‘No-Chicago Tribune Thursday!’ Condemning Tribune Publishing’s vampiric “destroyer of newspapers” ownership, Alden Global Capital, striking employees are encouraging readers not to click on the Trib’s web stories, open its emails or engage with its social media accounts.
■ Tribune Guild chair and criminal courts reporter Madeline Buckley tells the Sun-Times: “Alden’s cuts have hit so close to the bone that we can’t even do our jobs. … Enough is enough.”
■ Employees at six other Alden-owned papers were doing the same.
■ In a joint statement of support, ex-Trib columnists Eric Zorn, Mary Schmich, Rex Huppke, Dahleen Glanton, Heidi Stevens and Phil Vettel declare, “The people who put out the Tribune deserve to be treated better.”
■ Late Night host Seth Meyers noted Tuesday night that Alden’s sold the Baltimore Sun to a guy who may have been motivated by revenge—because, as The New Republic explained, the Sun once reported that he’d been “caught by police in an undercover sting while receiving oral sex from a sex worker.”
Message received … eventually. Just eight months after launch, news startup The Messenger is calling it quits …
■ … putting 300 journalists out of work …
■ … many of whom got the word not from bosses but from The New York Times.
■ All that remained of its website was a collection of blank pages.
■ Columnist Parker Molloy: It’s just another example of “cruelty capitalism.”
■ After reaching a tentative deal with management, The Onion’s union has called off a strike.
■ Ending “five years of daily podcasts and newsletters,” The Bulwark’s Charlie Sykes—a veteran conservative Milwaukee radio host—is walking away, calling this “a good time to get off the daily hamster wheel of crazy.”
‘The loss of life is horrific.’ Mayor Johnson is among those mourning the second fatal shooting outside a Chicago school in less than a week: One student dead, two wounded outside Senn High.
■ The Reader: Accuracy concerns abound as the city’s $33 million contract with the company behind ShotSpotter—a citywide network of microphones designed to detect gunfire—expires this month.
Close one. Thanks in part to a couple of City Council members who helpfully left the chamber instead of voting, Johnson cast the tie-breaking vote to make Chicago the largest city in the nation to demand a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas.
■ The council’s only Jewish member: “I am disappointed in the mayor.”
■ Politico’s Shia Kapos: “The council is more divided than ever.”
■ The Lever: Israel lobbyists have amassed a new $90 million war chest.
■ Updating coverage: President Biden reportedly was set today to issue an executive order targeting Israeli settlers who’ve been attacking Palestinians in the West Bank.
Metra, minus. Effective today, many ticket windows close and some ticket purchase options disappear …
■ … and, of course, its Ventra app malfunctioned today …
■ … but, Streetsblog Chicago reports, a pilot program means all low-income riders are now eligible for reduced fares across the whole Metra system.
■ Illinois has a new official highway map—on recycled paper!—and you can get one free.
‘Part of a larger trend of right-wing violence.’ CNN’s Oliver Darcy puts in context the case of a Pennsylvania man accused of decapitating his father.
■ Jimmy Kimmel: “What’s finally going to bring down Donald Trump will be an army of pissed-off Swifties.”
■ Befuddled by the scandal muddying Georgia’s criminal charges against Trump? The Daily Beast sorts it out.
‘I’m sorry for everything you have all been through.’ In what a CNN commentator called “a moment for the ages,” Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg apologized to families of kids who’d been abused on Meta apps …
■ … and yet, as the AP notes, Zuckerberg has “a long history of public apologies.”
‘Super-alarming.’ The Illinois Public Interest Research Group warns that tech companies are resisting a bill to protect Illinois consumers’ online privacy.
■ Los Angeles has become the first U.S. city to outlaw “digital discrimination”—lousy internet service at higher prices for marginalized neighborhoods.
■ Content strategist Andy Crestodina reviews how Google search results have changed over the last decade.
‘Elon Musk makes me hate myself for loving my Tesla.’ Actor and new Daily Beast contributor Michael Ian Black: “My son, then a teenager, tried to warn that Musk was a ‘douche,’ but I wouldn’t listen. And now I’m stuck driving around in the best damned car I’ve ever purchased.”
■ Columnist and former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich: A Delaware judge’s ruling that Musk’s compensation from Tesla was excessive bolsters a Senate move to limit public companies’ executive pay.
■ Los Angeles Times columnist Michael Hiltzik on Musk’s reaction: “Hoo boy, is he steamed.”
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