Hard times, yes; end times, not necessarily

Many news reports Tuesday observed that the Sun-Times' bankruptcy filing had made Chicago the first major city in the country without a solvent daily newspaper. I preferred the observation that it had made the Daily Herald the largest solvent newspaper in Illinois.

It was the kind of comment that - considering how we have long touted our status as the state's third-largest newspaper - brings a burst of laughter to an editors' meeting, followed almost immediately by downturned glances and the guilty recognition that we too deal with the challenges that plague our industry these days. It has the flavor of gallows humor.

Except that we are not going to the gallows, at least not anytime soon. Nor quietly. Nor, I daresay are the Sun-Times or the Chicago Tribune.

Among us all, the rumor mill most frequently has the Sun-Times on the brink of extinction, and of that paper's actual status I can say little. I know only what I read in the papers. But I also recognize that the rumor mill has been churning about the Sun-Times' imminent demise since at least the late 1970s. Despite those rumors, the paper has continually afflicted the comfortable from the patrons of the Mirage Tavern to the kingpins of the Hired Truck scandal, from Eddie Vrdolyak and Harold Washington to Roland Burris and Rod Blagojevich. In the suburbs, the Daily Herald also has remained aggressive, with stories like our examination of the tollway's flawed scofflaw policy, critical reviews of financial deals involving the former president of College of DuPage, questions about the value of awards given to Grayslake schools by an organization the schools pay money to and countless others day in and day out.

Amid stories of the demise of venerable papers across the country, the Sun-Times' bankruptcy and that of the Tribune last December feel like predictable acts in the plot of a foreordained drama. The newspaper is dying, the theme goes, and you can watch as its blossoms fall away one by one.

But be careful about buying into that premise. Bankruptcy, as Lee Iacocca, Donald Trump, United Airlines and many other examples have taught us, is not necessarily a precursor to ruin. It can be part of a process of rebuilding.

To be sure, we in newspapers are enduring the most difficult and painful of times, but our problems aren't so much from a lack of customers as from the potent combination of a miserable economy and the changing financial model on which we are built. Some media critics like to suggest newspapers are losing readership because they are "out of touch." But the fact is, we're really not losing readership. Although the Daily Herald's paid print circulation has dipped slightly in the past couple of years, it has been only slightly. And combined with our online audience, readership overall is greater than ever. The Sun-Times and Tribune could likely make a similar case.

The challenge we all face is in how to make enough money to thrive through the readership we have. As we begin to figure that formula out, many of us will be back again and stable. Different, yes, but stable, even financially strong.

For all our disparate financial ailments, all three Chicago-area papers continue to compete vigorously, a circumstance that greatly benefits you and keeps the tollway, suburban governments and the Vrdolyaks, Blagojeviches and Burrises of the world on their toes. The occasional bankruptcy notwithstanding, we, or someone like us, will continue to serve this role for years to come.

Jim Slusher is an assistant managing editor at the Daily Herald.