Thursday, August 28, 2008
News / News Bites An open letter from Roger Ebert to Jay Mariotti
Posted by Michael Miner on Thu, Aug 28, 2008 at 4:35 PM
The following e-mail was forwarded to the Sun-Times editorial staff by editor in chief Michael Cooke:
Dear Jay,
What an ugly way to leave the Sun-Times. It does not speak well for you. Your timing was exquisite. You signed a new contract, waited until days after the newspaper had paid for your trip to Beijing at great cost, and then resigned with a two-word e-mail: "I quit." You saved your explanation for a local television station.
As someone who was working here for 24 years before you arrived, I think you owed us more than that. You owed us decency. The fact that you saved your attack for TV only completes our portrait of you as a rat.
Newspapers are not dead, Jay, and this paper will not die because you have left. Times are hard in the newspaper business, and for the economy as a whole. Did you only sign on for the luxury cruise?
There's an old saying that you might have come across once or twice on the sports beat: "When the going gets tough, the tough get going."
Newspapers are not dead, Jay, because there are still readers who want the whole story, not a sound bite. If you go to work for television, viewers may get a little weary of you shouting at them. You were a great shouter in print, that's for sure, stomping your feet when owners, coaches and players didn't agree with you. It was an entertaining show. Good luck getting one of your 1,000-word rants on the air.
The rest of us are still at work, still putting out the best paper we can. We believe in our profession, and in the future. And we believe in our internet site, which you also whacked as you slithered out the door. I don't know how your column was doing, but we have the most popular sports section in Chicago. The reports and blog entries by our Washington editor Lynn Sweet have become a must-stop for millions of Americans in this election year. After a recent blog entry I wrote about the Beijing Olympics, I woke up at 5 a.m. one morning, when North America was asleep, and found that 40 percent of my 100 most recent visitors had been from China. I don't have any complaints about our web site. So far this month my web page has been visited from almost every country on earth, including one visit from the Vatican City. The Pope, no doubt. Hope you were doing as well.
You have left us, Jay, at a time when the newspaper is once again in the hands of people who love newspapers and love producing them. You managed to stay here through the dark days of the thieves Conrad Black and David Radler. The paper lost millions. Incredibly, we are still paying Black's legal fees.
I started here when Marshall Field and Jim Hoge were running the paper. I stayed through the Rupert Murdoch regime. I was asked, "How can you work for a Murdoch paper?"
My reply was: "It's not his paper. It's my paper. He only owns it."
That's the way I've always felt about the Sun-Times, and I still do.
On your way out, don't let the door bang you on the ass.
Your former colleague,
Roger Ebert
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Ladies and Gentleman, THAT is what a Pulitzer Prize-winning smackdown looks like. -- SCAM so-called "Austin Mayor" http://austinmayor.blogspot.com
Don't miss Neil Steinberg today either. And regarding MM's comment yesterday that all this makes the S-T look "silly," I disagree. I think it's wise to let the staff vent after years of bottled-up resentment. It's cathartic. Jay's departure provides a positive rallying point for a demoralized staff facing more cuts. And I don't blame them for trying to parlay this into a micro-campaign to lure back readers. Why not? Who knows why they kept re-upping his contract when he was so loathed by both colleagues and management, but something must have been going on behind the scenes. The important thing now is that he's gone.
The funny thing is, I don't think anyone realized just how much readers hated Mariotti. Sure, there's something to be said about the fact that he got people talking about the paper--but negative words are the last things the Sun-Times need at this point. I have heard so much praise about him leaving--including multiple promises to pick up the ST now that he's gone. Roger Ebert is amazing. That letter made my day.
Jay's right about one thing, though; the Sun-Times website is awful. Looks and feels like it was launched sometime around 2001. The Trib site's not perfect by any means (waaay too much video clogging everything up) but at least with the Trib you know where to look for stuff.
Jays a bum. One day his radio show called me thinking it was a sport star phone. I goofed him and he claimed he knew he was talking to. What a bum
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