Best new feature of the newly redesigned Tribune

It still exists

We’ve long held the mighty Tribune in high disdain, as a purveyor of middlebrow dullness in every form, whether from its flagship daily, or its WGN television and radio properties. But suddenly, this year, the very existence of the American daily newspaper suddenly came into question so rapidly did their financial fortunes fall, and we didn’t like the idea of a world without newspapers. The Sunday morning ritual we’d discarded engaged us again, not because the paper was better, but because, like shopping at a department store at Christmastime, it connected us to memories and values we hold dear. So for now, we’re just happy to have the Trib and Sun-Times around, and hope they stay. As to the Trib’s redesign: we don’t think much of it. More of a smokescreen to mask the dramatic cut in the newshole it shepherded in, the hardly revolutionary new graphic design further moved the Tribune into the company of mediocre, mid-sized dailies, the kind you might find in a Denver or a Milwaukee, say, than in the direction we’d have preferred: that is to assert its role as a major voice, a paper of record among the biggest cities in the country, like the New York Times and the LA Times. But the big pictures are nice.

Audience choice
Nothing

Audience Comments: “big ass ads that take up the front of the page: Have they no SHAME!”; “HUGE FUCKING FONTS and pretty pictures instead of all the stupid words”; “less wordage for the less literate.”

Best of Chicago 2008