. His family -
devoutly right wing (and notoriously isolationist in the
1930s and 40's) - ran the company until late last century.
Tribune's profit margins during the six years prior to
2007 ranged from 18% to 22% (compared with an average
margin of 6% for all publicly traded companies in that
period). However, in 2006 the group announced that it
planned to buy back 20% of its stock and later sought
expressions of interest for a takeover. It reportedly
received soundings from Eli Broad and David Geffen and
from the Chandler family. Private equity giant Carlyle
Group made an offer to buy Tribune's tv stations for US$4
billion but talks between Tribune and Carlyle stalled
when they could not agree on price. Zell topped a bid
by Broad and Ronald Burkle.
Zell indicated that he would contribute US$315 million
towards the takeover, centred on an employee stock ownership
plan (ESOP) that is largely funded by debt. Private equity
group Blackstone had
paid US$36 billion for Zell-controlled Equity Office property
group earlier in 2007.
holdings
The following page provides
a map of Tribune holdings. In summary, it embraces the
dominant newspapers in Chicago and Los Angeles, along
with broadcasting, magazine publishing, online, sports
and other interests.
Tribune owns and operates 26 television stations (19 of
which are WB affiliates, making it the largest affiliate
group of Time-Warner's WB Network),
with a 40% coverage of US television households. It is
the nation's second-largest newspaper publisher in terms
of revenue and number three in total circulation.
the Tribune
The Chicago Tribune was founded in 1847 as the
Daily Tribune but first attracted serious attention
outside that town in 1855 when Canadian-born lawyer Joseph
Medill became co-owner and editor. In 1858 it merged with
the Democratic Press as the Chicago Daily
Press & Tribune. In 1861 the paper became the
Chicago Tribune. Joseph Medill regained control
in 1874, after eight years under the more liberal editor
Horace White. Competition from the Chicago Daily News
was reflected in use of new technology (eg comic strips
in colour from 1901 onwards) and reduction in price to
1 cent per copy, with consequent circulation growth.
Following Medill's death in 1899 the Tribune
was led for a time by Medill's son-in-law Robert Wilson
Patterson. His eldest daughter had married Robert Sanderson
McCormick (1849-1919), nephew of Cyrus Hall McCormick,
inventor of the reaper and owner of the Chicago Times.
Robert Patterson (1850-1910) worked as a reporter on the
Chicago Times after leaving college and joined
the Tribune in 1873. Marriage to Elinor Medill
did not impede his rise from assistant night editor, Washington
correspondent, editorial writer and managing editor to
editor-in-chief.
His nephew Joseph Medill McCormick (1877-1925) worked
on the Tribune, was instrumental in Teddy Roosevelt's
1912 Progressive Party campaign, served in the Illinois
legislature (1913-17), US House of Representatives (1917-19)
and Senate (1919-25). He'd married the daughter of politico
and mining magnate Mark Hanna; unsurprisingly he was vehemently
opposed to the League of Nations.
Medill's grandson Robert Rutherford McCormick (1880–1955)
initially worked with cousin Joseph Medill Patterson in
the management of the Tribune and after serving
in the 1914-18 War became sole owner of the Tribune
in 1925. The Tribune's daily circulation reached
one million in that year. Colonel McCormick leveraged
the Tribune's cash flow to build a chain of papers in
Chicago and the midwest; by the late 1930s the Tribune
group was dominant in the region. He also invested in
broadcasting and other operations, notably WDAP (later
WGN, for World's Greatest Newspaper) radio in 1924 and
WGN television in 1948.
McCormick's Tribune was noted for the vigour
of its anticommunism and attacks on the New Deal, surpassing
even the Hearst papers in virulence. The politics and
style of the Tribune and other publications in
the group moderated following the Colonel's death in 1955,
consistent with a move to corporate rather than individual
management.
the NY Daily News
The New York Daily News was launched by Joseph
Medill Patterson in 1919 as the Illustrated Daily
News, a tabloid built around brash graphics, embodying
the second generation of 'yellow journalism' and supposedly
inspired by Northcliffe's advice to its owner in 1917.
By 1940 as the Daily News it had a circulation
of almost two million.
In 1991 the News was acquired by Robert Maxwell,
whether as a diversion or to spite Rupert Murdoch
(owner of the New York Daily Post). The paper
went into receivership with Maxwell's death that year
and in 1993 was purchased by property magnate Mortimer
Zuckerman.
In 2003 its average weekday circulation was around 735,000,
trailing the Post's 620,080.
Joseph Medill Patterson (1879-1946) initially worked for
his father at the Tribune, before resigning over
a disagreement and writing two novels and The Fourth
Estate, a play. He was elected to the Illinois House
of Representatives in 1903 on a reform platform, returning
to the Tribune in 1910 after his father and serving
as its editor from 1910 to 1925, when he was forced out
by cousin Robert McCormick. He thereafter devoted most
of his attention to the Daily News and to militant
anticommunism. He founded Liberty magazine in
1924
Washington Times-Herald
Sister Eleanor 'Cissy' Medill Patterson (1884-1948) also
inherited a stake in the Tribune, worked at the
Daily News and in 1930 became editor of Hearst's
Washington Herald. In 1937, drawing on funds
from sale of her Tribune interests, she leased
the Herald and the Washington Times.
She purchased both titles in 1939, merging them as the
Washington Times-Herald.
Newsday
Newsday is a daily tabloid serving Long Island
and the New York City borough of Queens. It is among the
leading US newspapers by circulation.
It was launched in 1940 by Alicia Patterson (1906-63),
daughter of Joseph Medill Patterson, with primary funding
from third husband Frank Guggenheim. It was acquired by
Times Mirror in 1970. Newsday
offered a New York City edition from 1985 to 1995.
City News
In 2005 the Tribune announced closure of City News Service,
the successor of the cooperative City News service for
newspapers and broadcasters. The service started in Chicago
in 1890 as the City News Bureau and was owned by Chicago's
major daily newspapers until the Tribune became the sole
owner. The service traditionally paid entry level rates,
recruiting young (often untrained reporters) who were
encouraged to prove themselves or find a new job. Staff
included Kurt Vonnegut, Seymour Hersh and Charles MacArthur,
whose experience forms the basis of The Front Page
(1928) with Ben Hecht.
studies
There has been no major recent history of the Tribune
group. Arguably the best biography is The Colonel:
The Life & Legend of Robert McCormick 1880-1955
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin 1997) by Richard Norton Smith.
Print historian John Tebbel's An American Dynasty
(Westport: Greenwood 1968) is unfortunately out of print.
McCormick's The American Revolution and Its Influence
on World Civilization (1945) embodies his views on
the joys of isolationism and the wickedness of Europe,
explored in The Foreign Policy of Col. McCormick's
Tribune, 1929-1941 (Reno: Uni of Nevada Press 1971)
by Jerome Edwards.
Joseph Gies in The Colonel of Chicago (New York:
Dutton 1979) and Lloyd Wendt in The Chicago Tribune:
The Rise Of A Great American Newspaper (Chicago: Rand
McNally 1979) buff the legend. They are more critical
than Frank Waldrop's McCormick of Chicago: An Unconventional
Portrait of a Controversial Figure (Englewood Cliffs:
Prentice-Hall 1966) or Philip Kinsley's three volume The
Chicago Tribune: Its First Hundred Years (New York:
Knopf 1943-46) and Liberty & the Press: A History
of the Chicago Tribune's Fight to Preserve a Free Press
for the American People (Chicago: Chicago Tribune
1944).
The latter illustrates George Seldes'
quip that in Chicago a 'free press' meant the Tribune
was free to print without constraints such as truth.
For a recent newsroom account see James Squires' Read
All About It! The Corporate Takeover of America's Newspapers
(New York: Times 1993).
For Newsday and the Washington Times-Herald
see the house history A Candid History of the Respectable
Tabloid (New York: Morrow 1997) by Robert Keeler and
Tell It to Sweeney: The Informal History of the New
York Daily News (Westport: Greenwood 1961) by John
Chapman. New York Noir: Crime Photos from the Daily
News Archive (New York: Rizzoli 1999) by William
Hannigan and New York Exposed : Photographs from the
Daily News (New York: Abrams 2001) by Shawn O'Sullivan
showcase images from the 1920s through 1990s.
Cissy Patterson, the Colonel's equally zany niece, features
in Cissy: The Extraordinary Life of Eleanor Medill
Patterson (New York: Simon & Schuster 1979) by Ralph
Martin, Cissy: A Biography of Eleanor M "Cissy" Patterson
(Garden City: Doubleday 1966) by Paul Healy and Cissy
Patterson: The Life of Eleanor Medill Patterson, Publisher
& Editor of the Washington Times-Herald (New York:
Random 1966) by Alice Hoge.
For a somewhat conspiracist account of Carlyle see Dan
Briody's The Iron Triangle: Inside the Secret World
of the Carlyle Group (New York: Wiley 2003). For
Cyrus McCormick and IH see Cyrus Hall McCormick
(New York: Appleton-Century 1935) by William Hutchinson
and A Corporate Tragedy: The Agony of International
Harvester Company (Garden City: Doubleday 1985) by
Barbara Marsh.
The Chicago school of journalism, somewhat more entertaining
than the school of economics, features in Hecht &
Macarthur's 1928 Broadway hit The Front Page,
progenitor of films from His Girl Friday to Broadcast
News. Robert Schmuhl commented in 2003 that
The
play has been called the Rosetta stone of journalism,
the key to figuring out the hieroglyphics and high jinks
of a strange craft. It's also in many ways a theatrical
Rorschach test. While most journalists and kindred spirits
applaud the anarchic antics and comic cynicism involved
in covering a big story, others find the irresponsibility
and devotion to sensationalism an affirmation of their
complaints about the press.
For
Charles MacArthur see in particular Hecht's 1954 A
Child of the Century, 1957 Charlie: The Improbable
Life & Times of Charles MacArthur and 1963 Gaily,
Gaily.
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