As five suburban newspapers shut down, another suburban newspaper gets revived
Back in August, I wrote about Chicago Tribune's decision to shut down most of its TribLocal newspapers. Launched back in 2007, the chain was meant to be Tribune's big push into suburban media market, in hopes that it would increase revenue and allow Tribune to challenge Sun-Times Media's suburban newspapers. Except, once Tribune bought all of those suburban newspapers, TribLocal papers kind of became redundant. Especially toward the summer of last year, when a lot of TribLocal papers were basically 90% reprints of their Pioneer Press counterparts. While originally, Tribune hoped to keep both of them around, money have been tight, and profit margins have to be maintained, so something had to give. The company only kept give TribLocals around, ones that didn't have obvious ex-STM counterparts - TribLocal Arlington Heights, TribLocal Bolingbrook-Plainfield, TribLocal Downers Grove, TribLocal Wheaton-Glen Ellyn and TribLocal Tri-Cities (which served the cities of Geneva, St. Charles and Batavia).
But on Monday, Robert Feder reported that, last week, Tribune shut down even those. I'm not sure what, if anything, is going to happen to the websites - so far, TribLocal social media accounts have been acting as if nothing has happened - but the print versions are gone.
Surprisingly enough, there is actually an upside. Because later within the same paragraph, Feder just sort of quietly drops the fact that Tribune is going to bring back Pioneer Press' Arlington Heights Post.
Robert Loerzel, the paper's first editor, told me that the company launched it with "much fanfare" back in 1996. But in 2011, it was one of the several papers to be shut down as part of Sun-Times Media cost-cutting measures. I never expected to actually see it brought back.
Pioneer Press' promotional Arlington Heights Post coffee mug (via Robert Loerzel)
It's unexpected, but when you think about it, it does makes sense. As I pointed out in my previous post, one advantage Pioneer Press newspapers had over their TribLocal counterparts is that cost money, while the TribLocals were free, so they weren't as dependent on advertising revenue. I wouldn't be surprised if Tribune starts selling Arlington Heights Post subscriptions for that same reason.
The Post would have some competition. Journal & Topics newspapers publish Arlington Heights Journal. Daily Herald is technically an Arlington Heights newspaper, in the sense that it started out as Arlington Heights Herald and is still headquartered in Arlington Heights, but it became more of a general Chicagoland suburban newspaper long ago, so I'm not sure it counts for our purposes. Pioneer Press newspapers have more pages than TribLocals, so Tribune can potentially ramp up coverage, dive deeper into local issues than they previously could - so Arlington Heights Post could potentially be a more formidable competitor to Arlighton Heights Journal and TribLocal Arlington Heights was.
But all of this also brings up an interesting question. If Tribune is bringing back the Post, why not bring back the other four TribLocals' ex-SMT counterparts. Digging around, I discovered they did exist. Sun-Times Media used to own the Sun chain of western suburban newspapers, which included the Downers Grove Sun, Bolingbrook Sun, Plainfield Sun Wheaton Sun, Glen Ellyn Sun, St. Charles Sun, Geneva Sun and Batavia Sun. Around fall 2010, the majority of chain's newspapers were shuttered, leaving only its flagship newspaper - the Naperville Sun.
If I had to guess, I think it's because there are already ex-STM papers covering those areas. Naperville Sun is distributed in Bolingbrook and Wheaton, while the Aurora Beacon-News is distributed in the Tri-Cities area. It's not the same thing as having a dedicated suburb-specific paper, but we've seen Tribune do something similar when it shuttered all of the south suburban TribLocals and said that people who subscribed to those papers would get copies of Daily Southtown.
Alrington Heights doesn't have any area-specific, overlapping ex-STM paper. But then, neither does Downers Grove. I even went through the coverage maps of Daily Southtown and Pioneer Press - nothing. So why isn't Downers Grove Sun getting revived?
Maybe Tribune thinks that Alrington Heights is more promising, revenue-wise, than Downers Grove.
Whatever may be the case, one thing is certain. TribLocal is dead, and the only thing to mark its demise was a single paragraph in a compilation of short news items. As far as I can tell, nobody but Feder reported on it. (Edited to add: I stand corrected. Turned out that that Chicagoland Radio and Media blog reported it a few days before Feder.)
Parts of TribLocal will live on, in a manner of speaking. When the Long Transition was completed, Tribune changed Pioneer Press papers' real estate listings to TribLocal format, and it remained that way to this day. Ex-STM papers' websites were awkwardly shoved into the TribLocal template, and while it continues to be an ill fit, the company seems to be sticking by it.
If you worked for TribLocal, this has to sting.
Speaking of people who worked for TribLocal - Feder's article mentions that, according to the company, "No reductions in staff are planned." Thing is, I'm not sure how many reporters from the remaining TribLocals were actually staff. When TribLocal Des Plaines-Park Ridge was shuttered, the non-Pioneer articles in the paper were all written by a single freelancer.
I wouldn't be shocked if there are some freelancers looking for new gigs right now.
But on Monday, Robert Feder reported that, last week, Tribune shut down even those. I'm not sure what, if anything, is going to happen to the websites - so far, TribLocal social media accounts have been acting as if nothing has happened - but the print versions are gone.
Surprisingly enough, there is actually an upside. Because later within the same paragraph, Feder just sort of quietly drops the fact that Tribune is going to bring back Pioneer Press' Arlington Heights Post.
Robert Loerzel, the paper's first editor, told me that the company launched it with "much fanfare" back in 1996. But in 2011, it was one of the several papers to be shut down as part of Sun-Times Media cost-cutting measures. I never expected to actually see it brought back.
Pioneer Press' promotional Arlington Heights Post coffee mug (via Robert Loerzel)
It's unexpected, but when you think about it, it does makes sense. As I pointed out in my previous post, one advantage Pioneer Press newspapers had over their TribLocal counterparts is that cost money, while the TribLocals were free, so they weren't as dependent on advertising revenue. I wouldn't be surprised if Tribune starts selling Arlington Heights Post subscriptions for that same reason.
The Post would have some competition. Journal & Topics newspapers publish Arlington Heights Journal. Daily Herald is technically an Arlington Heights newspaper, in the sense that it started out as Arlington Heights Herald and is still headquartered in Arlington Heights, but it became more of a general Chicagoland suburban newspaper long ago, so I'm not sure it counts for our purposes. Pioneer Press newspapers have more pages than TribLocals, so Tribune can potentially ramp up coverage, dive deeper into local issues than they previously could - so Arlington Heights Post could potentially be a more formidable competitor to Arlighton Heights Journal and TribLocal Arlington Heights was.
But all of this also brings up an interesting question. If Tribune is bringing back the Post, why not bring back the other four TribLocals' ex-SMT counterparts. Digging around, I discovered they did exist. Sun-Times Media used to own the Sun chain of western suburban newspapers, which included the Downers Grove Sun, Bolingbrook Sun, Plainfield Sun Wheaton Sun, Glen Ellyn Sun, St. Charles Sun, Geneva Sun and Batavia Sun. Around fall 2010, the majority of chain's newspapers were shuttered, leaving only its flagship newspaper - the Naperville Sun.
If I had to guess, I think it's because there are already ex-STM papers covering those areas. Naperville Sun is distributed in Bolingbrook and Wheaton, while the Aurora Beacon-News is distributed in the Tri-Cities area. It's not the same thing as having a dedicated suburb-specific paper, but we've seen Tribune do something similar when it shuttered all of the south suburban TribLocals and said that people who subscribed to those papers would get copies of Daily Southtown.
Alrington Heights doesn't have any area-specific, overlapping ex-STM paper. But then, neither does Downers Grove. I even went through the coverage maps of Daily Southtown and Pioneer Press - nothing. So why isn't Downers Grove Sun getting revived?
Maybe Tribune thinks that Alrington Heights is more promising, revenue-wise, than Downers Grove.
Whatever may be the case, one thing is certain. TribLocal is dead, and the only thing to mark its demise was a single paragraph in a compilation of short news items. As far as I can tell, nobody but Feder reported on it. (Edited to add: I stand corrected. Turned out that that Chicagoland Radio and Media blog reported it a few days before Feder.)
Parts of TribLocal will live on, in a manner of speaking. When the Long Transition was completed, Tribune changed Pioneer Press papers' real estate listings to TribLocal format, and it remained that way to this day. Ex-STM papers' websites were awkwardly shoved into the TribLocal template, and while it continues to be an ill fit, the company seems to be sticking by it.
If you worked for TribLocal, this has to sting.
Speaking of people who worked for TribLocal - Feder's article mentions that, according to the company, "No reductions in staff are planned." Thing is, I'm not sure how many reporters from the remaining TribLocals were actually staff. When TribLocal Des Plaines-Park Ridge was shuttered, the non-Pioneer articles in the paper were all written by a single freelancer.
I wouldn't be shocked if there are some freelancers looking for new gigs right now.