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Today was a great day to be young and a journalist in Chicago. (When's the last time anyone said that?)
The Sun-Times carried a big story announcing the winner of its "Zell No" video contest: 22-year-old Katie Hamilton of Glen Ellyn with "We're Not Gonna Change It," a rip on Twisted Sister's "We're Not Gonna Take It." Then the Tribune gleefully revealed that Hamilton is a Tribune editorial board intern and the $1,000 prize is going to Chicago Tribune Charities. And then the Sun-Times conceded it had been "punk'd" in an updated story under the headline "The Tribune has a sense of humor: Who knew?"
The upshot: Zell's scheme to sell naming rights at Wrigley Field gets him booted around not just by the competition but by the Tribune staff too. The winning video shows up on the Web sites of both papers. Highlights: some guy in a Zell mask prancing around, the real Zell getting bleeped.
The Sun-Times site now gallantly offers not just the Tribune's champion "Zell No" video but another that the paper concocted to revel in its coup, plus two runners-up and 20 other entries. Elaborate production values put the winner head and shoulders above the others, but all the ones I took time to look at have their moments.
Excellent lyric from the winners:
It's where we do our boozin'
Where our team does its losin'
Now some rich dude, he wants a change.
He'll name it after Old Style
Or drugs for ills erectile
Viagra Field sounds pretty strange.
Even better lyric, from runner-up Joe Conick, 71, of Chicago. . .
I see in you the epitome of selfish,
That face gives a hint of week-old shellfish.
Hamilton was fronting for some major Tribune talent. Bill Adee, the Trib's associate managing editor for innovation, says he, Tempo editor Tim Bannon, and feature writer Kevin Pang had already been kicking around the idea of doing "viral video projects--and kind of humorous ones." The last time they talked, there on the table was a copy of the Sun-Times calling for "Zell No" entries. A light bulb went on. Pang headed up the project, lyrics were a group effort. Because the Sun-Times was putting up videos as they came in, the Tribune forces had a good idea where the bar was set. Would you have kept the secret if you'd lost? I asked Adee. "Probably," he said.
"We're fortunate to still be in a two-newspaper town," Adee told me. "It's old-time newspaper fun, in kind of a new-media age."
Considering Sam-I-Am's comments after Thursday's quarterly reports, I'm sure he'll be pleased to learn how much time his surviving employees have on their hands.
The pride of the Business and Travel sections takes buyouts, and these guys are kicking around 'viral video projects'???? Seems like an effective use of limited resources.
Wonder, too, if such a new-fashioned newspaper war -- in which
employee-owners mock the guy who's in charge -- might not be counter-productive. If those who stand to lose everything can be so carefree and whimsical about their futures, why should readers and advertisers take Herr Zell's woe-is-us whining seriously?
Things must not be so bad, after all.
It would, however, be nice if someone very rich bought the naming rights and handed them over to Sam Sianis. "Billy Goat Field: Free grazing during road trips."
Sam-I-Am/State of Illinois could fire the grounds crew.
Or, Ms. Winfrey could buy the rights and simply rename the stadium, "O, the Oprah Field." Celine Dion could sing 'Take Me Out to the Ballgame' on Opening Day.
Too bad the boys and girls at the Los Times Times, Newsday and other Tribune properties don't have feel-good projects of their own to occupy their downtime and allow them to bond with their peers in the flagship.