Tribune Tower is a neo-gothic structure rising 462 feet above the windy streets of Chicago. It is thoroughly decorated with buttresses and gargoyles, statues and reliefs. Its walls are imbedded with little snatches of the world around it, playing host to bits of everything from the Parthenon and the Great Pyramids to the Moon and the World Trade Center. Okay, well, maybe the Moon is just on loan in the gift shop.

The Tower is a monument to the Roarin’ 20s: A time when against the grain was best and American newspapers were coming into their own as they left behind the smears of yellow journalism. It has its stakes set at 435th North Michigan Avenue along the Magnificent Mile and acts as headquarters, whether symbolic or literal, for about twenty thousand employees world-wide.

The foundling masthead of Tribune Publishing is the Chicago Tribune. It reaches millions of homes and businesses throughout the Midwest and clings tightly to a mostly conservative dogma set forth in text for the first time 160 years after its inception. This selection on principles is very PC and denies itself the aforementioned association to dogma. But, after all, what is dogma but a carefully followed set of principles and beliefs?

Dijah stood in the shadow of the great edifice, arms wrapped around herself as she took a pull on her cigarette. She grimaced as she mentally ticked off facts about the Company, like a human dossier. It came from years of boredom, sitting at her computer between stories and storing up facts to brag about to people when she went home. If she went home.

Oh, did you know that the Tribune Company is among the Fortune 500? No. Well, did you know that last year we donated nearly $75 million to charities and non-profit organizations?

It didn’t matter that Tribune was in the lower 35th percentile of the Fortune 500, or that $33 million of the donations were “space” donations of air time and the like. What mattered was that, when the time came, she would be able to twist the words around to represent a gleaming front to those that speculated about her life. That’s what journalists did, right?

Stamping out her Memphis Menthol with a twist of the toes, she walked briskly back into the building. The wind whipped her skirt across her stinging legs. She couldn’t fathom what had possessed her to wear a dress to work in the middle of February. She never wore dresses. Unless, perhaps, it was that last fight with Tom. Looking over her shoulder as she entered the door, she glared at several passing taxis.

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