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* Bernie…
A couple of decades of Illinois Statehouse reporting experience in the person of KURT ERICKSON of Lee Enterprises newspapers are moving on to the Show-Me State.
In December, Erickson will join the Jefferson City, Missouri, bureau of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
The Post-Dispatch is a Lee newspaper, but Erickson’s main job in Springfield has been to supply stories to Lee newspapers in Bloomington, Decatur, Mattoon, Charleston, Carbondale and the Quad Cities as well as Munster, Indiana.
Erickson became Springfield bureau chief for The Pantagraph of Bloomington in 1996. Lee purchased that newspaper 10 years ago.
Erickson, who has also done a weekly column, “demonstrated a knack for finding exclusive stories apart from the herd,” said a memo to the Post-Dispatch staff about his hiring.
They’ll never be able to fully replace that guy.
* Feder…
The future of the Sun-Times appeared more cloudy than ever Monday with the resignation of Timothy Knight as chief executive officer of parent company Wrapports LLC. […]
Knight never achieved his stated goal of making Wrapports profitable by introducing “cutting-edge technologies, new content portals and other tools that will expand and drive richer and more satisfying content to readers, while providing more targeted and measurable promotion options for our advertising partners.” Mostly, it seemed, the company failed with a series of half-hearted initiatives while cutting staff and selling off assets.
As it jettisoned its portfolio of suburban daily and weekly publications and websites — nearly 40 in all — Wrapports invested in a hyperlocal news-aggregation startup called Aggrego, and created the Sun-Times Network, an array of clumsy and useless digital sites targeting cities across the country. In 2012 the company acquired the Chicago Reader, the alternative weekly, which remains its only other print product along with the daily Sun-Times.
Knight was instrumental in some of the most controversial and unpopular moves at the Sun-Times, including the firing of the newspaper’s entire photography staff and the elimination of all endorsements of political candidates by the editorial board. Under pressure, both moves later were scaled back.
Ugh.
posted by Rich Miller
Tuesday, Oct 6, 15 @ 9:03 am
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Hope this does not tarnish his image, but Kurt has been a very solid part of the press corps for a long time. It will be interesting to see if Lee fills the bureau or grabs copy from a dark money, lobby group. Good luck in Jeff City
Comment by Steve Brown Tuesday, Oct 6, 15 @ 9:23 am
Anyone who has anything to do with the SunTimes website should never work in digital media again. I fear the only way the SunTimes survives is if some rich guy picks it up as a vanity project. Any bored, wealthy liberals out there who want to serve as a check on Rauner and his Trib sycophants? Fred Eychaner, a city turns it’s lonely eyes to you.
Comment by Request Tuesday, Oct 6, 15 @ 9:34 am
The Sun-Times website should die a horrible flaming death.
Comment by The Captain Tuesday, Oct 6, 15 @ 9:55 am
The Sun-Times has been harder to kill than Rasputin.
But it’s been busted out as much as possible. They can’t be making a dime.
Unless Ferro or someone else wants to underwrite a loss as some sort of vanity holding, it’s hard to see them lasting much longer. Where’s the revenue coming from?
Comment by Wordslinger Tuesday, Oct 6, 15 @ 9:55 am
Steve - with all due respect, Mark Fitton’s articles are pretty well-written and evenly-written as well. This write-up of the AFSCME/Rauner impasse is down the middle and succint.
http://ilnews.org/5887/afscme-says-rauner-trying-to-end-step-increases-rauners-office-says-union-bulletin-false-misleading/
Comment by Team Sleep Tuesday, Oct 6, 15 @ 10:05 am
The woes of the Sun-Times are manifest in the S-T website. Management put all of its eggs in that basket, but then slashed its staffing and treated/treats it like an after-thought. It’s the behaviour of an imbecile.
And for the record, nobody is more aware of the S-T website’s shortcomings than the journalists working for that paper. It’s an inexcusable disservice to both the paper’s readers and to its writers.
– MrJM
Comment by MrJM Tuesday, Oct 6, 15 @ 10:15 am
I am going to miss Kurt Erickson. His replacement will have big shoes to fill indeed.
Comment by D. Schwarz Tuesday, Oct 6, 15 @ 10:42 am
Hearing Lee will fill the position. But knowing them, they will do it on the cheap.
Comment by Marty Funkhouser Tuesday, Oct 6, 15 @ 10:44 am
Marty - there’s always a well-qualified PAR student at the ready & willing!
Comment by Team Sleep Tuesday, Oct 6, 15 @ 10:46 am
Nooooo….love Kurt. He and I have crossed swords but mostly dealt with each other warmly and with respect. Really sorry to see him go.
Comment by Chicago Cynic Tuesday, Oct 6, 15 @ 11:23 am
Oh, and ST? That place has been on hospice-watch for so many years people are starting to wonder if it’s really a vampire. Still, it sure feels like we’re nearly at the “last one out turn out the lights” phase of its death. Don’t think any of Ferro’s buddies want to continue subsidizing the Ferro ego trip.
Comment by Chicago Cynic Tuesday, Oct 6, 15 @ 11:24 am
“Under pressure, both moves later were scaled back.”
Ha — yeah, a very specific, single source of pressure, in the case of one of those moves.
Comment by Pressure Tuesday, Oct 6, 15 @ 11:48 am
They nuked a lot of good content for their disaster of a website.
Comment by Precinct Captain Tuesday, Oct 6, 15 @ 12:16 pm
Hard to imagine anyone better at their job than Kurt, and he’s not building a parade float for himself to ride on, either.
Bloomington / Decatur / Moline / Carbondale papers to Post-Dispatch? A step up.
Springfield to Jefferson City? Hmm.
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