The Press: The Greatest

The Chicago Daily Tribune, whose masthead daily proclaims it “The World’s Greatest Newspaper,” devoted 97 inches of news space last week to what it considered the world’s greatest story. In a full column on Page One, the Trib reported breathlessly that Reuters’ Editor Walton (“Tony”) Cole, “the editor of the world’s greatest international newsgathering organization,” and Trib Correspondent Larry Rue, “one of the world’s most famous foreign correspondents,” had flown in from London and Vienna, respectively, on a weighty mission. The mission: to tell 400 members of the Trib’s editorial staff “why the paper is entitled to be called the world’s greatest newspaper.”

At the dinner, “rollicking, adventurous” Larry Rue, as the Trib called him, received a $500 award from the Trib and provided the only deprecatory note. He was quoted as saying that “he had often heard the remark: ‘You’re all right, but it’s too bad you work for the Chicago Tribune!'” Explained the Trib: “He always puts such people in their place by saying, ‘The Tribune never asked me to work for it. I asked the Tribune. I am proud to work for the Tribune because I believe in it.’ “