Sun-Times takes a hit, but keep on ticking

     

                                                       Photo by Jessica Koscielniak

     As a rule, you're not supposed to draw attention to what isn't in the newspaper. The idea is, you've got everything right here, in your hands. All the news you need to know today, plus a horoscope, comics and tomorrow's weather. Anything that isn't here doesn't matter.
      But the key rule about newspapers is: There is no rule that can't be scrapped as circumstances dictate. Sometimes the stylebook gets set aside. Sometimes the loss is too big to ignore. When iconic movie reviewer Roger Ebert died in 2013, we didn't go back to running reviews that were bare synopses under jokey pseudonyms like Mae Tinee.
     We honored the man, recognized the loss, then moved forward, as best we could. The 35 staffers — including 23 in the Sun-Times newsroom — who took the Chicago Public Media buyout and are mostly leaving Friday are too important for the paper to cough into its fist and hope you don't notice. First, because they made a sacrifice, saving $4.2 million a year in costs to help the newspaper survive. That's news, and our job is to report the news. Second, you will notice. Their loss will be felt.
     I'm feeling it now. For me, it's personal, starting with John O'Neill, who has been the primary editor on this column. He's saved me from a thousand gaffes and probably a few career-ending misfires. He's my friend, as is his wife, Suzanne McBride, who often edits this on Sundays. I've been to their house, and they to mine. They were at my younger son's wedding, and I know their children, Jack and Grace.
     Richard Roeper is the biggest name to go. He is a star in his own right, holding his own with Ebert after he replaced Gene Siskel on his TV show in 2000. The author of seven books, Richard is a fearsome poker player and — what mattered to me most — a really good writer. We were good friends in our salad days — he was at my wedding — before I disappeared into marriage and parenthood, two snares that Richard neatly sidestepped.
     I will miss another friend in Rick Telander, who was the king at Sports Illustrated when the paper snagged him. He played football for Northwestern, and when he was drafted by Kansas City, Rick and a buddy drove straight north until they hit Lake Superior, where he bought 30 acres of land. Eight autumns have been highlighted with visits to his compound, to breathe the crisp air, smoke cigars, eat big steaks and plunge from the sauna into the gelid cold lake. He let me hang around even though I sometimes admit that I don't follow sports. While he played one-on-one with Michael Jordan, I once almost asked Jordan his name, because to me he was just another player in the Bulls locker room. Yet somehow Rick and I got along.
     Rick Morrissey is another vital sports columnist who is going, plus Bears beat writer Mark Potash and White Sox writer Daryl Van Schouwen. When I heard Annie Costabile is leaving too, I went looking for a text she sent me years ago. I had written something rounding up Chicago sports, and at the last minute cut out the Sky, for space — "how could I?" she demanded. She cared deeply about what she did — a defining characteristic of people who work at the Sun-Times, and was sincerely indignant, as befits someone who changed the way Chicagoans view the WNBA and women's sports.
     We lost most of our editorial board, and the future of editorials at the paper is uncertain. Lorraine Forte headed the board, running a staff not half as large as what was required to do the same job at the Tribune. Tom Frisbie left —soft-spoken, he edited my work when I joined the Sun-Times school guide as a freelancer in 1984, his quiet calm a counterpoint to my frantic, gerbil-on-a-wheel ambition. Back when we did endorsements, every trustee from every small town from Addison to Zion traipsed through the editorial board room, a process that was saved from devolving into pure confusion by the organizational skill and good cheer of Marlen Garcia.
     Our features department was mostly Miriam Di Nunzio and Darel Jevens, who edited Roeper and whose clever headlines for Dear Abby have been seen by millions of readers. With them leaving (although we are grateful Di Nunzio has agreed to stick around for a few months), I don't know who's going to try to step into their shoes, but I'm sure glad it won't be me. They did yeoman's work.
     Every election night about 5 p.m. the staff would gather in the newsroom to hammer out a game plan. We were looking at a long seven hours hours of pinballing around the city until drinks at the Billy Goat, and we all took our marching orders from Scott Fornek, decked out in the election night sweater vest he wore for luck. He had joined the Sun-Times when the Chicago Daily News folded in 1978, and carried that special cachet that Daily News alumni enjoyed, having worked at the same paper as Carl Sandburg and Ben Hecht.

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