Harold L. Ickes called it “the rottenest newspaper in the whole United States.” Harry Truman was marginally more charitable to the journal whose celebrated headline dewey defeats truman made his 1948 victory all the sweeter. As Truman saw it, the Chicago Tribune was merely one of two equally deplorable papers, the other being the Dallas Morning News.
The days when politicians and rival journalists could work up a furious lather over the Tribune’s iniquities are long gone, as are so many of the Trib’s hallmarks—the experimental spellings, the front-page cartoon, even the genial boast, “The World’s Greatest Newspaper.” The modern Trib calls itself an “open-minded conservative” paper, and Establishment journalists confer prizes on it; which is nice, no doubt. But how much more fun were the days when the unreformed, unregenerate Chicago Tribune was closed-mindedly conservative, hotly hated, awesomely professional, and supremely successful.
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