“I think it’s a really exciting time at the Tribune,” said a young reporter there, when it was announced that Gerould Kern is retiring after close to eight years as editor and editorial page editor Bruce Dold will take his place. Young reporters are like that. Older reporters aren’t feeling the moment as giddily.
“Bruce runs a vigorous editorial page, one that engages seriously and constantly on issues that matter,” says an admirer. If he has baggage, it might be a couple of things in combination. An ardent champion of Governor Bruce Rauner, Dold’s editorial page hasn’t wrestled with the possibility that Rauner, however sound his grasp of Illinois’s fiscal crisis, is an overreaching jerk and his own worst enemy. Furthermore, Dold is perceived to be vastly more plugged into the city and state power structure than Kern ever was. Can he draw a line between his connections, his editorial beliefs, and the need of the newsroom to be unfettered by either?
Now it’s the Tribune editorial page that’s ardent. As for the Sun-Times. . . A few days after Ferro surrendered his executive authority over the Sun-Times in order to buy into Tribune Publishing, it published an editorial that all but begged to be read as a declaration of independence. “Hey, Governor, it ain’t workin,'” said the headline; and the editorial began:
