"Cats and dogs living together!"

Mass hysteria!

Phil Rosenthal of your Chicago Tribune reports:

The Chicago Sun-Times has entered into an historic distribution agreement with the Chicago Tribune, contracting to have copies of the Sun-Times and 10 of its sister suburban dailies delivered to subscribers by its larger rival, it was announced today. ***

"Like all strategic alliances, there's value created on both sides," Tony Hunter, the Chicago Tribune's senior vice president for circulation and operations said. "They're going to get better service and they're going to get efficiencies ... and we're leveraging our infrastructure to create value." ***

Hunter dismissed antitrust concerns, calling the distribution agreement "pro-competitive."

"It is in fact improving the service for their customers and creating better service opportunities for advertisers," he said. "We're going to continue to fiercely compete on marketing, price, product promotion and content. We're going to continue to go after the marketplace that way."

No doubt every news consumer in the Chicago metro area will benefit from this "pro-competitive" move.