Time Out Chicago<\/a> in November 2011 on the 10th anniversary of the demise of the original INC. column:<\/strong><\/p>\nAn outgrowth of the late Aaron Gold\u2019s Tower Ticker column, INC. was conceived by Tribune editor Jim Squires, who admired the Washington Star\u2019s gossip\/society column known as The Ear, and borrowed the idea of launching a gossip column written by committee (hence the \u201cINC.\u201d name). Squires no doubt also recognized the futility of having just one person compete for scoops with the omniscient Irv Kupcinet, whose Kup\u2019s Column had been a fixture in the Sun-Times since 1943.<\/em><\/p>\nSo on October 11, 1981, INC. was born as an amalgam of show biz, scandals, politics and personalities served up with snark by an amalgam of writers, starting with Gold, Bill Plunkett and Michael Sneed. Over the next two decades, its authors would include Ed Baumann, Cheryl Lavin, Kathy O\u2019Malley, Hanke Gratteau, Dorothy Collin, Mike Conklin, Judy Hevrdejs, Teresa Wiltz, Ellen Warren and the late Terry Armour.<\/em><\/p>\nSince the column was only as good as its writers and their sources at any given time, its quality tended to be inconsistent. But it could always be counted on to report on boldfaced local celebrities behaving badly, getting divorced or suing one another. For a lot of Tribune readers, it was the first thing they turned to each day.<\/em><\/p>\nNo reason was ever given for the demise of INC. But O\u2019Malley, who was associated with the column in various forms longer than anyone (including a stint as Gold\u2019s assistant), believes the rise of the Internet rendered it obsolete.<\/em><\/p>\n\u201cThere is no way that you could have a daily gossip column and have it really be very timely because secrets don\u2019t keep anymore,\u201d O\u2019Malley told me in an interview earlier this year. \u201cEverybody\u2019s on Facebook or they\u2019re texting and tweeting now. If there\u2019s a good secret, it won\u2019t keep till the next day. INC. was a dinosaur.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fifteen years after the Chicago Tribune pulled the plug on the INC. column, it\u2019s back in the daily celebrity gossip-column business. Without fanfare, the Tribune just launched Chicago Inc., a new version of an old franchise. Its resurrection follows the recent arrival of Michael Ferro, the celebrity-obsessed chairman of tronc (nee Tribune Publishing), parent company... Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11770"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11770"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11770\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11776,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11770\/revisions\/11776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}