Sun-Times Photo Staff Gone, But Not Forgotten

May 31, 2013 @ admin → No Comments

It was an eventful Thursday (May 30). Went to Chicago Sky practice, saw Jim Rose of WLS-TV (Channel 7 in Chicago) and multimedia threat Mike Leiderman, interviewed a few players and Sky coach Pokey Chatman about the team’s home opener Friday at 7:30 p.m. at the Allstate Arena in Rosemont against the Connecticut Sun. Ran some errands, spent some quality time at a coffee shop, etc.

This 2007 photo by Tom Cruze of Anna Kournikova and Elliott Harris is a favorite around here. And undoubtedly a favorite with Anna, too. Cruze was among the photographers laid off Thursday by the Chicago Sun-Times.

During the time at the coffee shop, I watched it storm with rain puddling up a parking lot as the sun was shining. As little sense as rain and sunshine together made, there was something else Thursday that made even less sense: The Chicago Sun-Times laid off — which is merely another way of firing — its entire photo staff and the photo staffs at the company’s other newspaper holdings.

Now this might be a little off the usual subject matter, but because this is my site, I pretty much can do what I want.

As some of you may recall, I was laid off by the Sun-Times in 2011. So anyone who wants to say I am a bit biased against the folks running that once-proud, once-glorious newspaper into the ground may go ahead and do so.

I was asked by the New York Observer to comment on the company’s action against a group of tremendously talented photographers. You can access that article by clicking here.

Sun-Timed Media wants its reporters to take photos on their iPhones. Anybody with a camera or cell phone qualifies as a photographer? The level of management genius obviously is way more than I — and many others — can comprehend.

The company also plans to use free-lance photographers. The Sun-Times cites wanting more video as a reason for ridding itself of its photographers. A staff that included Pulitzer Prize winner John H. White and close to 30 others company-wide. Who better to handle visual elements than a photographer?

Times are changing and photography and photographers are obsolete?

No. It’s not that at all. What the company wants is to further gut an already weakened union at the paper.

To say the folks who came up with this plan and executed it are loathsome and despicable is being far too kind.

Amazingly, at last look, the Facebook pages of Sun-Times editor Jim Kirk, managing editor Craig Newman and assistant managing editor Chris De Luca — among others — did not have one mention of the paper’s axing its photo staff. There were some Sun-Times employees who did mention the firings on their Facebook pages. They are to be commended for passing along their appreciation for the photographers’ efforts.

It will be strange not to see Tom Cruze or Scott Stewart, among others, at a sporting event. It will be strange and — most of all — sad.

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OK, returning to something more pleasant, here are the interviews with Sky coach Pokey Chatman and players Elena Delle Donne, Epiphanny Prince and Sylvia Fowles:

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The “Sports & Torts” crew is hopeful to have Raquel Pomplun on the show during the 2013 Playmate of the Year’s reign.

Another edition of “Sports & Torts” with co-hosts David Spada and Elliott Harris is in the vault at Talkzone.com. Or wherever the fine folks there put their podcasts. The guest on the May 30 show was Pro Football Hall of Famer and former Baltimore Colts defensive end Gino Marchetti, who starred in the 1950s and ’60s.

He was so good that the entire program had only one guest. Which means the quest to land 2013 Playboy Playmate of the Year Raquel Pomplun for an interview on the show continues. Any time during her reign works for us.

For those who missed the Marchetti interview (and/or for those who would an encore performance), you can access it by clicking here.

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Here we go with your daily dose of non-gratuitous video — and in honor of the fired Sun-Times photographers, we will try to provide a photo theme: