Has Tribune Publishing Left The Morons Behind

• Jennifer McLaughlin
• The Hartford Courant still produces excellent journalism, but how will it fare under newly spun off Tribune Publishing?

The Tribune Company, fresh out of bankruptcy, has just spun off its eight daily newspapers into a corporation all their own: Tribune Publishing.

I was curious about the Courant because unlike the Tribune and LA Times, it isn’t a Tribune paper that a deep-pocketed mogul—such as Eli Broad, Rupert Murdoch, or the Koch brothers—has been rumored to want to buy. If Tribune Publishing sinks, the Courant sinks.

From this low estate, the Courant now ponders its future. It’s not a broken newspaper (it’s been a Pulitzer finalist four times in this century, including last year), but it’s depleted and humbled. Because Tribune Media has hung on to its TV stations and its real estate, the Courant has been moved out of its old newsroom into rented space on another floor of the building it used to own. (In Chicago, the Tribune now rents its space in the Tower.)