Honor your Loved Ones With the Chicago Sun-Times

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Honor your Loved Ones With the Chicago Sun-Times

When my adblocker drops out, I’m seeing these ads wall-to-wall.

Is there any sinister significance?

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The Chicago Sun-Times owns Straight Dope.

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It’s a bit more complicated than that now. The Chicago Sun Times was turned into a non-profit and acquired by Chicago Public Media, the parent company of WBEZ, the Chicago NPR station.

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How does the reputation of the Sun-Times compare with the Tribune now? It used to be that the Tribune was the more serious paper while the Sun-Times was more fluff.

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OK.
And now I’m getting:

Build your business with the Chicago Sun-Times

So, for those who know: how do ads get on the SDMB? Is it through some kind of agency?
And are the ads targeted? I’m a UK Doper, retired from business, and with no friends or relatives in North America.

Is it just me, or is it everybody?

Thanks for your kind replies.

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Speaking as a Chicago resident for the past 33 years:

The Tribune, historically, was more of a “white collar” paper, with a conservative editorial position, while the Sun-Times was more of a “blue collar” paper, with more of a liberal, populist editorial position.

Both papers had a long tradition of excellent journalism, however, and I don’t think it’s fair to characterize the Sun-Times (at least in the past) as “fluff” – Mike Royko and Roger Ebert, as two examples, rose to prominence as Sun-Times columnists.

But, both papers have been ravaged by budget cuts and staff cuts in recent years. The Trib was bought last year by Alden Global Capital, an ownership group which is infamous for cutting budgets at the papers it owns; many of the Trib’s most prominent columnists and journalists departed in the wake of that buyout.

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I’m not involved in the ad side of things here, but my understanding is that we go through an ad broker for most of the ads. One of the more recent Discourse updates included support for inserting our own local ads as well. I suspect that is where all of the Chicago Sun-Times ads are coming from.

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I agree with kenobi65. The Sun-Times was known for being the commuter paper (as its tabloid format – in terms of size not content – was easier to deal with on the bus and El.) It was the working-class, blue-collar, Democratic paper; the Trib was the Republican or at least Republican-leaning, white-collar paper. Both were excellent papers, and I would never characterize the Sun-Times as “fluff.” The Trib does have a lot more Pulitzers: 28 to the Sun-Times’ 8, but they are both respectable publications (that are now a mere shell of their former selves, as with major newspapers across the country.)