Konkol out at Chicago Reader after “tumultuous ten days”
Saturday, Feb 17, 2018 - Posted by Rich Miller [Reader comments are now open on this post.] * The Chicago Reader has been suffering serious turmoil since its new executive editor Mark Konkol took over. Konkol fired the paper’s editor by phone just after the editor got off a plane returning from his honeymoon, killed the transportation writer’s respected column, nixed a couple of columns by longtime Reader columnist Ben Joravsky and lost another columnist after publishing a racist front page cartoon featuring JB Pritzker sitting on a black lawn jockey ornament. Word from inside was that the paper itself could be in peril. Sun-Times Media owns the Reader and here’s its CEO Edwin Eisendrath…
* From the Reader’s own Twitter feed…
Ouch.
|
- PublicServant - Tuesday, Feb 20, 18 @ 9:39 am:
Sounds like a perfect example of the Peter Principle at work.
- JoanP - Tuesday, Feb 20, 18 @ 9:39 am:
The Reader keeps getting thinner and thinner, both in size and content. It’s a shame. They used to be a great force for investigative journalism; John Conroy’s reporting on police torture had consequences that continue up to the present.
But alternative newspapers all over are having a hard time, as witnessed by the demise of the Village Voice print edition.
It’s a shame.
- My New Handle - Tuesday, Feb 20, 18 @ 9:43 am:
That didn’t take long, but perhaps still too long. Eisendrath is not resigning over a bad hire, though maybe he should (using Madigan’s current situation as a parallel). And will the Reader bring back Malooley?
- wordslinger - Tuesday, Feb 20, 18 @ 11:18 am:
The New Mooch. Spectacularly bad decisions and alienating an entire staff in just 10 days.
- VanillaMan - Tuesday, Feb 20, 18 @ 11:30 am:
Konkol believed the Reader could be open to controversial views, but discovered that it was only open to views it considered controversial.