Commentary : Elegy for Tribune From One of Its Own

The day the San Diego Tribune announced its demise as an independent afternoon daily, the headline read: “Tribune, Union to merge. ‘Exciting new newspaper’ to debut in early ’92.” What was missing from the obituary, run without a byline, was the simple statement that San Diego’s only afternoon newspaper was dying. Those members of its staff who couldn’t fit into the new mold would lose their jobs.

Ironically, the 96-year-old Tribune survived the fall of Big Brother in the Soviet Union only to write its own death notice in Orwellian doublespeak that left out the pain and truth of dying.

Perhaps that’s why the Tribune is being buried in the narrow grave of a merger with the Union. The Trib could no longer afford telling the truth to the community without looking over its shoulder at circulation numbers. Its reason to be--to challenge the a.m. papers, to get out today’s news today in the “Green Sheet” final edition, to present compelling opinions--was lost in the frantic search for an audience.

Bad news, the corporate marketing philosophy went, wouldn’t sell with the Tribune’s hoped-for upscale readership.

So, on that day of personal bad news for the Tribune staff, gathered in the newsroom to hear it from the editor, the story to the public would read like an upbeat ad for the new product: “We will combine the best of each newspaper’s news staffs, columnists, features, sections and comics to give San Diego an exciting new newspaper,” said Publisher Helen K. Copley, who did not go to the newsroom meeting.

May the newly christened Union-Tribune aspire to the highest: San Diego needs a local newspaper to match its diverse community. But, before a rebirth, there must come grieving. The Tribune was a casualty of--fill in the blank--television news, labor strife, bad management, USA Today, failed marketing strategies, sun-stroked readers, the jinx against all afternoon papers. It nearly died a decade ago and was revived by editors like Neil Morgan and Ralph Bennett, who gave people like me a job and a chance to be innovative.

Still, despite its successes in breaking stories and winning awards at home and nationally, the Tribune was never quite comfortable with its new voices. Fear of offending the publisher, business manager, editor, advertisers--anybody who complained--clung like static to computer terminals, erasing controversial lines or stories. Ghosts from the past loomed.

One by one, the “Front Page” era newspapermen who once careened around San Diego in fire-engine-red staff cars (before cooling themselves in downtown bars) retired or died, and the new generation was caught in a cross-fire of values. Some, like me, saw the future and resigned. Others struggled to do a professional job and hung on--and now face becoming unemployment statistics.

The recession bled advertising and tightened the space for stories in “the news hole.” Writers got less and less space, more and more directives to be “tight and bright.” The Trib became a shadow of itself. The end came mercifully.

O, Green Sheet, do not go quietly into the night. You broke the news of San Diego’s worst (PSA and McDonald’s) disasters; its greatest Padre victory, “Oh, Doctor!”; its trials of political corruption and financial chicanery; its confessions of murder and professions of innocence. Buried behind your punning photo captions and “sophisticated country daily” columns and features was an editorial page that served as the conscience of the community. And let’s not leave out the hallmark front-page color pictures of sea gulls and children playing in the sand. You sometimes got the news mixed up, but what newspaper doesn’t? But even the mistakes made you human and endearing.

You wrote about the people who endured history, not just those who made it. You were a Tribune of the people.

And now you are history.