Goodbye to the Trib

 I figured it would end, imagined it happening, but not like this.  The Chicago Tribune no longer appears on my driveway every day of the week.  I had a long run of having the most read newspaper in Illinois in my hands and on my kitchen counter with morning coffee, answers to crossword puzzle clues ready to be solved and recorded with a yellow Dixon Ticonderoga #2 pencil. And now it’s over.  Just like that. 

Used to be you couldn’t get home delivery of the Tribune in Ottawa.  I don’t know when it started.  Before I subscribed, I bought single issues from Earl Gray off the news rack at Senate billiards.  I’d buy it when the state legislature got serious about passing a budget in Springfield, so I could get a good analysis of what they had done to social services.  I had a vested interest; kids and families in LaSalle County, later more counties.  I needed good information, and they gave it to me. 

The Trib always had good political coverage.  They had Mike Royko for God's sake, with slats Grobnik and news from the Billy Goat Tavern.  Later there was Mary Schmich, Erik Zorn, and the Greek guy.  You know his name.  Famous for beer can chicken and barbecuing a whole lamb at Easter somewhere in the suburbs. 

I also wanted the inside scoop on the Cubs from fanatic sports writers.  There were reviews of movies, stage plays, concerts, and a schedule of bands and solo artists coming to Chicago.  The Trib offered what I wanted in a single source.  I coveted the information and had it in black and white on paper for I’m guessing 34 years.  And now I don’t.

I still have it, however, in pixels with the print blown up on this giant screen I’m typing on.  I also have it on my tiny cramped I Phone screen.  But it’s not the same.  It will never be the same.

I figured they would simply end delivery in small towns, reversing the trend that brought home delivery to Ottawa when I first subscribed.  The costs must be enormous compared to sending it over the Internet.  There are tons of newsprint, 50-gallon drums of ink to buy, presses to maintain, and trucks hauling printed papers in the middle of the night across Northern Illinois. 

All that coupled with a local carrier who loads papers in the back of a car with chronically worn brakes and heads out into the early morning.  They pull into my driveway and throw a real paper that thumps against my garage door while I’m still sleeping.  I figured those costs would be what took the physical paper out of my hands.   

I thought home delivery would implode, they would discontinue the paper edition in outlying towns, and I would have no other choice but to read it in the shack on my desktop computer, or squint and swipe on my tiny I Phone screen.   But that’s not the case.  Something else happened, ever more insidious.

The Chicago Tribune has made the cost of having a printed paper delivered to homes outrageously expensive.  I have gotten postcards every couple of months for all these years telling me how much the Tribune appreciates my readership and support, and how much they are going to automatically charge my credit card for the privilege.  I’ve known it was high, but I’m pretty good at ignoring the cost of things that are important to me. 

And then I read this latest postcard.

“Your credit/debit card will be charged $400.00 on approximately 3/24/25 for service period 3/26/25 through 5/20/25.”

That’s not all.  “Your subscription may include up to fifteen Premium issues per year.  For each Premium issue, your account balance will be charged an additional fee up to $13.99 in the billing period when the section publishes.  The charge will shorten the pay-through date listed above.”

The time period projected above is 55 days.  Let’s see, 365 divided by 55 is about 6.6.  Multiply that by $400 and you get $2,654 and some change.  Can that total be right?  Wait.  What about those Premium issues that you get whether you want them or not? 15 of those at $13.99 is $210 in round numbers.  So, $2,864 total?  Can that be right?  I think it is.  I’ve run the numbers more than once.  Math is not my strong suit.

But being cheap, now that has served me well.  I try to look at what I’m spending and align it with what I value.  $2,864 is darn close to $240 a month.  I could support local charities more with that money, donate more to June’s (my granddaughter’s) college fund, or pay the entire cost for a fishing trip to Northern Ontario with a thousand bucks to spare.  I might even be able to self-publish a book for that amount of money.  In the end, I had to break off our relationship myself.

Here’s my current reality: I’m not going to be on my driveway at 6:00 a.m. gathering up the news in a blue plastic bag anymore.  Adios, Chicago Tribune paper edition.  It was great while it lasted.