Jay Mariotti Resigns From His Position At The Chicago Sun-Times
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
For years, I never understood how Mariotti kept a job in Chicago. He bashed the teams, the fans and mailed in articles for the better part of the last two years. He was really the epitome of everything negative in mainstream media, but worry not Chicago, you don't have to deal with Jay the Joke any longer.
Mariotti, whose public battles with fellow staffers, team owners, and rival columnists are legendary, didn't disclose any specific plans except to say he will continue doing his regular stint on ESPN's "Around the Horn.''It's probably a relief for most Chicagoans to see him go, but dammit if the guy isn't dead on in his reason for leaving. All this ultimately means is that he'll be on ATH more and coming to a podcast/webisode near you in the not so distant future. Chicago wins but America loses.
He said that he "is talking with a lot of Web sites'' and added that the future of his business "sadly is not in newspapers.'' Mariotti said that he sent a resignation letter to Cyrus Freidheim, Sun-Times Media Group Chief Executive and Sun-Times Publisher. When asked via email by the Tribune whether Mariotti had resigned, Sun-Times Editor Michael Cooke responded, "You're kidding?''
"They accepted it,'' Mariotti said of his resignation. "It was my call entirely.''
"I'm a competitor and I get the sense this marketplace doesn't compete,'' he said. "Everyone is hanging on for dear life at both papers. I think probably the days of high stakes competition in Chicago are over.
"To see what's happened in this business...I don't want to go down with it.''
Now if we could only get him to jump off that ledge in the photo above (I kid, I kid).
Sun-Times columinst Jay Mariotti resigns (Chicago Tribune)
9 Comments:
Ding Dong the witch is dead.
@billy b
Ha. I just wrote the same thing on another website.
what I really feel like doing is sending a congratulatory email to Rick Telander.
In honor of this occasion, here's one of the great Chicago newspaper blog links of all time and a true destruction of what Mariotti was:
http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2005/10/jay_mariottis_y.html
So long, f@ggot!
//Ozzie Guillen
why is he so grumpy in that photo?
great bit from Deadspin:
"Then this bit of greatness: Mariotti resigned, and then headed to the Sun-Times office to tape his Around the Horn segment, only to find that his security pass had been deactivated while the paper was deciding whether or not to accept the resignation. They finally accepted it. Can't wait to tune in to see if Jay appears on ATH today from a local Starbucks."
Jay does have a point. Newspapers are dying, while the new emerging arena is blogs, webcasts, et al. The real reason newpapers are dying is because the customers don't like the content. For years, those who wrote articles in the papers assumed they were always rigt about everything and the customer be damned. They can cite declines in ad revenue and higher newsprint costs, but that is all bull. When customers determine they don't want to buy a paper anymore, then potential advertisers see that and take their buisness elsewhere. The time honored tradition in business, "the customer is always right", has no meaning in most newsrooms around the country.
I didn't know fleshbot was hiring.
So...any chance as an online columnist he'll actually interview sources? I'll go out on a limb and say he'll take mailing-it-in to levels not even Bill Simmons could fathom.