Tonight’s must-read
Thursday, Oct 8, 2015 - Posted by Rich Miller
* From “The Chicago End-Times - The slow humiliation of Chicago’s most vital newspaper” by Sam Stecklow…
The Sun-Times’ website has undergone four redesigns in the last two years (and one very talked-up political redesign), each less popular with the newsroom than the last. “[When the Sun-Times site] changed over from the newest of the redesigns to what it is now, to match the Network site, there was a lot of displeasure in the newsroom about that,” a former longtime Sun-Times staffer said. “I think a lot of employees were confused as to why so much time, and I assume money, to do three or four website redesigns, only to scrap the whole thing and go with this national Network, and then be told we don’t have any money. Well, you had enough money to do four website redesigns that you didn’t want, but you’re laying off employees. The money was just spent in a different place.”
When the Sun Times Network was launched, the Sun-Times newsroom was at once surprised and skeptical. A former Sun-Times employee told me that reporters and editors were asking amongst themselves whether Wrapports higher-ups (chairman Michael Ferro, CEO Tim Knight, and Aggrego CEO Tim Landon) had even thought this thing through properly. “This sort of rewriting existing content into a bloggy national format was sort of an oversaturated market to begin with,” they continued. “Once we sort of figured out what this was, a lot of people asked, ‘How did this cost fourteen million dollars?’ To hire interns and build essentially one website? It wasn’t 70-something websites, it was one website that was poorly done.”
* There are some naughty words, so be forewarned. On the resignation of Tim Knight earlier this week as the CEO of parent company Wrapports…
Former managing editor Craig Newman told me, “I hope that this is good news for the Sun-Times and an end to the failed mishmosh of an experiment that is the Wrapports/Aggrego/Sun Times Network. However, coming on the heels of recent staff departures and continued gutting of the core of the company, the Chicago Sun-Times, it seems more like a rat fleeing a sinking ship—a ship sinking in no small part because of the rat.”
Go read the whole thing. I particularly love the last, unprintable, line.
- Oswego Willy - Thursday, Oct 8, 15 @ 8:18 pm:
Great read, even Feder took a shot at the Sun-Times.
What a shame.
- AC - Thursday, Oct 8, 15 @ 8:34 pm:
What a read, gripping, sad, and fascinating. I hope the Sun Times changes direction.
- Stones - Thursday, Oct 8, 15 @ 8:38 pm:
LOL! I learned a new word today!
- Been There - Thursday, Oct 8, 15 @ 8:52 pm:
Great read. I also learned a new word and might even use it.
- Precinct Captain - Thursday, Oct 8, 15 @ 9:23 pm:
Here’s Feder: https://twitter.com/RobertFeder/status/652204969928585216
- Jorge - Thursday, Oct 8, 15 @ 10:16 pm:
Well written and quite funny. I kinda miss ye ole effwad. I might need to resurrect that much like I did in Iraq by quoting the skinny Vince Vaughn…. “That’s so money….”
- Toto - Thursday, Oct 8, 15 @ 10:27 pm:
Earlier this week I saw someone post something on another thread here asking for a millionaire to save the Sun-Times. It went something like this:
“Where have you gone Fred Eychaner, a city turns it’s lonely eyes to you.”
- PublicServant - Friday, Oct 9, 15 @ 6:06 am:
Well the problem with getting a rich benefactor that isn’t a “****wad”, is that most of them are just that.
- After Further Review - Friday, Oct 9, 15 @ 6:49 am:
What a disaster!
The newspaper is in its death agony.
Where can readers go to find horse racing results and entries? It was one of the few reasons to pick up the Times.
- Arthur Andersen - Friday, Oct 9, 15 @ 7:41 am:
My heart aches for the ace reporters still on board.
- Wordslinger - Friday, Oct 9, 15 @ 7:42 am:
They netted only $3 million for the suburbans? Geez, at least those had cash flow from local ads, if not the “network.”
Where’s the revenue for tne Sun-Times coming from now? You don’t see it in the paper or online.
Without an Eychaner type buying it, this really looks like the end this time.
Maybe someone will buy the Trib and bring in the best of the Sun-Times. Eychaner could buy the Trib with couch-cushion money. No one else has shown any interest.
- Keyrock - Friday, Oct 9, 15 @ 7:55 am:
Maybe you can add an end-of-the-year award in their honor: the Sun-Times ward for worst website about state news/politics.
(The Sun-Times couldn’t win it, if it’s still around, because they’ve already won it, retroactively, so many years in a row.)
- Rahm the silly goose - Friday, Oct 9, 15 @ 8:06 am:
Many stories were generated from city insiders. Suntimes had the best insiders and challenged daley. When the paper stopped writing anti city hall, their paper became a farce. Mark brown hid in the rear of the paper. Fran spielman just whimpered out. The paper stopped comments. It just became rahm’s mouthpiece. Sad.
- Anonin' - Friday, Oct 9, 15 @ 8:35 am:
Two thoughts
Reporters editors working hard for low pay…..they once called City News…..kid
The guy who said they don’t do school lunch menus….that why some bought local papers Woodward
Media never saw internet giving away the info
Now we can be publishers.
- James the Intolerant - Friday, Oct 9, 15 @ 8:45 am:
An article that bashes Jenn McCarthy and Jim Belushi in the same paragraph is the best.
Nice to see Jim Tyree’s name, one of the truly good guys of Chicago.
- A Citizen - Friday, Oct 9, 15 @ 9:14 am:
And around the city bird owners are re homing their pets in anticipation of a massive shortage of cage liner material.
- Responsa - Friday, Oct 9, 15 @ 9:41 am:
It’s easy to place blame and there is plenty to go around at both of Chicago’s major dailies. But the fact remains that papers –and not just in Chicago– have been morphing, facing serious monetary issues, and dying for a very long time.
http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/889.html
Now, people get the news (or what they pretend is news) in vastly different ways and formats than in even the recent past.
Add to that the fact that many original and juicy and possibly important stories from good reporters regularly get killed before publication due to cost containment, or pressure from political operatives, advertisers, perceived political correctness issues, or various power groups such as lobbyists and unions. What is left is the Kardashians and a few syndicated over the top “opinion” columns each more screechy and self-serving and predictable than the next. Who in their right mind wants to actually pay to receive that stuff on their front porch or on their computer or smart phone?