Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Media / News Bites Free Press Walkout
Posted by Michael Miner on Tue, Dec 22, 2009 at 8:57 PM
Will we ever see another edition of the Chicago Free Press? Several members of the staff, including editor in chief Matt Simonette, art director Vincent Lane, and senior writer Amy Wooten, have walked out, protesting a missed pay day and the generally unhappy working conditions they hold publisher David Costanzo responsible for. Costanzo's pit bull kept at the office figures in the bill of particulars.
A Former Chicago Free Press Employees group has been formed on Facebook, and at this moment it's up to 25 members, including Simonette, and also Louis Weisberg and Lisa Neff, who were founding editors ten years ago when the staff of Windy City Times walked out on publisher Jeff McCourt and started a new paper. Not everybody on Facebook worked there until the walkout (for example, Weisberg's with a paper in Milwaukee), and not everybody who worked there has left.
Someone who hasn't is theater editor Larry Bommer, who says he'll just keep writing, and if he's not paid for a while, so be it. "I haven't been paid since November," says Bommer, "but I never wrote for the gay press for the money." Bommer says he'll write just to keep the paper alive until -- he hopes -- a buyer comes along." Bommer isn't sure who walked out because he hasn't been in the office in weeks — he's no fan of the pit bull.
He tells me that general managers Jeff McBride and Bill Feld, who have been with the Free Press since the split with McCourt, are still there too, trying to scrape together the next issue while looking for someone to buy the paper from Costanzo. "They're trying to save the paper from him as much as for him," says Bommer.
But another Free Press contributor said in email about the exodus, "I can't imagine who's going to produce the paper without them, and I do know that we are all owed one, two or three paychecks."
Comments (2)
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I worked briefly at the Free Press and, I must say, it's not that surprising that this has happened. With the conditions I witnessed in that office I was amazed that they've managed to put out a paper for as long as they have under Costanzo's ownership. During the two months I worked there he "forgot" payday once, and the phones were shut off due to nonpayment. It's not that the money isn't there; he just didn't pay the bill. It's a loss to the gay community, and sad that it didn't have to be this way. Appalling irresponsibility on the part of the publisher has finally driven this paper out of business.
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