The Sun-Times sees 20 percent of staff exit through buyouts
Changes ahead as the sports department is the hardest hit
[Editor’s Note: This post was updated on March 19.]
A fifth of Sun-Times employees – roughly twenty percent of the workforce, or thirty employees, have elected to take buyouts from the paper. which the paper offered to employees in January.
Those exiting are longtime writers and editors, including Richard Roeper, who is leaving the paper after 37 years, but will continue with appearances on ABC 7’s Windy City Weekend. The sports department was hit especially hard – longtime columnists Rick Morrissey and Rick Telander took buyouts, as did Chicago Bears beat reporter Mark Potash, White Sox reporter Darryl Van Schouwen, and Chicago Sky beat reporter Annie Costabile, who resigned.
Other exits include much of the editorial board, and longtime columnist Michael Sneed, who is retiring after 58 years as a journalist. With five WBEZ employees exiting, the total number of buyouts at Chicago Public Media is 35, both union and nonunion personnel. With the buyouts, no layoffs are planned – at least for now. The buyouts have saved Chicago Public Media $4.2 million.
This comes as Sun-Times parent Chicago Public Media has made numerous cuts across its paper and NPR affiliate WBEZ since the two came together in a non-profit merger in 2022. According to new CEO Melissa Bell, the buyouts were necessary to avoid a financial cliff the company was teetering on for 2026 when its grant funding expires. Moreover, WBEZ is one of twelve NPR stations now under investigation from the FCC for potentially violating underwriting rules, such as airing announcements for products under the guise of commercials, which is not allowed since it has a non-commercial license. WBEZ receives $1.47 million per year of federal funding from the Corporation of Public Broadcasting – 4.6 percent of its annual operating budget.
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr is spearheading the effort, stating public broadcasters such as WBEZ and PBS member station WTTW should not receive federal funding, even though it makes up a small portion of each station’s budget. Any reduction or elimination would negatively impact Chicago Public Media and Window To The World Communications. The rest comes from public donations and philanthropists, but according to Bell, it’s not enough to cover losses in an interview with the Sun-Times on Tuesday.
Chicago Public Media is the latest media entity to reduce its workforce amid changes in traditional media. Layoffs have hit broadcast TV groups Nexstar, ABC, Scripps, and Tegna and radio broadcaster Audacy in the last few months as the landscape is changing and the economy is softening. President Trump’s tariffs against Canada are expected to have even more repercussions for traditional print newspapers and the media industry as the appeal of American entertainment content is waning globally, especially north of the border, costing companies potential revenue.
Since the merger between the Sun-Times and WBEZ, there have been numerous cutbacks under the rocky reign of former CEO Matt Moog, including the layoff of WBEZ employees and the closure of Vocalo. The tension between management and CPM’s unions has been evident since the merger; on Monday, forty union members including those belonging to SAG-AFTRA (representing WBEZ) and the Sun-Times Guild protested the buyouts at a company board meeting at Navy Pier, stated the buyouts are coming at the expense of the hard-working employees at the paper, and not management – an issue when Moog was CEO of Chicago Public Media, who earned a hefty salary.
It remains to be seen how the buyouts would affect the paper’s coverage of Chicago, but with the buyouts, journalism is in a weaker state in the nation’s third-largest media market.