Free Republic

South Side Ald. Roderick Sawyer, whose father was mayor in the 1980s, will run for City Hall’s top job, he said Thursday. Sawyer’s declaration marks an extraordinary break with Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who selected him to be part of her City Council leadership team as chairman of the health and human services committee. In an interview with the Tribune, Sawyer criticized Lightfoot’s combative leadership style and said her contempt for aldermen makes it difficult for the City Council to get things done. “I don’t think I would treat my colleagues as nemesis or an opposing party. We’re all partners in...

In an interview last year, Mr. Freeman argued that the austere cuts enacted at his newspapers reflected a more realistic understanding of the industry’s direction and better positioned Alden-owned publishers for the pandemic’s downswing. “We were prepared for a real step down in terms of a recession because we were honest about what was needed in the future,” he said. “Numbers don’t lie.” The newspaper industry’s numbers looked bleak even before the pandemic. Annual advertising revenue dropped 70%, or $34 billion, between 2005 and 2018, according to estimates by the Pew Research Center. More than 1,800 newspapers closed between 2004...