A Taste of Crap -- Miner bangs on his highchair

Miner's in fine form this week. He covers the Taste of Heaven Cafe controversy (Way to go, McCauley!) which, though a fun story, isn't exactly going to impact the fate of the republic. No wonder he's interested!

As a local press critic, you'd figure Miner would want to write about what's wrong with the Trib. Especially since the Taste of Heaven story is a perfect example. Both the Trib and the NYT covered it, but it was the NYT's story, not the Trib's, that got blogged all over the place and got the story onto CNN.

That's because nobody outside of Chicago pays any attention to the Trib. If you follow the most widely read blogs, you'll regularly see links to stories from papers with smaller circulations -- the Philadelphia Inquirer, Boston Globe, Sacramento Bee, even the freaking Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Not the Trib, though. That's because, though it serves one of the largest metro areas in the country, its coverage is as plodding and parochial as some single-stoplight cowtown's News and Shopper.

Of course, the Reader isn't exactly burning up the wires from coast to coast either. Has any blog, in Chicago or elsewhere, ever linked to a Reader story? I'm honestly wondering here.

Miner also doesn't talk about the Trib's claim to have covered the Taste of Heaven story first, and whether that matters, or any other issue that falls within his ostensible purview. He's found another angle: the relative kid-friendliness of Women and Children First's Storytime policy. Clearly, a burning issue, well worth the 10 paragraphs he gives it. Circle the strollers, ladies...