An update: Spokesman for Tribune Co. says endorsements were made at the local level and corporate had no say.
One hundred thirty-six years is a long time. Heck, the Cubs have won the World Series twice since then. Twice.
The only time in the interim that the Tribune has bypassed the GOP nominee was in 1912, when it gave its seal of approval to Teddy Roosevelt, the former Republican president then heading the Bull-Moose ticket, over incumbent Republican chief executive William Howard Taft in advance of Democrat Woodrow Wilson winning the White House.
Even at that, we’re talking 96 years—a span in which the Cubs have played in six World Series—a looong time.
The Trib’s West Coast cousin, the Los Angeles Times, has never in its nearly 127 years endorsed a Democratic presidential nominee. But its 1972 push to re-elect Richard Nixon apparently left such a bad taste in its institutional mouth, it couldn’t bring itself to back a candidate for the next eight presidential elections until its editorial board, too, went with the Illinois senator less than an hour before the Chicago Tribune put its endorsement online.
In response to the question that’s probably already occurred to you, a spokesman for parent Tribune Co. said those endorsement calls were made wholly at the local level. Corporate management had no input whatsoever.
Based on e-mails and phone calls I’ve fielded during this campaign, the Chicago Tribune’s backing of Obama may not be such a stunner to Sen. John McCain’s supporters, who feel like the paper’s coverage—if not always its editorials—belied its Republican heritage, not just when it came to Obama, but on social issues and Iraq.
Obama supporters, while probably pleased their man got the nod, still may view the endorsement of the hometown candidate warily, wondering if it’s just a play for popular support. The fact the Trib had no problem spurning Adlai Stevenson in the '50s is ancient history.
Bolding mine, from here .
BJMoose
October 20, 2008, 10:42pm
42
Just fine, thank you very much. The Dallas News is (for me, anyway) notoriously right wing. I’m just not terribly familiar with the others.
(If anyone is wondering, the Frostbite Falls Fumigator , maintaining its high standard of apathy, is endorsing no one. A few weeks back, though, there was a rather nasty letter-to-the-editor taking umbrage with Palin’s fondness for moose stew. . . .)
Reloy3
October 20, 2008, 11:13pm
43
Actually, the early SLTribune was a constant critic of the LDS Church. To quote http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_Lake_Tribune
The publication was founded in 1871 as the Mormon Tribune by a group of Mormon businessmen who disagreed with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ (LDS Church) economic and political positions. After a year its name was changed to the Salt Lake Daily Tribune and Utah Mining Gazette. Not too long after that, the name was shortened to simply The Salt Lake Tribune.
After being purchased by three “border ruffians” from Kansas in 1873, the paper became known as an anti-Mormon organ which consistently backed the local Liberal Party. Sometimes vitriolic, the Tribune held particular antipathy for Latter-day Saints President Brigham Young. In the edition announcing Young’s death, the Tribune wrote,
He was illiterate and he has made frequent boast that he never saw the inside of a school house. His habit of mind was singularly illogical and his public addresses the greatest farrago of nonsense that ever was put in print. He prided himself on being a great financer, and yet all of his commercial speculations have been conspicuous failures. He was blarophant, and pretended to be in daily intercourse with the Almighty, and yet he was groveling in his ideas, and the system of religion he formulated was well nigh Satanic. — The Salt Lake Tribune, August 30, 1877
Not a hijack, but the SLTribune has never been a close ally of the Mormon Church.