In 1847, a newspaper was started that would over the next 165 years influence, report on, and affect events going on in its city, state, and even country. That paper is the Chicago Tribune. Early on in its life, the paper stuck to itself, and didn't really have any detectable biases either way. However, by 1853 it had adapted a very xenophobic, anti-Catholic, traditional stance that included a favoritism towards temperance, which explained the paper's support for Mayor Levi Boone(whose policies led to the 1855 Lager Beer Riots). In 1854, Joseph Medill was persuaded to join the staff of the paper. This is a move that would prove to have far-reaching repercussions, as Medill openly campaigned for Abraham Lincoln, who after winning, helped lead the Union through the Civil War. It was at this point that the paper first started to establish itself as the local voice of the Republican Party, toning down some of the more blatantly xenophobic biases(though the paper continued to print the occasional anti-Catholic and anti-Irish editorial).
The paper continued much the same until the turn of the 20th Century, when the grandson of Joe Medill came aboard, a man by the name of Robert McCormick. Under McCormick's guidance, the paper once again became much more biased and isolationist, rolling out the motto "An American Paper for Americans"(which, though now phased out, still lives on today in the placement of an American flag on the paper's masthead, a practice that was inaugurated along with the new motto). It was during this time that the company held a competition for the design of its new headquarters. The resulting design by the New York team of Howells and Hood is today known as Tribune Tower. When the Depression hit, the Tribune immediately denounced FDR's New Deal as socialist hogwash.
Once FDR was out of office, the paper was all set for its biggest snafu of all time, when in 1948 it incorrectly called the Presidential Election in favor of Thomas Dewey. The photograph of Harry Truman gleefully holding the incorrect headline above his head in St. Louis is one of the most iconic ever taken. Robert McCormick died in 1955, but by no means was that the end of the Tribune's glory days. In 1969, the leadership decided to retire the paper's famed right-wing bias. The Tribune still kept a Republican slant in editorial writing, but from then on the reporting was more fair and balanced.
The egalitarianism served the paper well when news broke about the Watergate scandal. When the Nixon White House begrudgingly released the Watergate tapes, the Tribune pulled off the Herculean effort of transcribing the entire 246,000 word record into a 44-page special edition, and doing it all within 24 hours of the tapes being released. Later on, the Tribune joined the growing chorus calling for Nixon's resignation. In 1986, the Tribune replaced Gene Siskel as their full-time movie critic, as his duties with Roger Ebert were getting too time-consuming.
The rest of the '80s and '90s went by without incident, except for one time in June of 1997, when the paper published an advice column titled "Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young", which was later remixed by the director Baz Luhrman into a video titled "Everybody's Free to Wear Sunscreen" The 2000s saw the paper go through several rounds of contraction in an attempt to stay viable. In 2009, the paper broke a story about an admissions scandal at the University of Illinois. Apparently several well-connected politicians were using their clout to get the children of their cronies accepted to the school. In the fallout, several key members of the University's leadership resigned, and an investigation was begun. Just recently, the paper has rolled out a digital presence, and is now trying to adapt to changing times in the industry, a tactic crucial to its very survival.
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