Think Tank Daily: The Sun-Times throws in the towel

Might as well write your obituary for the Chicago Sun-Times as the people running the paper have all but given up.

As of Wednesday, the beleaguered newspaper decided to outsource national and international news to USA Today, retaining only its local columnists to do local stories.

This is a huge mistake. Even though yours truly doesn’t think much of the Chicago Tribune, you can always appreciate their reporting on national and international issues and the the effect they have on Chicagoans. The cash-strapped paper should have found some kind of way to keep the link.

The move comes after the Sun-Times offered a buyout to its employees and if not enough people took the option, then layoffs would ensue. Fifteen employees took the buyout (including TV critic Lori Rackl) and said would delay layoffs for six months if workers voted for the paper to convert six full-time positions to part-time, according to Robert Feder. In recent years, the paper closed its video department and laid off most of its photographers. Then there was the debacle involving former political reporter Dave McKinney, who resigned from the paper last year.

On the other hand, “the bright one” hired the not-so-smart Jenny McCarthy to run their Splash magazine, which didn’t make much of one.

Not helping matters were some poor decision-making, hurting the paper’s credibility: in the last few years, gossip stories involving former Chicago Bear Greg Olson and Kanye West and Kim Kardashian were splashed right on the front page.

With this latest cutback, there’s no reason to believe the Sun-Times has any long-term prospects, thanks to the slipshod way the owners and management had been running the place. Chicago better get ready to become the largest city in America as a one-paper town because the Sun is setting on the Sun-Times.