Kissing Off the Sun-Times
Last Friday was TV critic Ginny Holbert’s final day. She left with nothing in sight but the opportunity to spend more time with her kids. A week earlier former day city editor Dick Mitchell, who’d been laying out the Sunday news pages, AutoTimes, and Medlife, took a buyout and called it quits. He’d wanted to add his black, male voice to the editorial board; management wasn’t interested. The staff cheered in support as Mitchell walked out of the newsroom for the last time, bound for his valediction at the Billy Goat. Mitchell had no new job to go to.
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Vander Weele holds a job that didn’t exist before–director of school and community relations. She’s responsible for media relations, local-school-council training, community outreach, internal communications, and a new ombudsman’s office. She proudly told me of two swift decrees. One was insisting that all Freedom of Information requests be promptly answered. “It’s a state law,” she says. “There’s no way around it.” The other was dropping doughnuts from the morning meetings.
And Byrne set Helms straight, did he?
“Make due allowance for irony,” advised Eyre. He cleared his throat.
