The [Tuesday] Papers

1. "For presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), the political goals of visiting seven countries over nine days - maximizing media coverage along the way in a series of staged events with dramatic visual backdrops - is to plug his resume gap and show him on an equal footing with world leaders," Lynn Sweet writes.

I love how you can plug a foreign policy gap these days by making a few campaign stops overseas. It's the "new kind of experience."

2. "Though many details of the trip were cloaked in secrecy, the Obama campaign arranged interviews not only with the three major network anchors - but 'exclusives' with other TV news heavyweights, one for almost each day of the trip," Sweet continues.

"Sunday was CBS in Afghanistan with Lara Logan; Monday ABC in Iraq with Terry Moran; Tuesday, CBS Kitty Couric in Amman; Wednesday, ABC's Charlie Gibson in Jerusalem; Thursday, NBC's Brian Williams in Berlin and Saturday in London, Fox's Bill Hemmer and NBC's Meet the Press with Tom Brokaw. This way, each outlet has 'their' day. Obama appeared on CNN's Larry King Live in the run-up publicity to the trip."

And somewhere in between his media appearances Obama will squeeze in a few meetings with foreign leaders.

3. The similarities to Bush grow by the day. Next he'll authorize spying on Americans . . . oh, wait.

4. "The Obama campaign is planning a big public rally in a major park in Berlin on Thursday. Thousands of Germans are anticipated to attend when presumptive Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) delivers what is being billed as a 'substantive' speech on Trans-Atlantic relations. Yet campaign top advisors Robert Gibbs and David Axelrod insist this is not a campaign event though it is conceived, organized, financed and executed by the campaign," Lynn Sweet also writes.

Change you can believe in as long as you're not looking straight at it.

5. This isn't quite what I had in mind for this poll in regards to how I was trying to structure the "other" option, but have at it anyway and leave comments - that was really supposed to be the key. Like, maybe tell us what each of the contestants would bring.

6. What does it take to get a cop fired? A helluva lot more than it takes to get you fired.

7. "The Daley administration is forging ahead with planning for a new western terminal at O'Hare Airport - though it doesn't yet have the money to design or build it and is not sure exactly how it would be used," the Sun-Times reports.

Maybe it could be used as the new CTA Superstation.

8. Obama's recently published Op-Ed in the New York Times on Iraq was a nicely reasoned piece, but the subsequent rejection of John McCain's response illustrates one of many reasons why publishing press releases from candidates and office-holders as Op-Eds is a bad idea. Let 'em buy an ad.

9. "Magna Global last week announced that the age of the average network-TV viewer has reached the 50-year mark," Ad Age reports.

So only a few years younger now than the average newspaper reader.

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Redesigning newspapers, by the way, as the Trib is now doing, will not garner many new readers no matter how snappy. It's too late for that. The cycle of habit has been broken. The purpose of the print product now ought to be as a supplement to the website. And putting consumer and entertainment news front and center is an awful idea. Strip the paper down to news and news only. You can't compete with stale entertainment news. Then develop new print products, like a sports weekly, a photo weekly, a local Onion . . . it's time for newspapers - and their websites - to disaggregate. Ironic, isn't it?

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But really, the entire newsroom should now work for the website, and every night a small group of editors should pluck the most important news stories from the website and place them into the newspaper.

10. This is terrible news for Chicagoans, but the paper's dismantling began long ago. And you know what? When they came for the Baltimore Sun, the Chicago Tribune didn't say anything. And when they came for the Hartford Courant, the Chicago Tribune didn't say anything. And when they came for Newsday, the Chicago Tribune didn't say anything. And when they came for the Los Angeles Times - over and over and over again - the Chicago Tribune didn't say anything. And you know how this ends: when they came for the Chicago Tribune, there was nobody left to speak up for the Chicago Tribune.

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We have openings at the Beachwood, though. Just think what we could do if we skimmed the cream of the laid off, fired, resigned crop. Seriously.

11. The Tribune's tribute to Jerome Holtzman today recalls how the Sun-Times chased him off in 1981.

12. The Droll World of James Warren.

13. More Thoughts On What To Do When Faced With A CTA Perv.

The Beachwood Tip Line: Less talk, more action.