Before the Sun-Times told its staff late last month that it would begin publishing content from the Daily Herald, it was already publishing content from USA Today and picking up stories from the Reader. And it was decades ago that the paper began publishing content provided by the AP and other wires. Even at their biggest, strongest, and richest, the dailies never went it alone.
“Once they sold them off,” Lampinen explains, “it made sense to reach out and say, ‘Hey, we’re not going after each other’s throats any more.’ From our perspective, the Sun-Times is a gritty city paper with strength to the [suburban] south, and we’re a suburban paper but we don’t publish to the south. So why not see what we can do?”
Talks between the Sun-Times and the Daily Herald have focused on news and sports, according to Kirk. But there’s also been mention of sharing commentary and reviews, and the two papers might go so far as to collaborate on “watchdog projects,” Lampinen adds. Shared reporting does, of course, raise the possibility of fewer reporters. But both editors shrank from the thought, without promising this won’t happen.
