Chicago Tribune Paywall: How to Read the Tribune and The Morning Call for Free
The Chicago Tribune and its sister paper The Morning Call meter their sites. How the Tribune Publishing paywall works and how to read a full story from either paper.
Paywall behaviour last tested
The Chicago Tribune is the largest newspaper in the Midwest and one of the most pasted links on our site. For a long time it was also one we could not open: the Tribune blocked visitors outside the United States, and our early tests failed. Our reader is now served from the US, and in this month's tests the Tribune loaded in full. So did The Morning Call in Allentown, Pennsylvania, which shares the Tribune's owner and platform. This guide covers both.
How the Tribune paywall works
The Chicago Tribune and The Morning Call belong to Tribune Publishing, which the hedge fund Alden Global Capital bought in 2021. Alden also owns MediaNews Group, and its papers have been moved onto one shared platform with one metered paywall. Non-subscribers get a small number of articles a month, tracked in a cookie, before the article body is replaced with a subscription prompt.
As on the MediaNews papers, the full article is present in the page for search engines, and the gate is applied by a script in the browser. A crawler-style reader receives the whole story. Our tests on 29 September 2026 through Skip the Paywall:
- A 1,281-word Chicago Tribune story on an Illinois Supreme Court case over police discipline loaded in full, all 32 paragraphs.
- A 625-word Chicago Tribune story on the governor and data centres loaded in full, all 17 paragraphs.
- A 2,478-word Chicago Tribune archive piece from 2018 on food-stamp work requirements loaded in full, all 60 paragraphs.
- An 834-word Morning Call archive report from a 1998 murder trial loaded in full, all 34 paragraphs, and a 596-word 2018 community story loaded in full, all 24 paragraphs.
One Tribune page did not work: the editorial board's 2026 endorsements page returned only a short preview. It is a hub linking to individual endorsements rather than a single article, so paste the individual pieces instead.
Read a Tribune or Morning Call story in full
- Copy the article link. Tribune links look like chicagotribune.com/2026/09/24/headline-slug/ and Morning Call links like mcall.com/2026/09/21/headline-slug/.
- Paste it into the box on the home page and press Read Article.
- The story appears in a clean reader view with the headline, byline and body text.
Archive stories from the 1990s and 2000s, which both papers have republished on the new platform, load in full as well.
The rest of the Tribune Publishing group
Results across the group are not uniform. The New York Daily News, which moved to the same platform, loads in full. The Daily Press in Newport News returned only a partial article in one recent test, so treat the Virginia papers as unconfirmed. The Orlando Sentinel, South Florida Sun Sentinel and Hartford Courant use the same system and are worth trying. The Baltimore Sun is no longer part of the group after its 2024 sale.
Other approaches
- Library access. Chicago Public Library and most suburban systems offer free digital access to the Tribune with a library card, and the Allentown and Bethlehem libraries do the same for The Morning Call. Both papers are also on PressReader.
- Private windows. The meter is cookie-based, so a private window resets it.
- E-editions. The print replicas are subscriber-only and not available through any reader tool.
- Introductory offers. Tribune Publishing's digital subscriptions are routinely offered for a dollar for the first several months.
US regional papers compared
- Work in full: the Chicago Tribune, The Morning Call, the New York Daily News, the MediaNews papers, the Seattle Times and Star Tribune, the Los Angeles Times and The Boston Globe.
- Blocked: the Gannett and USA Today Network papers refuse automated requests across the board.
- Bot challenge: San Francisco Chronicle and Dallas Morning News.
- Teaser only: The Washington Post.
Support the papers if you read them often
The Tribune's newsroom is a fraction of the size it was a decade ago, and The Morning Call's is smaller still. If either is a daily read, a subscription is the direct way to keep local reporting going, and the introductory offers are cheap.
Try it with an article
Paste the URL of an article from Chicago Tribune and read it in a clean reader view. Free, instant, no signup.
Frequently asked questions
Does Skip the Paywall work on the Chicago Tribune?
Yes, as of September 2026. The Tribune blocks visitors from outside the United States, which stopped our earlier tests, but the reader is now served from the US and three of four recent articles loaded in full.
Why did a Chicago Tribune page return only a preview?
Hub pages, such as the editorial board’s endorsements index, are collections of links rather than articles. Paste the individual story links instead and they load in full.
Does the reader work on the Orlando Sentinel or Hartford Courant?
They use the same Tribune Publishing platform as the Chicago Tribune and The Morning Call, so they are likely to work, but we have not verified them. The Daily Press returned a partial article in one test.