Personal Aside: A Squawking Baby Brat is Born…a New Venture. Something Called “The Chicago Daily Observer.”

Chicago Daily Observer.

For more than a year now I’ve been working with some others to form an alternative newspaper of news and opinion that will provide an alternative to the two major dailies in the city…and the two subordinate dailies outside the city—all of whom generally echo the same general news flavor of liberalism.

The result we call the “Chicago Daily Observer” a 5-day-a-week commentary from the center-right—with enough Democratic and liberal opinion to give it an edge. Those who read this web-site are familiar with my complaint about the two major newspapers. One is the uptown edition of the “National Enquirer” which doubles as the Democratic newspaper of record. The other is a better product with more respectability but whose editorial policy tries to juggle expediency with some sound economic judgments. The subordinate two in the suburbs represent (on the southern end) a hard-core leftwing sheet and in the northwestern suburbs a burnished but predictable elitist reservoir of conventional opinion.

I don’t know how this venture we have embarked on will go (it’s late at night as I write this). I’m the chairman of the editorial committee. John Powers is the president—so blame us if you don’t like it.

I don’t even know if the damn thing will be ready tomorrow morning (the 8th) if you try it. But regular newspapers have started in even more humble circumstances. Give it a try. If it doesn’t work, be assured that we’ll be improving until it does. God knows there is a need out there for intellectual diversity. There are only two conservatives writing in the two newspapers right now…my friend John Kass and my friend Dennis Byrne. That isn’t much for a town that is a pinwheel of extraordinary rich opinion.

The website for “The Chicago Daily Observer” is www.cdobs.com . We have a list of 96 contributors who will eventually appear. Remember if you don’t like what you see, our first day will be the worst day of all. After that, things will be better.