Did You Know

Chicago Tribune vs the Globe and Mail

While spending a week in Chicago I had a chance to read the Chicago Tribune daily.  While reading this venerable and highly respected newspaper, I was constantly making cross comparisons to my  daily read in Toronto, The Globe and Mail.

In many ways I preferred the Tribune. It has stuck to certain newspaper traditions unlike the G&M. 

Most noticeably, in the Tribune, colour is rare and black ink on whitish paper rules.  This starts with the masthead and applies to nearly all the images accompanying the articles and stories.  What colour there is is of the low, flyer grade, and is only common in advertising insert sections or a rare (and small) story photo.

The comic strip section is also black and white (allowing the ideas to flow without rainbowish distractions – at least so I see it). And there are 2 full broadsheet pages of comics daily, with all the great American classics: Peanuts, Hager the Horrible, Broom-hilda, Dick Tracy, Blondie and the like that no longer grace the G&M due to  its switch to a few, Canadian cartoonists.

The Tribune’s other ‘soft news’ sections, beside the comics, are standard everywhere – daily entertainment/arts/TV, and sports.  A real estate and an auto section appear once a week – as with the G&M.

As well, unlike the G&M of today, the Chicago Tribune eschews the elitist and gold-spoon crowd  in its food articles and home decor and auto sections.  Chicago has many world class restaurants and affluent people, and it hosts the Magnificent Mile which literally has a mile of the most expensive and well known retailers and brands in the world – starting just steps north of the Chicago Tribune`s home, but the paper seems to be more `folksy` in its choice of subject matter and lifestyle articles.

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So on many fronts the Tribune appeals to me: a comic lover, a fan of b&w news a la Marshal McLuhan and Neil Postman, and someone with ordinary, Everyman tastes.

Yet, unlike the G&M, the Tribune has a very limited range and focus. 

The Choicago Tribune covered city, state and national events well, but issues and events outside the boarders of the U.S. were absent!  I found numerous and important stories of foreign disasters and international politics in my back pile of G&M papers though none were given any space in the Tribune.  Not even Iraq, Iran or Afghanistan.  The military events that got attention were the navy’s influx of ships and sailors to take part in Chicago`s commemorations of the `victories` of the War of 1812, and the  air (and navy) show on the weekend.

 The  Tribune`s myopia on hard news also spills over to sports.  With four major league teams in town: two in baseball, one NBA and one NHL, there is a lot that  local fans want to know; but, outside-of-Chicago sports news, key injuries or scandals never got coverage.  It was all a local mindset.

In contrast, the G&M, to its credit – like Toronto`s other newspapers --reports on major league competitors and breaking stories and scandals.  It now includes soccer and the occasional cricket match – reflecting the ethnic and cultural diversity of the GTA . It covers Canadian Football and the NFL to meet the tastes and interests of its readers. 

It does not live in a sports goldfish bowl.

So, in the end, if I could only get one newspaper like the Tribune or the G&M, I would still choose the latter. For all its new faults; efforts to appeal to younger readers raised on brash Much Music/MTV and mind-blowing oversized wide screen TVs, and courting the trendy, metrosexual (financially) new upper crust, the G&M still retains many excellent reporters and columnists who ask important questions and write informative pieces – every day.

With its broader world view and range – even if I disagree with some staff biases – the G&M helps keep me much better informed of what is going on in our Global Village, unlike the ‘isolationist’ tendency of the Tribune.