Jack Schnedler Hits the Road
Abandoning a long life under the volcano, Jack Schnedler is shifting his operations to someplace safe and friendly. He’s resigned as travel editor of the Sun-Times to become an assistant managing editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, the paper that emerged from Little Rock’s brutal newspaper wars of the 1980s.
He called his friend Griffin Smith Jr., a former travel writer who’s now executive editor of the Democrat-Gazette. Smith was hiring. (After the conservative Democrat absorbed the liberal Gazette three years ago, Little Rock’s new monopoly daily made the curious decision to improve. Spurring it along this unfamiliar trail was a desire to keep pace with the ambitious hometown boy that its editorial page excoriates–Bill Clinton.)
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
“So at the age of 51,” Schnedler reflected, “I’m embarking for the first time in a noncompetitive newspaper market.” He doesn’t expect to be writing travel stories–his new paper’s travel editor is Griffin Smith’s wife. But, he says, “I see this as a chance to stabilize my journalistic life and be in a spot where I’ll be working with congenial people and a congenial management, in a situation where the words writers produce and editors edit are still considered the principal product, instead of an unfortunate number of places where the words are considered a garnish scattered around the design.”
“It was sometimes a little difficult for a crusty 49-year-old travel-writing veteran to be given a sense that management felt his product wasn’t so hot after all. I will take at face value the kind words both on paper and in person that [executive editor] Mark Nadler and [managing editor] Julia Wallace had to say” when he announced he was leaving.
“It was pretty much my call where I went, when I went, what went in the section. In a sense, that was a dream world.”
Richard Ciccone, managing editor of the Tribune, was telling people that Mariotti’s agent ran into him and remarked, “If you guys are interested in Jay, give me a call.”
What about the conversation your agent, Joel Weisman, had with Ciccone? we asked him.
