{"id":7188,"date":"2015-03-18T15:30:07","date_gmt":"2015-03-18T20:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.robertfeder.com\/?p=7188"},"modified":"2015-09-22T11:03:30","modified_gmt":"2015-09-22T16:03:30","slug":"sun-times-trims-bill-zwecker-three-others-to-half-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/2015\/03\/18\/sun-times-trims-bill-zwecker-three-others-to-half-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Sun-Times trims Bill Zwecker, three others to half time"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Bill<\/a>

<\/a> Bill Zwecker<\/p><\/div>\n

Starting next week, readers of the Sun-Times<\/a> will be seeing less of fan favorite Bill Zwecker in the paper.<\/p>\n

The veteran celebrity columnist and entertainment reporter is one of four Sun-Times staffers whose work weeks are being cut in half as part of the latest cost-saving moves at the financially troubled daily, according to insiders.<\/p>\n

Zwecker\u2019s column, which has been a prominent feature of the Sun-Times for 23 years, will appear only twice a week \u2014 Tuesdays and Thursdays \u2014 under the new arrangement. He\u2019ll continue to contribute reviews, interviews and other features on a freelance basis.<\/p>\n

The cutback follows last week\u2019s redesign<\/a> of the Sun-Times, incorporating editorial content from USA Today,<\/a> including several daily pages of national entertainment news.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am looking at this as an opportunity to do some other kinds of things that I haven\u2019t had the time or the ability to do because of my responsibilities here,\u201d Zwecker said Wednesday. \u201cFor years I\u2019ve wanted to write a book, and this will give me time to focus on a project like that. And there\u2019s other kinds of writing that I\u2019d like to do, too.\u201d \u00a0Zwecker also will continue as an entertainment contributor to Fox-owned WFLD-Channel 32.<\/a><\/p>\n

Other staffers whose weekly hours were cut to 18.75 were transportation reporter Rosalind Rossi, sports reporter Steve Greenberg and entertainment editor Miriam DiNunzio.<\/p>\n

Sun-Times parent company Wrapports LLC <\/a>negotiated an agreement with the Chicago Newspaper Guild <\/a>to forestall layoffs for six months at the paper in exchange for reducing up to six full-time positions to part-time ones. The moratorium<\/a>\u00a0on layoffs was approved one week after 15 Sun-Times newsroom staffers accepted voluntary buyouts.<\/a><\/p>\n

Zwecker, a Chicago native and second-generation Sun-Times star (his late mother, Peg Zwecker, was the paper\u2019s longtime fashion editor), said his editors were forthright about the change: \u201cThey went out of their way to tell me that this had nothing to do with my performance or my contributions to the paper or anything like that. It was strictly a financial decision,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re faced with some really challenging economic issues, and we all know about them. There\u2019s no secret to that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Starting next week, readers of the Sun-Times will be seeing less of fan favorite Bill Zwecker in the paper. The veteran celebrity columnist and entertainment reporter is one of four Sun-Times staffers whose work weeks are being cut in half as part of the latest cost-saving moves at the financially troubled daily, according to insiders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7188"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7188"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7188\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8918,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7188\/revisions\/8918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}