Why is John Kass on A2 of the Chicago Tribune?
Yeah, there are several bundled questions here. The most basic about the A2 slot is that Royko worked his way up to that position at the Daily News in the 1960s/1970s, and when that folded, moved over to the Sun-Times in the same position (both papers were owned by Marshall Field IV). When the latter was sold to News Corp./Murdoch, Royko jumped to the paper he loathed, but less than he loathed Murdoch, the Trib. Getting A2 was a contract thing, all but certain. (I don’t remember what ran in that slot before he got it, but it was probably the same sort of low-signal infotainment/gossip stuff that other papers seem to use it for.) When he died, the Trib decided they liked having the prestige granted by Royko basically owning the city politics/corruption beat, and Kass did the best job of filling that role. Keeping it is as much a matter of your rolodex and your leg-men as it is writing ability; Kass is certainly no match for Royko’s poison pen or flights of fancy a la Slats Grobnick. But
