Thread by @RexHuppke

1/ OK, to anyone who cares about or covers Chicago media, I guess I have something to say about this. And I'm dovetailing a bit off a tweet my esteemed colleague @RayLong sent earlier, which I just retweeted prior to this thread.

Buckle up.

theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…

2/ First off, this story by @TheAtlantic about Alden Capital, the hedge fund that now owns my beloved Chicago Tribune, is deeply reported, scary as hell and well written. I don't mean what I'm saying here to cast aspersions on @mckaycoppins. This was an important story to tell.

3/ But I think what bothers those of us who stayed at the Tribune after the Mass Exodus of 2021 is this: We're still here. And I believe the size, quality and ferociousness of the remaining Tribune staff was considerably underplayed in The Atlantic piece, AND has been largely...

4/ ...ignored in virtually all coverage of Alden's takeover of our paper. As the staggeringly talented people who took the buyout left, they deserved 100% of the attention and kudos, along with the justifiable hand-wringing about where the paper was heading.

5/ And I'll inject real quick here that I think where the paper is heading remains uncertain. We - reporters, editors, photographers, designers and all - can only do what we do. It's the folks with the money who will make the final decisions.

6/ But as Ray alluded to in his tweet, maybe let's hold off on throwing dirt on our casket. Far more people stayed than left, and the staff of the Chicago Tribune continues its longtime habit of kicking ass.

7/ Put me aside, here, please. Because I'm the last piece of all this that matters. What matters, where the focus should be, is on the aces like @RayLong and @StacyStClair and @ChristyGutowsk1 and @JeremyGorner and @royalpratt and @jmetr22b and @_johnbyrne ...

8/ ...and @DarcelTribune and @byalisonbowen and @LAURA_N_ROD and @_phil_thompson and a whole mighty shit-ton of other folks I'm not listing here because there are too many...AND THAT'S THE DAMN POINT. Why isn't anyone writing about the people who are still here?

9/ We are smaller, weakened by waves of ownership turmoil and nervous about the future. But we are also staffed with editors like @bartonvan and @TribuneKevin and @pjurik and @RochellSleets and @michelleglopez and photographers like @erinhooley and @briancassella ...

10/ ...and AGAIN, I'm overlooking a slew of people, which, again, is the point of all this. We have a new editor who clearly saw what remains at the Tribune and thought "Let's do this" as opposed to "I'm running as fast as possible away from this mess."

11/ Our newsroom may, as the Atlantic story notes, be roughly the size of a Chipotle (and the walls, oddly enough, look a bit like guac), but dammit, I will take the remarkable people I have the honor of calling colleagues into journalism war any damn day of the week.

12/ THEY are out there keeping watch. THEY are doing all they can to keep their arms around this city and state and not let bad actors run free. THEY deserve to be talked about. THEY deserve admiration for fighting through a crap-storm and never missing a beat.

13/ So I hope, truly, that the next person who comes along to write about the woes of the Chicago Tribune - and there are woes aplenty - will devote some time and space to the people who are still proudly and professionally putting the paper out day after day after day. END