Missing a daily newspaper can mean missing a lot

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: 2-newspaper towns: Death of a paper means a city can lose a lot : Phil Rosenthal : Tribune Media : October 11, 2009 : The man leading the charge to keep Chicago a two-newspaper town says he reads a half-dozen newspapers a day. : Jim Tyree is a businessman, however. Regardless of his daily devotion to the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post and weekly Crain's Chicago Business, he's the antithesis of an ink-stained wretch. : "I don't touch print most of the time, except on weekends when I have some time," Tyree said after a bankruptcy judge approved his group's effort to buy the Sun-Times and its suburban sisters, saving them from liquidation. "I'm kind of ambivalent whether I get news from the Internet, from my BlackBerry, from a Kindle, from print, TV. ... It really is the quality of the content." : Yet the quality of content -- in print, on the air, digitally -- is bound to be affected by the number of sources providing it. That will only become more apparent as the number of remaining two-newspaper towns dwindles, the rescue of the Sun-Times Media Group notwithstanding. : "It's great news that the Sun-Times found a way to stay alive, and without debt" said John Temple, who was publisher and editor of E.W. Scripps' Rocky Mountain News when its final edition after almost 150 years rolled off the presses in February, leaving Denver with one daily paper. "It will mean a higher level of competition in Chicago than if there were only one newspaper. It will mean more accountability reporting. ... It makes the city a better place to live." : Temple said the surviving Denver Post lost more than a competitor. The Post lost some of what fueled its ambitions and often pushed it in its coverage, and ultimately the community lost more. : "While I'm sure people at the Post think competition is still intense because of the Internet, it's not the same as waking up in the morning knowing there's another news organization, working in the same medium, trying to beat you, trying to be smarter about the city than you are," he said. : "Denver lost energy, competition, scrutiny of its politicians and powerful institutions and a range of diversity of voices," Temple said. : Tyree, who heads the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce in addition to Mesirow Financial, said he believes that "our community or society would have found a way to replace" the Sun-Times if it had died, "but it would have taken decades to build the credibility and capabilities that I think this organization has." : If it weren't for news, sports and entertainment in newspapers, Tyree wondered, "What in the world would the radio and TV stations talk about?" : Meanwhile, although Tyree views the Tribune "as a formidable competitor," he said if the Sun-Times and Tribune merely focus on beating one another "we'll both get killed" because "there are 500 or 1,000 different competitors in the Chicago area right now." : It's not just bloggers, and the number is growing daily. Disney-owned ESPN and its local radio station, WMVP-AM 1000, this year launched a Chicago Web site focused on this market's major teams. It's already stealing market share. : Cable's Comcast SportsNet Chicago (which Chicago Tribune parent Tribune Co. has held a stake in through its ownership of the Chicago Cubs) is hiring beat writers to cover the market's major sports teams for its Web site. Already it has Trib alumnus John Mullin blogging about the Bears. : A spokeswoman for The New York Times said that paper is "in conversations with potential news providers in Chicago" about providing "additional quality local content for our readers" here in print and online. Sources say there's no deal and no launch date yet. : "I do believe it's important to have two newspapers, but a business model might only have one," said Tyree, who has no plan at present to charge for the digital content he consumes most days and no plan to drop the Sun-Times' print edition, which generates the most revenue but also is costly to produce. : Prices for the print edition, he said, will stay the same or go up. : "There's no guarantee long-term that Chicago will have two newspapers or even one newspaper, and (Tyree) is stepping into an incredibly intense competitive environment," Temple said. "The question will be whether they are so hung up on their past at the Sun-Times that they can't create a future." : They better. Chicago's 2016 Olympics loss was nothing compared to what the loss of the Sun-Times would mean. : True world-class cities need more than one paper.

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