The Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is owned by the Sun-Times Media Group, which filed for bankruptcy protection on March 31, 2009.

History

The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city. It began in 1844 as the Chicago Evening Journal (which was the first newspaper to publish the rumor, now believed false, that a cow owned by Catherine O'Leary was responsible for the Chicago fire). The Evening Journal, whose West Side building at 17-19 S. Canal was undamaged, gave the Chicago Tribune a temporary home until it could rebuild. In 1929, the newspaper was relaunched as the Chicago Daily Illustrated Times.

The modern paper grew out of the 1948 merger of the Chicago Sun, founded in 1941 by Marshall Field III, and the Chicago Daily Times. Before Rupert Murdoch, the newspaper was for a time owned by Field Enterprises, controlled by the Marshall Field family, who also owned WFLD channel 32 since its inception in 1966, and the afternoon paper Chicago Daily News. When the Daily News ended its run in 1978, much of its staff, including Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Mike Royko, were moved to the Sun-Times. During the Field period, the newspaper had a populist, progressive character that leaned Democratic but was independent of the city's Democratic establishment. Although the graphic style was urban tabloid, the paper was well-regarded for journalistic quality and did not rely on sensational front-page stories. It typically ran articles from the Washington Post/Los Angeles Times wire service.

In 1984, Field sold the paper to Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, and the paper's style changed abruptly toward that of its suitemate New York Post. Its front pages tended more to the sensational and its political stance shifted toward the conservative. This was in the era that the traditional Republican bulwark, the Chicago Tribune, was softening its positions, ending the city's clear division between the two newspapers' politics. This shift was made all but official when Mike Royko defected to the Tribune.

However, on July 10, 2007 new editorial page editor Cheryl Reed announced: "We Chicago Sun-Times editorial page are returning to our liberal, working-class roots, a position that pits us squarely opposite the Chicago Tribune —- that Republican, George Bush-touting paper over on moneyed Michigan Avenue."

After Murdoch sold the paper (to buy its former sister television station WFLD to launch the Fox network) the Sun-Times was acquired by Hollinger International, controlled, indirectly, by Canadian-born businessman Conrad Black. After Black and his associate David Radler were indicted for skimming money from Hollinger International, through retaining noncompete payments from the sale of Hollinger newspapers, they were removed from the board, and Hollinger International was renamed the Sun-Times Media Group.