You have arrived at the Chicago Tribune Tower, located at 435 North Michigan Avenue.

From its beginnings, the newspaper pledged to be a good citizen and an active participant in the life of Chicago. The Tribune was also a standard-bearer for innovative journalism. During the paper's formative years, the Tribune was a leading anti-slavery newspaper, and was instrumental in the election of President Abraham Lincoln. In 1881, the Tribune reinvigorated the city after the Great Chicago Fire, helping to lure business to the rebuilt city. The Tribune introduced several advancements that would irrevocably change newspapers. The Tribune developed a thick Sunday edition full of features, analysis and advertising. It established the first foreign news service staffed by Americans, and later became the first paper to maintain a reporting staff on Capitol Hill. The Tribune also revolutionized the look of papers--using three-and four-color printing, and publishing the first color photograph.

The Tribune plays an important role in the novel. As Bigger is on the run, he is able to glimpse public sentiment surrounding the Dalton murder through the journalism of the Tribune. For example, he reads about himself in the Tribune, "All in all, [Bigger] seems a beast utterly untouched by the softening influences of modern civilization. In speech and manner he lacks the charm of the average, harmless, genial, grinning southern darky so beloved by the American people."

Wright uses these fictitious news stories from the Tribune to indicate the pervasive racism that permeated every institution, even the world of journalism which purports to report without bias or partiality. From these accounts, it becomes very clear that an unbiased trial would be impossible, since Bigger has already been tried and convicted in the court of public opinion.