Sun-Times Media Group Files For Bankruptcy

That's both Chicago Newspapers are now in Bankruptcy and these papers aren't as liberal as the true lib ragsheets like the Slimes in LA and New York.

Sadly but smartly in some ways I left the Tribune back in 2002 due to illness in my case and never returned seeing the internet as a way out of the daily grind downtown from the suburbs and fortunately my skills translated to the internet well from years in their pressroom and prepress departments, but the writers and news staff basically have nowhere else to go when these places shut down.

cbs2chicago.com:CHICAGO (CBS) ―The Sun-Times Media Group, owner of the Chicago Sun-Times and numerous suburban newspapers, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Friday morning, just a few months after rival newspaper titan Tribune Company did the same thing.

As CBS 2's Joanie Lum reports, the filing didn't come as a surprise for many employees at the paper. The only surprise was that the Sun-Times filed for bankruptcy after the T"On Tuesday morning, the staff of the Sun-Times met in a meeting with the bosses in the Holiday Inn located above their headquarters at 354 N. Orleans St., to learn how bankruptcy protection will affect the newspaper and its readers.

In a letter to readers, Chief Executive Officer Jeremy Halbreich emphasized that the paper is not going out of business. The news, features and sports will continue to be delivered, he wrote.

But the bankruptcy is bad news for employees. In a separate letter to Sun-Times employees that was published on the Tribune's Web site, Halbreich wrote that employees would no longer receive severance or COBRA benefits when to staff whose jobs are terminated.

"Former employees who wish to receive COBRA medical benefits must pay the full insurance premium costs and administrative costs required by COBRA," the letter said.

The Sun-Times is also requiring all non-union employees, including top managers, to take one week of unpaid leave in April or May, the letter said. The company "will seek similar sacrifices" from unionized staff, the letter said.

Those points were all reiterated in the staff meeting

The Sun-Times retained Rothschild Inc. to help with a possible sale of assets.

Halbreich said in a statement that filing for Chapter 11 protection offers the best opportunity to protect the company's media properties for the long-term.

He said in the Sun-Times that filing was a difficult decision but essential for the company "to re-establish itself as a self-sustaining, profitable operation. That is worth fighting for."

His overriding goals are to sustain the company's print and online news operations while "preserving as many jobs as possible," he said.

Bill Zwecker writes his daily column for the Sun-Times, sometimes from his desk at CBS 2, where he is also an entertainment reporter. He says the words "bankruptcy protection" sting.

"It's not a surprise," Zwecker said. "The Sun-Times has been hemorrhaging money like so many news organizations have been in this economic climate for a long time, plus we have so many added problems with Conrad Black and theft."

Controlling owner Conrad Black pillaged the company, which his now burdened with a $608 million debt in taxes and penalties.

Black us now serving a 6 1/2-year sentence in federal prison, after being convicted in July 2007 of siphoning off millions of dollars belonging to the Sun-Times parent company, then known as Hollinger International, when he was chief executive officer of the company. Hollinger also owned the Daily Telegraph of London, the Jerusalem Post and hundreds of community papers across this country and Canada.

But even though Black went to prison, newspaper employees are paying the price.

"These things usually lead to renegotiations of salaries and benefits," Zwecker said. "It's very, very sad, and very hard to have to deal with this. But hopefully, we'll get through it, and we've got a lot of great people that work for the paper, and hopefully, we'll survive."

At the last major staff meeting about a month ago, then-Editor-in-Chief Michael Cooke predicted the bankruptcy, then left for a job out of town.

Asked if there will be anything left for shareholders after bankruptcy, Halbreich said, "You never want to say never and you never know because we haven't solicited offers yet, but realistically, probably not."

The company reported that it has one significant creditor -- the Internal Revenue Service. The IRS has said Sun-Times Media Group owes up to $608 million in back taxes and penalties from past business practices by its former controlling owner, Conrad Black, now imprisoned for theft from corporate coffers.

Sun-Times Media Group shares are traded on the Pink Sheets and closed Monday worth just a nickel each. That means that based on the stock, the entire company is worth about $4 million.

Halbreich predicted that the bankruptcy will be resolved by the end of the year, speedy by the standards of such cases.

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