Chicago Sun-Times sold: Union busters bought it, circulation continues to drop

Put whatever fake spin on it you want but the news that the Chicago Sun-Times has been bought, YET AGAIN, is not good news.

The new owners are former administrators at the union busting Chicago Tribune and you wait. When they take over, it will be a massacre. That's the word in the desolate newsroom at the Sun-Times "offices."

Where will they move them next? And circulation at the Chicago Sun-Times continues to fall. The newspaper continues to falsely claim that their circulation is double what it really is using a slate of hand manipulation of data that includes the circulations of all the little community newspapers that the former publishers cannibalized.

Here's the truth, again, spun in typical newsroom mumbo jumbo (Reporters love to exaggerate the problems of others and pretend their own do not exist):

Circulation has been dropping this year at the Sun-Times and its seven suburban daily papers, according to the latest six-month report by the Audit Bureau of Circulations. Through September, average weekday circulation fell more than 30,000, to 389,353, a 7.2 percent decline, while average Sunday circulation was down nearly 21,000, to 400,506, a 5 percent decline.Excluding its branded suburban papers, the Sun-Times' average daily circulation was 236,371, a 5.9 percent decline from its March totals. The combined Sun-Times group ranks 12th overall in average weekday circulation among U.S. newspapers. The Chicago Tribune, which has seen circulation declines slow this year, ranks ninth. 

 And to get the truth about the Chicago Sun-Times, you of course have to go to the Chicago Tribune to get what little truth the media industry is willing to provide, which is not much.

You can CLICK HERE to read the Tribune story. And what about the MOBSTERS and the robber barons and exploiters who have weaseled their way into the Chicago Sun-Times management? Of course, the Tribune won't say much. But you can bet they are still there.

Watch for MORE layoffs once the new management takes hold. The word is they will begin at their primary community newspaper holdings like the Southtown/Star and do their best to preserve the few union jobs at the Sun-Times to avoid an immediate union fight -- although the union is a weak ghost of what it used to be.

-- BT

We reported it first: Sun-Times planning more layoffs, to break the union

As we reported in November, the Chicago Sun-Times announced it is planning more lay-offs to dismiss union employees in an effort to break the back of the union.

Crains Chicago Business has the story, again.

Click here to read out November 28th story.

Click here to read the full Crain's Story.

(Crain's) — Sun-Times Media Holdings LLC, which owns the Chicago Sun-Times and other suburban newspapers, is cutting workers in another round of reductions aimed at slashing costs as the company finishes its move to a centralized editorial and billing system.

Sun-Times CEO Jeremy Halbreich confirmed that some editorial workers and possibly other employees are losing their jobs, but he declined to say how many. This is the "final piece" of the 18 months of reductions, he said. He declined to say whether all employees had been notified at this point.

...

"It has been very stressful," said Jean Lachat, who lost her job as a full-time photographer after 22 years at the company. "Part of me is really relieved to not have to worry about it anymore."

Ms. Lachat said she's not sure if she feels more sorry for those who lost their jobs or those who remain at the company and have to pick up the slack.

The Chicago-based company has cut hundreds of employees in the past two years at its flagship Chicago paper and at its suburban daily and weekly newspapers in centralizing the editorial and customer billing systems, shuttering some suburban weekly papers and outsourcing its printing and delivery to rival Tribune Co.

The company is still in the process of shifting the printing of the Sun-Times to rival Tribune, and those workers involved will be dismissed through January.

- BT

Chicago Sun-Times Bankruptcy Filing document

Take a look at who is owed money and has a claim against the Chicago Sun-Times, which put its owners first above the everyday hardworking employees:

You can click here to view the filing.

-- BT

Chicago Sun-Times continues its slide, begs for investors

The latest in a train of suitors to take the Chicago Sun-Times out on a date is Michael W. Ferro Jr. Ferro, who is a pal with every major corporate bigwig in Chicagoland, owns Merrick Ventures LLC. In terms of money, that's great news for the failing Chicago Sun-Times which has seen a steady decline in their newspaper circulation, under 400,000 in the past month and continuing to fall. Of course, that figure represents about 189,000 newspapers for the Chicago Sun-Times and 200,000 newspapers for the nine suburban papers it absorbed and pillaged for advertising over the years.

You can say with certainty, the Sun-Times drive to cannibalize its stable of community newspapers has kept it afloat at the cost of good journalism.

Now, journalism is to be replaced by corporate greed. Ferro leads a team of well known corporate robber barons who have squeezed industries and jobs over the years. If you read the "Philosophy" page for Merrick Ventures, LLC. (Click here to read it.) No where is there any mention of the public good or the public trust or the public interest. There is nothing in their "philosophy" to even suggest that the Chicago SunTimes, which was once a great newspaper, will be strengthened in the journalism philosophy or that the mission will be to restore the newspaper's long lost credibility.

Benjamin Franklin discerned the keys to making America great and posted many words of wisdom in his Poor Richards Almanac. Franklin's sentiment that, "So much for Industry, my Friends, and Attention to one's own Business; but to these we must add Frugality, if we would make our Industry more certainly successful," applies equally to entrepreneurs and business leaders today as it did to the people of 1757.

To quote Ben Franklin sounds so patriotic, but the truth is that Franklin focused on cutting costs and no media has done more to cut costs by firing employees and destroying families than the Chicago Sun-Times, Laying off 400 workers and then to out-source its printing to the union busting Chicago Tribune is only one example of how little the newspaper cares about its employees.

Merrick will simply make that drive to trim human beings and reduce the news hole and, worse, skewer objectivity to reflect the special corporate interests that are tied to the Merrick Ventures, LLC president, Michael W. Ferro Jr.

No newspaper has work harder to destroy itself than the Chicago Sun-Times. At that, they have been successful. It is but a thin pulp of itself.

- BT

Chicago Sun-Times planning more lay-offs

As profits tumble and news content disappears, the Chicago Sun-Times bosses are planning to cut more editorial positions from the newspaper.

As many as six positions are being eyed for dismissal including two buyouts.

The Chicago Sun-Times has been misleading advertisers telling them they are on the "rebound" (not true) and that circulation is over 450,000. That is an outright lie. Imagine, a newspaper that has to lie to stay in business. And they point fingers at others? Pathetic!

The newspaper's circulation is about 215,000 daily, not including the suburban community newspapers the parent company owns. But the newspaper owners are pushing to increase repayment of their investments hoping that by the time the newspaper closes its doors, they will have recouped not only their investments but also an equal amount in profits.

And the editors do not care.

-- BT

Chicago Sun-Times violating union agreements

Ever since the Chicago Sun-Times started pillaging the regional community newspapers, it has been violating its claim to be a union newspaper. The majority of community newspapers it grabs are non-union. And the Chicago Sun-Times has been using that fact to save money, They have been gutting the community newspapers and fleecing them for their advertising revenues to support their own deteriorating business.

The Chicago Sun-Times takes articles from the non-union newspapers that are written by non-union employees and they publish them in the Chicago Sun-Times, filling valuable editorial content space which has become smaller and smaller in the paper. In other words, space is a premium for new copy and there isn't as much today as there was in the past.

But the worst thing is that the articles they take from non-union writers are replacing articles that could have been written by union writers at the Chicago Sun-Times.

So, by doing this, they have been able to shove union workers aside. And worse, they have used this system to support their policies of firing union writers who are paid at a higher rate than the non-union workers who writing they are exploiting.

You won't see this story in the Chicago Sun-Times because they do not write about or expose their own unethical misconduct and their hypocrisies and double standards. And since they have that big fat-cat contract to the Chicago Tribune to publish the Chicago Sun-Times, at the expense of 400 loyal union printers, the Chicago Tribune won't write about it either. The Tribune has been bought off.

Instead of writing about this, the Chicago Sun-Times has been publishing really stupid and pointless stories about other topics including: the PR for Bank of America. Instead of reporting and criticizing the bank for imposing outrageous ATM card fees, is getting Chicago Sun-Times PR support to boost their image. And there is the ongoing ridiculous charges against the Town of Cicero that, wow, politicians hire their relatives -- like not every municipality government leader is hiring their own relatives too? Amazing waste of news space.

Of course, when it comes to nepotism, the Chicago Sun-Times is right up there hiring their relatives and putting relatives of their business owners in key positions. Nepotism is only bad when someone else does it, not the Chicago Sun-Times.

BT

Union-busting Chicago Sun-Times, more lay-offs and Marin still a hypocrite

Chicago Sun-Times management is mulling a plan to fire editorial workers including two reporters who they believe have been "disloyal" to their newspaper. One is an investigative reporter. Another is a beat reporter. 

The newspaper also reportedly met with the publishers of three of its top non-union community newspaper properties and, to undermine the union, agreed to use more non-union editorial copy from the non-union newspapers.

It's a cute anti-union gimmick. Buy up anti-union newspapers and then use the anti-union workers (exploit them) to fill up copy in the "union" newspaper the Chicago Sun-Times.

The end result is that the Chicago Sun-Times is doing more to bust the union than the Chicago Tribune ever did; not to mention that the Sun-Times fired 400 union workers (including mwaaaah) so that they could save money by publishing at an anti-union printer -- the Chicago Tribune.

Normally, Carol Marin would write about these shenanigans but she has been compromised -- at her own choosing, of course. She is allowed to triple-dip and hold several jobs (at the expense of the union workers who were fired). So Carol Marin is doing very well financially, which makes it easy for her to slam others.

Unethical. Hypocritical. And a true journalism double-standard that the Chicago Sun-Times hopes no one will see.

BT