The Front Page Revisited

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The distinctions are crucial. Chicago is still the nation's most competitive newspaper town. After decades of blood-and-thunder headlines, the scramble today, says Tribune Editor Clayton Kirkpatrick, is "to become more relevant to our times." Romanoff's flamboyant American has even changed its name to a more underplayed Chicago Today. The Sun-Times' method was to appoint Yale Graduate Jim Hoge, 33, as its editor. "Our ideal," says Hoge, "is to give all the people a hearing for their point of view. We are selling the Sun-Times as a paper that is changing." Adds Dedmon: "Because of the changes, you can read any of the four papers today and be reasonably well-informed. That wasn't true ten years ago."

The change shows at the Detective Bureau press room. The Sun-Times' Walter Spirko and the Tribune's Johnny Paster, among the last of the 30-year veterans, are still there. Otherwise, except for the "City News kid," the place is virtually deserted during the late-night dog watch. "Everything's changed," says Paster. "Ever since the riots at the convention, the cops are very leary about talking to us. I've put in for early retirement next year. Things aren't like they used to be." "Yeah," says Spirko. "We used to cabaret around with the coppers, play handball with them and everything. Hell, when I was working on the Dillinger case, I drove the goddam car on a raid of one of his hideouts, packed a .38 and everything. Those were the sweet days." And he deals out a hand of solitaire.