Brian Hieggelke, publisher of Newcity, has written a long, thoughtful proposal to “keep Chicago a two-newspaper town.” The occasion for Hieggelke’s exercise is last week’s astonishing announcement that Michael Ferro, principal owner of the Sun-Times, would from now on be a silent partner because he’d just become the largest single shareholder of Tribune Publishing. Because of Ferro’s dominant position in both camps, “everyone is assuming this is the end of Chicago as a two-newspaper town,” Hieggelke writes; therefore, the first thing he thinks the Sun-Times needs to do is get Ferro out of the picture completely.
(Hieggelke wants the Sun-Times to drop its little-read Sunday paper in favor of a fat weekend paper available Saturday—an idea the Sun-Times has kicked around at least since Dennis Britton was editor a quarter century ago.)
