Rupert Murdoch’s brief cloud over Chicago newspaper world led to one ray of sunshine — Sneedless to say

The Alien. 

Word that Aussie media mogul Rupert Murdoch was finally stepping down as chairman of Fox Corp., parent company of Fox News, as well as his News Corp. holdings, sparked a major blast from my past.

If it’s true everything becomes personal if you live long enough, Murdoch’s muscle move into Chicago’s media market became personal after he took control of the Chicago Sun-Times in 1984. 

So, let’s hi ho back decades ago when Murdoch paid $90 million in cash for the liberal-leaning, tony tabloid newspaper on the Chicago River. That wrought the wrath of legendary Sun-Times columnist Mike Royko, who branded the Australian garbage gossip news titan, an “alien.”

Chicago Sun-Times columnist Mike Royko in the early 1980s.

Chicago Sun-Times archives

“No self-respecting fish would want to be wrapped in one of Murdoch’s publications,” Royko said. “He puts out trash.” 

And thus it came to pass, Royko quit, but the Sun-Times initially refused to accept his resignation, putting their star columnist “on vacation,” and reprinting his old columns. Then came the indignity of Royko, and his alter ego “Slats Grobnik,” settling into new digs across the street at the Chicago Tribune. 

At the Sun-Times, Murdoch promised he would not make drastic cuts, but expected to shift the paper’s more liberal editorial views to his conservative stance … much like the Chicago Tribune back then. 

Royko’s jumping ship to the Trib was rare in the middle of the fierce newspaper rivalry.

Trust me. It had become a World Word War between Chicago’s two major newspapers.

Michael Sneed in 1979.

Chicago Sun-Times archives

Those of us at the Tribune were deeeeelighted by Royko’s gutsy move. Many of us tried to snatch a little of Royko’s bravura by vowing we would never, ever jump to the Sun-Times while Murdoch was its owner.

Yet, barely 19 months later, when Murdoch sold the Sun-Times, I would cross the street to the Chicago Sun-Times … ending a 13-year run at the Chicago Tribune minus a year I spent as Mayor Jane Byrne’s press secretary in 1979.

At the time of Murdoch’s move into the Chicago media market, I was already three years into co-authoring the Trib’s INC. column, handling the political segment. Originally and unsuccessfully, I’d pitched it as a “Sneed” political tipsheet following my brief Byrne tenure.

Chicago Tribune INC. logo with columnists Michael Sneed and Kathy O’Malley from approximately 1985.

But then suddenly, in June, 1986, Murdoch was out, forced to sell the paper under Federal Communication Commission rules banning cross ownership of television stations and newspapers in the same city. Murdoch’s News America Holdings Inc. was buying six stations across the country, including Chicago’s WFLD-Channel 32.

So, Murdoch sold the paper for $145 million to a group of investors led by Sun-Times president Robert “Bob” Page, who came calling later in 1986 and led me across the street to author my own five-day-a-week column. It ran for more than 30 years until December of 2018, when it was time for a little ink to disappear.

I think often of Royko, who died of an aneurysm in 1997 after a legendary street reporter’s life. His widow, Judy, is an old friend.

It’s still a calumny Murdoch continues to poison the nation’s inkwell with fake Fox news; but I am ever so grateful for the day he was forced out the door of the Sun-Times, thus enabling this journalist to witness the golden age of Chicago’s two great American newspapers.

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Sue Whooo?

Wooo Whooo! Paleontologist Sue Hendrickson, discoverer of the Tyrannosaurus rex that would become a star at Chicago’s Field Museum, was the winning last answer in the final round on TV’s “Jeopardy!” quiz show last week.

Update: Hendrickson, an old friend, is still diving, sometimes searching, and always in the company of one of a long line of her beloved golden retrievers. She had one with her on the day she discovered her famous T. rex in a South Dakota farmer’s field. 

Trumping the Tree?

Former first lady Melania Trump is cashing in again this Christmas. 

The former first lady, whose husband reeks of indictment scent, is once again launching a limited edition, handcrafted Christmas tree ornament in “patriotic Red, White and Blue” affixed with her signature, natch. The cost is $45 for this whole MAGA magilla of a “patriotic Christmas vision.”

Sneedlings … Slick & quick? Or just plain who cares? Prince William, Great Britain’s future king, figured out how to go unnoticed in New York last Tuesday by joining a mass of joggers running through Central Park … unlike his brother, Prince Harry, who got paparazzi-chased in New York a few months back. … Quick & quiet: Former veep Mike Pence was spotted slipping into a private Chicago fundraiser with Loop legal eagles on his way home to Indiana after trying to make his presidential pitch in Iowa. … Saturday birthdays: Bruce Springsteen, 74; Julio Iglesias, 80; Jason Alexander, 64. … Sunday birthdays: actress Nia Vardalos; 61; Ben Platt, 30; Lou Dobbs, 78.