Still, in those days the Tribune had a distinctive identify, something it sorely lacks today. Family owners care about making profits and running well-managed companies. But quarterly earnings are not the only measure of their success. The move made little financial sense, but the family felt a commitment to the state. When Gannett Co. bought the paper in 1986, it ceased state-wide circulation.
Family ownership is particularly crucial when difficult journalistic decisions arise.
In 1971, it was Punch Sulzberger's call to publish the Pentagon Papers, an act of journalistic courage that he admits was the toughest of his tenure. He decided in favor of publication despite lawyers' advice that the Times might be sued and driven into financial ruin and that he himself might go to jail. When after three installments, the Nixon Justice Department got a temporary restraining order to halt further publication, the Washington Post and the Boston Globe defiantly took up the struggle, publishing the documents until the government moved against them as it had against the Times. It is no coincidence that all three were family owned. Despite the importance of family leadership to journalistic excellence, it is a form of ownership that is hard to preserve.