Jim Squires of the Chicago Tribune

By TOM LITTLEWOOD

THE STEPS being taken by the Chicago Tribune to build up its Springfield bureau — and its state political coverage generally — reflect a recognition by the new editor, Jim Squires, that the paper overreacted to the intemperance of the Tagge-Maxwell Era.

Until his retirement as political editor in 1972, George Tagge was a highly visible fireball under editor Don Maxwell. After that, the Tribune de-emphasized the Statehouse and state political news almost as an institutional act of expiation. It also happened to be a time when market research suggested that readers were bored by serious political and governmental news.

Now the '60s and '70s are behind us and there is a new editor in the Tower, a 38-year-old Tennessean who is a political reporter by trade. Squires came to Chicago via the editorship of the Tribune Co. property in Orlando, Fla. One of his first moves in Chicago was to promote political editor Dick Ciccone to metropolitan editor with authority over all state coverage. Then Squires began making plans to reinforce the mediocre Statehouse bureau by adding a second resident correspondent and by going outside the staff for two experienced political specialists from other cities.

"Despite the fact that [Ciccone] was a super political editor, political reporting was not one of the Tribune's strong points," Squires told me in December. "The newspaper's commitment to political coverage and to Springfield was less than should have been expected. So we're going to do a lot better."

Here are other excerpts from the interview with Squires:

Q: How have you found Chicago journalism to be different?

Squires: The competitive aspect in terms of reporters battling for news is not that much different from Washington or any other town where there are good healthy newspapers. What Chicago does have is a kind of brutality about its competition that probably doesn't do anyone any good. It tends, I think, to drive the participants to journalistic excesses that do as much damage as anything else. The rush to be first is a bigger problem in Chicago. It influences editors' judgments and is so engrained in the tradition that it often causes hip-shooting by newspapers.

Another thing that disturbs me is how some media in Chicago use valu-able space or time in an effort to damage their competition rather than inform their readers and listeners. The credibility of the media in general ought to be of primary concern to every editor and news director. You can give the right side without spending all your time and space beating on the head of the competitor who gave false information.

Q: What is the thinking behind the changes in Tribune columnists?

Squires: We are putting into the newspaper, columnists and personalties who tend to be a little lighter and who appeal to a segment of the population other than the Tribune's traditional audience of many years past.

Q: How, specifically, are you appealing to central-city minorities, a Tribune soft spot in the past?

Squires: By covering the city better than in the past, with interesting col-umns, sports, and financial news writ ten in a way that the average person can understand. For example, the Tribune doesn't just write about the prime rate anymore. The Tribune says this is what it means to the guy who's trying to float a loan to buy a car or a house.

Q: The Tribune pioneered in the development of almost autonomous suburban supplemental editions (called the Suburban Trib). How have you changed the approach to suburban news?

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Squires: There was a great deal of duplication and not much communication between the two operations. I felt the Suburban Trib was doing a job that the Chicago Tribune should have been doing at the expense of a job the Suburban Trib should have been doing. So the suburban papers are more community-oriented now. They run more public service news, the kind of news that tends to be in suburban and weekly papers. The "trend" stories have moved into the main paper, providing more balance to city and suburban news.

Q: Returning to the city, what is your professional evaluation of the Sun-Times Spanish-language supplement distributed in Hispanic neighborhoods?

Squires: The decision to do that is in keeping with the population trends within the city. The Sun-Times economic base is inside the city — a much narrower base than we operate from — and that would be quite a high priority with them, I would think. We are very much interested in serving that particular segment of Chicago too. But on our priority scale, because our base is broader, I don't know when and if we will get involved in that.

Q: How do you feel about investigative journalism in Chicago?

Squires: That is one thing Chicago newspapers do quite well. We have had a long-term commitment to that. It's certainly not going to be reduced. I do think that investigative reporting, if done badly, is more damaging to newspapers than almost any other kind. It is the kind of reporting that demands constant attention of top-level editors. It requires some restraint, a great deal of professionalism, and I would hope the Tribune will do as much investigative reporting as it's ever done in the past but will do it better.

Q: Before your arrival, the Tribune was understood to be feuding with Mayor Byrne. What is your attitude about that?

Squires: Those incidents were overblown. 1 don't think that newspapers ought to have cozy relationships with political figures in City Hall, the State-house or anywhere else, and the Tribune is not interested in any cozy relationships with anybody. At the same time, I don't think a newspaper's editorial position ought to be reflected in its news columns, and that won't happen here. That is another area where restraint of newspaper power is crucial to newspaper credibility and future success.

Q: Do you foresee a day soon when Chicago will have only one daily paper?

Squires: That would surprise me. What is more likely is that one of the papers — and I don't have any doubt which it will be, it will be the Tribune — will get into a much more dominant position in the market. The recession has been more severe in the Midwest, which makes life more difficult for all the media. We haven't see great population or circulation growth in this area in the last five years. That means growth will be at the expense of competitors — and it means tougher wars of survival than in the past.

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