Tribune's purchase of Sun-Times Media's suburban newspapers is now official. Now what?
I'm breaking protocol a bit here. Normally, after chemo, I wouldn't write anything in this LJ until I give a status update. But this bit of news is significant enough - and time-sensitive enough - to give it a priority.
And in any case - the fact that I feel well enough to write this should tell you that I'm not doing too badly.
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On Friday, Wrapports and Tribune Publishing finally confirmed what media journalist Robert Feder reported a week earlier - Wrapports officially sold all the Sun-Times Media newspapers that weren't Chicago Sun-Times and Chicago Reader to Tribune.
Newspaper boxes for Sun-Times' suburban newspapers on the 10th floor of the Sun-TImes Building
Both sides are being pretty cagey about the specifics of the deal. Here's what we do know. Tribune isn't firing any of the staffers - so far. I can't elaborate on it, because I was told this in implied confidence, but let's just say that may only be true for a certain span of time. Also, the Tribune article also mentions that the sale comes with "some market-specific efficiencies baked into the plan." SO there's that.
We also know that the transition is happening fairly quickly - staffers of the sold newspapers were packing their things yesterday, and they will be reporting to the Tribune Tower on Monday. The speed of it all is, honestly, surprising to me. When Wrapports sold Joliet Herald-News to Shaw Media, it took several weeks for the transition to finish. When Chicago Journal was shut down and Skyline was sold to Inside Publications, the transition took over a month. According to Feder, both sides really, really wanted the negotiations to be over by November 1, which helps to explain the rush.
We also know that, as part of the deal, Tribune Publishing is going to continue printing and distributing the remaining Sun-Times Media newspapers. Tribune has been handling that since 2011 and 2007, respectively. Last year, Wrapports made moves to get out of the agreement, because it was costing them $70,000,000 a year and they were trying to find something cheaper. The Tribune article on the sale hints that the new agreement would cost Wrapports less money. It's also good news for Tribune's Chicago Tribune Media Group division, which gets a pretty decent chunk of its revenue from printing and distribution contracts.
Tribune is saying a lot of nice sounding things about the sale.
“We’re excited and thrilled to add these iconic titles to the Chicago Tribune Media Group,” Tony Hunter, chief executive officer of Chicago Tribune Media Group, said in an interview Friday. “We believe it’s an opportunity for growth. We’re looking forward to growing the hyperlocal content we provide to consumers, growing the number of solutions that we can provide to clients, and frankly, just growth in general.
“It’s a great deal for us, and we believe a great deal for these titles. We believe they are already good, strong brands in their markets. We think we’ll enhance their capabilities, especially on the digital front, and we also believe that there’s other scalable solutions that we have done at Tribune Publishing that can help them do their jobs better. We believe they’re in great position already, and we will make them better.
“Our main priority in the short term is to continue to provide great service and content to our consumers and clients, and also to make this seamless to our employees. We’re thrilled to add these talented employees to our company. In the near term, we believe it should be seamless to our news employees and seamless to our consumers,” Hunter said.
While Wrapports is trying to put as positively of a spin on it as possible.
“This transaction allows Wrapports to focus on our international digital strategy and to financially strengthen the Chicago Sun-Times,” said Wrapports Chairman Michael Ferro. “We will invest in the Sun Times Network and Cube Network while ensuring the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper remains journalistically independent and on financially sound footing for many years to come.”
Judging by what was posted publicly on Twitter, the reactions of the staffers of the affected newspapers is a mix of bittersweetness and cautious optimism.
Irv Leavitt, staff writer and columnist for Pioneer Press newspapers
Tribune completes purchase of Pioneer Press & other suburban properties - Chicago Tribune http://t.co/UcFE7TkVDO Yes, it feels really weird.
- Irv Leavitt (@IrvLeavitt) October 31, 2014
Charles Berman, recently promoted to Managing Editor of Lake County News-Sun.
My last free sun-times media mystery meal http://t.co/aY4ttBSFmM
- Charles Z. Berman (@ChuckerB) October 30, 2014
I'm going as a suntimes employee for #Halloween http://t.co/3urQR2YUmq
- Charles Z. Berman (@ChuckerB) October 31, 2014
Planning to spend this weekend like I'm between jobs. #journalism
- Charles Z. Berman (@ChuckerB) November 1, 2014
Responding to Sun-Times digital editor Brandon Wall
The feelings are mutual. MT @Walldo: Wishing the best for my friends. Trib is picking up some amazing talent and I hope they remember that
- Charles Z. Berman (@ChuckerB) October 31, 2014
John P Borneman, assistant sports editor for Pioneer Press' Lake County newspapers
Weird feeling walking out of @Suntimes. It's been fun but I'm interested to see what's next at @chicagotribune.
- John P Borneman (@Pioneer_JPB) October 31, 2014
Jennifer Johnson, staff writer for Pioneer Press' Park Ridge Herald-Advocate
May this next chapter be brighter than what I've been through for the last two years! :)
- Jennifer Johnson (@Jen_Pioneer) October 31, 2014
Richard Ray, recently promoted to editor of Pioneer Press' Morton Grove Champion, Skokie Review, Evanston Review and Lincolnwood Review
That was quite a year and some change. On to the next chapter. pic.twitter.com/pvg4Z3yrxv
- Richard Ray (@iamrichardray) October 31, 2014
Brett Johnson, longtime editor for Pioneer Press' Doings newspapers
Parting shot pic.twitter.com/5U2RBNvdDJ
- Brett Johnson (@brettdale) October 31, 2014
Right now, there are a lot of unknowns. In response to my questions about what this would mean for me as a Pioneer Press freelancer, my editor mostly said "I don't know." And, presumably, we will find out over the next few weeks. But, setting aside freelancer-specific concerns, there are a couple of things I'm really curious about.
How does TribLocal fit into all of this?
In my previous post about the sale, I noted that Tribune already had a presence in the suburbs - the TribLocal newspapers. According to Feder, Tribune intends to keep publishing TribLocal
[Newly appointed publisher of newly acquired newspapers] said the company will continue to publish TribLocal suburban inserts in the Chicago Tribune as well. “We think we really can bring together the great things that are happening with TribLocal as well as what’s happening with the newly acquired suburban properties, and make it better for all,” he said. “There’s no plan to abandon the TribLocal strategy. We believe this is just going to make everything stronger.”
But, as I noted before, that invites some very obvious questions. There are suburbs where Sun-Times Media either never had a presence at all or where it closed newspapers years ago - Des Planes, Arlington Heights, etc. There are places where Pioneer Press has newspapers and where TribLocal's presence is, at best, incidental - Niles, Morton Grove, etc. There are TribLocal newspapers covered by daily newspapers Tribune just bought - since TribLocal comes out weekly, I can kind of see them co-existing. But what about places like Park Ridge or Evanston, where weekly Pioneer Press newspapers are going to co-exist side by side with TribLocal newspapers?
I know that, at Park Ridge City Council Chambers' press area, you currently have a seat for a Park Ridge Herald-Advocate reporter, a Park Ridge Journal reporter and a Trib reporter. There's going to be some obvious redundancy with having both a Trib reporter and a Herald-Advocate reporter covering the same meeting for the same company.
And here's another thing to think about. As I noted before, TribLocal papers are smaller, have less editorial content and, I imagine, are cheaper to produce than their Pioneer Press counterparts. Unlike Sun-Times Media, Tribune Publishing is profitable, but that profit was maintained, in part, through staff cuts. Simple economics suggest that, when should financial pressures mount, there's one model that it's going to choose.
On the other hand, some Pioneer Press newspapers do have respect and reputation within the communities they serve. People of Park Ridge, for example, like Park Ridge Herald-Advocate. They respect it. Winding up on its front page has weight and meaning. TribLocal Park Ridge can't even begin to compare.
So I guess it could go either way. Or some combination of the above.
What is going to happen to Sun-Times Media's suburban offices?
Until Spring 2013, all of Sun-Times Media's daily newspapers had their own newsrooms. Pioneer Press, as best as I can remember, had four - the "main" headquarters in Glenview an the axillary spaces (one in Oak Park, one in Hinsdale, one somewhere in Lake County). In Spring 2013, Wrapports moved all the editors and designers whose jobs weren't cut to Chicago Sun-Times newsroom at the Sun-Times building's 9th floor. Some reporters wound up moving as well, but most had to report from their cars/coffee sops/libraries, etc. We know that some sales staff remained at some of the buildings, but I've never been quite clear on how that broke down.
Earlier this fall, Wraports downsized. Whereas before, Sun-Times Media occupied 9th floor, and most of the corporate stuff (plus Chicago Reader and Splash's spaces, as well as a cafeteria and a game room that (to the best of my knowledge) nobody really used) was on the 10th floor. With the downsizing, everything moved to the 10th floor. I'm not entirely sure how the heck they were able to fit all the people in half the space (I haven't been to Sun-Times offices after the downsizing, and now, I never will). But I do know that Wrapports let some staffers from the western suburban newspapers move to Aurora Beacon-News offices.
When Shaw Media bought Joliet Herald-News, it got the paper's offices (which Wrapports was unsuccessfully trying to lease out) as part of the sale. Presumably, something similar happened with the offices of the other suburban newspapers. But we have no idea what, if anything, Tribune is going to do with those spaces. I have no idea if there's room for all of the suburban newspapers' employees at Tribune Tower - or if they'd want to. I can easily see Tribune simply trying to lease those offices out. Or sell them.
Honestly, part of me kind of hopes that at least the Post-Tribune folks will get to move back to Merrilville. Having to report on Northwest Indiana from downtown Chicago seems awfully inconvenient.
What is going to happen to the websites?
As I mentioned before, when Joliet Herald-News was sold to Shaw Media, the Sun-TImes version of the website got nuked and the new version - based on the common Shaw Media template - rose in its place. It would be logical to assume that something similar would happen to the websites of all of the sold-off newspapers.
But here's an interesting wrinkle. Until a few months ago, all Sun-Times newspapers' websites were based around the Chicago Sun-Times template. A bit over a year ago, Pioneer Press switched to a different, WordPress-based format, and Aurora Beacon-News, Naperville Sun and Elgin Courier News followed suit earlier this year.
The websites of Southtown Star, Post-Tribune and Lake County News-Sun are still based on Sun-Times code. Since Tribune would, presumably, no longer have a right to suntimes.com specific design elements, it would be easiest to nuke those pages and start over. But the pages for the remaining newspapers seem easier to import.
Or maybe not. Maybe, since they were designed by Wrapports' Aggrego developers, Tribune doesn't have a right to that, either, an they're going to get nuked as well.
What is going to happen to the sports coverage?
Back in 2012, Wrapports acquired an ownership stake in High School Cube, a streaming platform for broadcasting high school sports games. Last year, Pioneer Press newspapers' sports sections were rebranded as High School Cube News, and stories by Pioneer Press sports reporters started appearing on High School Cube's website. Over the next few months, Naperville Sun, Elgin Courier-News, Aurora Beacon-News and, most recently, Southtown Star, followed suit. Out of all the non-Chicago Sun-TImes Media newspapers, only Lake County News-Sun and Post-Tribune kept the old branding.
I've never been entirely clear on the relationship between High School Cube and Sun Times Media's newspapers - and because I'm not exactly a sportsy kind of guy, i never really tried to find out. But now that the newspapers have been sold - and Wrapports said it was keeping the High School Cube - I'm curious to see what would happen. I'm especially curious if High School Cube is now going to be competing with Tribune-acquired newspapers using its own reporters.
What is Wrapports going to do now?
A few days before Friday's announcement, Wrapports announced a plan for a national network of websites utliliziing the Sun-Times brand. So, for New York, you'd have newyork.suntimes.com, for Birmingham, you'd have birmingham.suntimes.com. The idea seems to be that those sites would primarily act as news aggregators, putting together links from various news sources, with Sun-Times content that has national interest sprinkled in.
In addition to material aggregated and curated from local sources in each market, the network will provide “national exposure to the paper’s award-winning entertainment, sports and political coverage,” according to a company statement. Insiders said that would include content of national interest from such Sun-Times writers as movie columnist Richard Roeper, TV critic Lori Rackl, celebrity columnist Bill Zwecker, Washington bureau chief Lynn Sweet and sports columnists Rick Telander and Rick Morrissey.
Which sounds a lot like what they were trying to do with Aggrego, creating network of suburban websites that would have a combination of Sun-Times Media produced content and aggregated content from other sources. It would start with Chicagoland suburbs and expand nationally. It never really took off, though you can see some evidence of that plan on the Yorkville site, the (since nuked) Sanibel and Captiva News site for a group of Florida towns and the Tri-City Reporter group of websites. Now they're trying to apply the formula nationally - and, according to Crain's Chicago Business, they are going to be using Aggrego to do it.
Which strikes e as dubious. At best. The big stumbling block here is that, while Sun-Times is a well-known brand in Chicagoland (and, to a lesser extent, the rest of Illinois and parts of Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin). But outside of that - the closest Sun-Times ever came to capturing national attention was that time Wrapports fired all of its photographers (even freaking BBC reported on that). If I were trying to build a national network, I would've chosen a different name - any name. Hell, Wrapports may be even less known than Sun-Times, but at least there are no potential negative associations.
Besides - I'm not convinced that people are going to flock to a news aggregator. Not when you have Twitter and Facebook that already let you keep track of all the news you want. And while there is something to be said for trying to capitalize on entertainment/society reporters whose content isn't necessarily Chicago-centric, I'm not sure this is a way to do it.
Crain's Chicago Business also has its doubts.
The network will be forced to compete with myriad digital outlets in those markets already, from established newspaper brands to local bloggers to rivals such as the AOL Inc.'s Huffington Post that have built national platforms. Some prior attempts at building such a national network, such as AOL's Patch and Yahoo Local, have already largely gone by the wayside.
I'm actually really curious to see what Wrapports does with some of its online initiatives like the Bouquet Catcher and Weekway - which are not necessarily Chicago-specific and have a potential to become resources with national reach. What about Aggrego's ViewsMix - a potentially interesting idea that never got much publicity and seems to have been quietly abandoned in September.
One thing for sure - Sun-Times now has a few extra millions from the sale, some investment money for the news aggregator network and a (presumably) less expensive printing/distribution agreement. If nothing else, this will give Chicago Sun-Times and Chicago Reader some more funding to keep going.
Whether or not Wrapports will be able to take advantage of the opportunity and make the company profitable remains to be seen.
And in any case - the fact that I feel well enough to write this should tell you that I'm not doing too badly.
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On Friday, Wrapports and Tribune Publishing finally confirmed what media journalist Robert Feder reported a week earlier - Wrapports officially sold all the Sun-Times Media newspapers that weren't Chicago Sun-Times and Chicago Reader to Tribune.
Newspaper boxes for Sun-Times' suburban newspapers on the 10th floor of the Sun-TImes Building
Both sides are being pretty cagey about the specifics of the deal. Here's what we do know. Tribune isn't firing any of the staffers - so far. I can't elaborate on it, because I was told this in implied confidence, but let's just say that may only be true for a certain span of time. Also, the Tribune article also mentions that the sale comes with "some market-specific efficiencies baked into the plan." SO there's that.
We also know that the transition is happening fairly quickly - staffers of the sold newspapers were packing their things yesterday, and they will be reporting to the Tribune Tower on Monday. The speed of it all is, honestly, surprising to me. When Wrapports sold Joliet Herald-News to Shaw Media, it took several weeks for the transition to finish. When Chicago Journal was shut down and Skyline was sold to Inside Publications, the transition took over a month. According to Feder, both sides really, really wanted the negotiations to be over by November 1, which helps to explain the rush.
We also know that, as part of the deal, Tribune Publishing is going to continue printing and distributing the remaining Sun-Times Media newspapers. Tribune has been handling that since 2011 and 2007, respectively. Last year, Wrapports made moves to get out of the agreement, because it was costing them $70,000,000 a year and they were trying to find something cheaper. The Tribune article on the sale hints that the new agreement would cost Wrapports less money. It's also good news for Tribune's Chicago Tribune Media Group division, which gets a pretty decent chunk of its revenue from printing and distribution contracts.
Tribune is saying a lot of nice sounding things about the sale.
“We’re excited and thrilled to add these iconic titles to the Chicago Tribune Media Group,” Tony Hunter, chief executive officer of Chicago Tribune Media Group, said in an interview Friday. “We believe it’s an opportunity for growth. We’re looking forward to growing the hyperlocal content we provide to consumers, growing the number of solutions that we can provide to clients, and frankly, just growth in general.
“It’s a great deal for us, and we believe a great deal for these titles. We believe they are already good, strong brands in their markets. We think we’ll enhance their capabilities, especially on the digital front, and we also believe that there’s other scalable solutions that we have done at Tribune Publishing that can help them do their jobs better. We believe they’re in great position already, and we will make them better.
“Our main priority in the short term is to continue to provide great service and content to our consumers and clients, and also to make this seamless to our employees. We’re thrilled to add these talented employees to our company. In the near term, we believe it should be seamless to our news employees and seamless to our consumers,” Hunter said.
While Wrapports is trying to put as positively of a spin on it as possible.
“This transaction allows Wrapports to focus on our international digital strategy and to financially strengthen the Chicago Sun-Times,” said Wrapports Chairman Michael Ferro. “We will invest in the Sun Times Network and Cube Network while ensuring the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper remains journalistically independent and on financially sound footing for many years to come.”
Judging by what was posted publicly on Twitter, the reactions of the staffers of the affected newspapers is a mix of bittersweetness and cautious optimism.
Irv Leavitt, staff writer and columnist for Pioneer Press newspapers
Tribune completes purchase of Pioneer Press & other suburban properties - Chicago Tribune http://t.co/UcFE7TkVDO Yes, it feels really weird.
- Irv Leavitt (@IrvLeavitt) October 31, 2014
Charles Berman, recently promoted to Managing Editor of Lake County News-Sun.
My last free sun-times media mystery meal http://t.co/aY4ttBSFmM
- Charles Z. Berman (@ChuckerB) October 30, 2014
I'm going as a suntimes employee for #Halloween http://t.co/3urQR2YUmq
- Charles Z. Berman (@ChuckerB) October 31, 2014
Planning to spend this weekend like I'm between jobs. #journalism
- Charles Z. Berman (@ChuckerB) November 1, 2014
Responding to Sun-Times digital editor Brandon Wall
The feelings are mutual. MT @Walldo: Wishing the best for my friends. Trib is picking up some amazing talent and I hope they remember that
- Charles Z. Berman (@ChuckerB) October 31, 2014
John P Borneman, assistant sports editor for Pioneer Press' Lake County newspapers
Weird feeling walking out of @Suntimes. It's been fun but I'm interested to see what's next at @chicagotribune.
- John P Borneman (@Pioneer_JPB) October 31, 2014
Jennifer Johnson, staff writer for Pioneer Press' Park Ridge Herald-Advocate
May this next chapter be brighter than what I've been through for the last two years! :)
- Jennifer Johnson (@Jen_Pioneer) October 31, 2014
Richard Ray, recently promoted to editor of Pioneer Press' Morton Grove Champion, Skokie Review, Evanston Review and Lincolnwood Review
That was quite a year and some change. On to the next chapter. pic.twitter.com/pvg4Z3yrxv
- Richard Ray (@iamrichardray) October 31, 2014
Brett Johnson, longtime editor for Pioneer Press' Doings newspapers
Parting shot pic.twitter.com/5U2RBNvdDJ
- Brett Johnson (@brettdale) October 31, 2014
Right now, there are a lot of unknowns. In response to my questions about what this would mean for me as a Pioneer Press freelancer, my editor mostly said "I don't know." And, presumably, we will find out over the next few weeks. But, setting aside freelancer-specific concerns, there are a couple of things I'm really curious about.
How does TribLocal fit into all of this?
In my previous post about the sale, I noted that Tribune already had a presence in the suburbs - the TribLocal newspapers. According to Feder, Tribune intends to keep publishing TribLocal
[Newly appointed publisher of newly acquired newspapers] said the company will continue to publish TribLocal suburban inserts in the Chicago Tribune as well. “We think we really can bring together the great things that are happening with TribLocal as well as what’s happening with the newly acquired suburban properties, and make it better for all,” he said. “There’s no plan to abandon the TribLocal strategy. We believe this is just going to make everything stronger.”
But, as I noted before, that invites some very obvious questions. There are suburbs where Sun-Times Media either never had a presence at all or where it closed newspapers years ago - Des Planes, Arlington Heights, etc. There are places where Pioneer Press has newspapers and where TribLocal's presence is, at best, incidental - Niles, Morton Grove, etc. There are TribLocal newspapers covered by daily newspapers Tribune just bought - since TribLocal comes out weekly, I can kind of see them co-existing. But what about places like Park Ridge or Evanston, where weekly Pioneer Press newspapers are going to co-exist side by side with TribLocal newspapers?
I know that, at Park Ridge City Council Chambers' press area, you currently have a seat for a Park Ridge Herald-Advocate reporter, a Park Ridge Journal reporter and a Trib reporter. There's going to be some obvious redundancy with having both a Trib reporter and a Herald-Advocate reporter covering the same meeting for the same company.
And here's another thing to think about. As I noted before, TribLocal papers are smaller, have less editorial content and, I imagine, are cheaper to produce than their Pioneer Press counterparts. Unlike Sun-Times Media, Tribune Publishing is profitable, but that profit was maintained, in part, through staff cuts. Simple economics suggest that, when should financial pressures mount, there's one model that it's going to choose.
On the other hand, some Pioneer Press newspapers do have respect and reputation within the communities they serve. People of Park Ridge, for example, like Park Ridge Herald-Advocate. They respect it. Winding up on its front page has weight and meaning. TribLocal Park Ridge can't even begin to compare.
So I guess it could go either way. Or some combination of the above.
What is going to happen to Sun-Times Media's suburban offices?
Until Spring 2013, all of Sun-Times Media's daily newspapers had their own newsrooms. Pioneer Press, as best as I can remember, had four - the "main" headquarters in Glenview an the axillary spaces (one in Oak Park, one in Hinsdale, one somewhere in Lake County). In Spring 2013, Wrapports moved all the editors and designers whose jobs weren't cut to Chicago Sun-Times newsroom at the Sun-Times building's 9th floor. Some reporters wound up moving as well, but most had to report from their cars/coffee sops/libraries, etc. We know that some sales staff remained at some of the buildings, but I've never been quite clear on how that broke down.
Earlier this fall, Wraports downsized. Whereas before, Sun-Times Media occupied 9th floor, and most of the corporate stuff (plus Chicago Reader and Splash's spaces, as well as a cafeteria and a game room that (to the best of my knowledge) nobody really used) was on the 10th floor. With the downsizing, everything moved to the 10th floor. I'm not entirely sure how the heck they were able to fit all the people in half the space (I haven't been to Sun-Times offices after the downsizing, and now, I never will). But I do know that Wrapports let some staffers from the western suburban newspapers move to Aurora Beacon-News offices.
When Shaw Media bought Joliet Herald-News, it got the paper's offices (which Wrapports was unsuccessfully trying to lease out) as part of the sale. Presumably, something similar happened with the offices of the other suburban newspapers. But we have no idea what, if anything, Tribune is going to do with those spaces. I have no idea if there's room for all of the suburban newspapers' employees at Tribune Tower - or if they'd want to. I can easily see Tribune simply trying to lease those offices out. Or sell them.
Honestly, part of me kind of hopes that at least the Post-Tribune folks will get to move back to Merrilville. Having to report on Northwest Indiana from downtown Chicago seems awfully inconvenient.
What is going to happen to the websites?
As I mentioned before, when Joliet Herald-News was sold to Shaw Media, the Sun-TImes version of the website got nuked and the new version - based on the common Shaw Media template - rose in its place. It would be logical to assume that something similar would happen to the websites of all of the sold-off newspapers.
But here's an interesting wrinkle. Until a few months ago, all Sun-Times newspapers' websites were based around the Chicago Sun-Times template. A bit over a year ago, Pioneer Press switched to a different, WordPress-based format, and Aurora Beacon-News, Naperville Sun and Elgin Courier News followed suit earlier this year.
The websites of Southtown Star, Post-Tribune and Lake County News-Sun are still based on Sun-Times code. Since Tribune would, presumably, no longer have a right to suntimes.com specific design elements, it would be easiest to nuke those pages and start over. But the pages for the remaining newspapers seem easier to import.
Or maybe not. Maybe, since they were designed by Wrapports' Aggrego developers, Tribune doesn't have a right to that, either, an they're going to get nuked as well.
What is going to happen to the sports coverage?
Back in 2012, Wrapports acquired an ownership stake in High School Cube, a streaming platform for broadcasting high school sports games. Last year, Pioneer Press newspapers' sports sections were rebranded as High School Cube News, and stories by Pioneer Press sports reporters started appearing on High School Cube's website. Over the next few months, Naperville Sun, Elgin Courier-News, Aurora Beacon-News and, most recently, Southtown Star, followed suit. Out of all the non-Chicago Sun-TImes Media newspapers, only Lake County News-Sun and Post-Tribune kept the old branding.
I've never been entirely clear on the relationship between High School Cube and Sun Times Media's newspapers - and because I'm not exactly a sportsy kind of guy, i never really tried to find out. But now that the newspapers have been sold - and Wrapports said it was keeping the High School Cube - I'm curious to see what would happen. I'm especially curious if High School Cube is now going to be competing with Tribune-acquired newspapers using its own reporters.
What is Wrapports going to do now?
A few days before Friday's announcement, Wrapports announced a plan for a national network of websites utliliziing the Sun-Times brand. So, for New York, you'd have newyork.suntimes.com, for Birmingham, you'd have birmingham.suntimes.com. The idea seems to be that those sites would primarily act as news aggregators, putting together links from various news sources, with Sun-Times content that has national interest sprinkled in.
In addition to material aggregated and curated from local sources in each market, the network will provide “national exposure to the paper’s award-winning entertainment, sports and political coverage,” according to a company statement. Insiders said that would include content of national interest from such Sun-Times writers as movie columnist Richard Roeper, TV critic Lori Rackl, celebrity columnist Bill Zwecker, Washington bureau chief Lynn Sweet and sports columnists Rick Telander and Rick Morrissey.
Which sounds a lot like what they were trying to do with Aggrego, creating network of suburban websites that would have a combination of Sun-Times Media produced content and aggregated content from other sources. It would start with Chicagoland suburbs and expand nationally. It never really took off, though you can see some evidence of that plan on the Yorkville site, the (since nuked) Sanibel and Captiva News site for a group of Florida towns and the Tri-City Reporter group of websites. Now they're trying to apply the formula nationally - and, according to Crain's Chicago Business, they are going to be using Aggrego to do it.
Which strikes e as dubious. At best. The big stumbling block here is that, while Sun-Times is a well-known brand in Chicagoland (and, to a lesser extent, the rest of Illinois and parts of Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin). But outside of that - the closest Sun-Times ever came to capturing national attention was that time Wrapports fired all of its photographers (even freaking BBC reported on that). If I were trying to build a national network, I would've chosen a different name - any name. Hell, Wrapports may be even less known than Sun-Times, but at least there are no potential negative associations.
Besides - I'm not convinced that people are going to flock to a news aggregator. Not when you have Twitter and Facebook that already let you keep track of all the news you want. And while there is something to be said for trying to capitalize on entertainment/society reporters whose content isn't necessarily Chicago-centric, I'm not sure this is a way to do it.
Crain's Chicago Business also has its doubts.
The network will be forced to compete with myriad digital outlets in those markets already, from established newspaper brands to local bloggers to rivals such as the AOL Inc.'s Huffington Post that have built national platforms. Some prior attempts at building such a national network, such as AOL's Patch and Yahoo Local, have already largely gone by the wayside.
I'm actually really curious to see what Wrapports does with some of its online initiatives like the Bouquet Catcher and Weekway - which are not necessarily Chicago-specific and have a potential to become resources with national reach. What about Aggrego's ViewsMix - a potentially interesting idea that never got much publicity and seems to have been quietly abandoned in September.
One thing for sure - Sun-Times now has a few extra millions from the sale, some investment money for the news aggregator network and a (presumably) less expensive printing/distribution agreement. If nothing else, this will give Chicago Sun-Times and Chicago Reader some more funding to keep going.
Whether or not Wrapports will be able to take advantage of the opportunity and make the company profitable remains to be seen.