I’m really glad I don’t work for a newspaper.  I would hate to work in a profession that just barely limps along while the front office takes desperate measures to keep the enterprise afloat against seemingly insurmountable economic trends.  In the past two years we’ve seen an obvious downgrading of paper stock quality.  We’ve seen a steady regression away from in-depth reporting on major national and international stories toward more local tabloid content.  Sure, the paper looks flashier, with large color photos splattered across many of its pages.  But with those large photos comes noticeably less written content.  It’s a tough thing to see a great old institution like the Chicago Tribune slide into mediocrity.

Now the Trib has taken the next step in its sad descent.  Reading the movie reviews this morning at the breakfast table, I noticed something was different.  Then it hit me:  the paper was too skinny.  Well, maybe it’s just the “Movies” section, I thought.  I picked up Section 1 to see if it was skinny as well.  It was.

The Chicago Tribune has just whacked off an inch of its width from each page, two inches when the paper is opened.   This means each page contains about 8% less content than it did a week ago.  Here is a photo of today’s mini-Trib:

Notice the paper isn’t even as wide as the 12 inch tiles on my kitchen floor.  However, they still have room for a large color photograph.  The photo accompanies an April Fools Day story about a non-existent baseball player.  The picture itself takes up about 25% of the available space on the front page.  Mind you, this is a story about someone who doesn’t actually exist.  It is a story about a fake news story.  The only real news on the front page of today’s Tribune deals with decidedly local stories about area schools. 

These are important stories, no doubt, but let’s consider what is not on the front page.  There is nothing about our nation’s military involvement in Libya.  You have to turn to page 13 for that.  There’s nothing about the budget crisis in Washington and the looming government shutdown.  That story is on page 14.  The nuclear disaster threatening Japan?  Page 16.

As if the content issues were not enough, the paper’s actual production seems to be more and more prone to quality control problems.  Assuming I am even interested in the silly April Fools Day story on page one, I would have to turn to page 12 to finish reading it.  Here is what page 12 looks like:

Good grief. 

Last year I wrote a blog post in which I announced my divorce from the Chicago Tribune.  I had been a long time subscriber, but with the obvious decline in quality I could not justify continuing my daily subscription.  I cancelled all but the Sunday delivery.  A month or two later, the circulation department called me and offered four day delivery for basically the same price as what I was paying for Sunday only.  It was a good offer, so I accepted it.  Now, however, I’m simply waiting for my entire subscription to expire, including Sunday.  I’ll pay 75 cents for a single day’s paper to be downloaded on my Nook whenever I have the inclination.  I’ll help the Trib contain costs by eliminating entirely home delivery.  I don’t need a mini-Tribune.