More Chicago Tribune changes

Didn't see this posted here:

Paul Sullivan off Cubs beat. Probably couldn't stomach Ricketts desecrating Wrigley Field with a jumbotron... ;D Still with paper from what I hear.

Mark Gonzales shifting from Sox beat to cover Chicago Cubs.

Colleen Kane taking over White Sox beat.

Anyone care to shed some light?

 

It appears Sullivan is moving to the baseball writer role Dave Van Dyck left, according to this site: http://www.chicagonow.com/chicago-sports-media-watch/2013/07/paul-sullivan-tribune-982/. It also says Vaughn McLure will cover Illinois football and Bears, while Shannon Ryan is doing NIU football and Illinois basketball.

McLure had been covering just the Bears, Ryan Illinois football and copy editor Chris Hine Illinois basketball (I think). I guess McLure gets the added beat of Illinois football because they wanted Ryan to cover NIU, which didn't seem to have a beat writer previously.

 

It's actually McClure, but that blogger spelled it wrong. I think Sullivan is doing takeouts. Van Dyck did mostly weekend duties, though some bigger takes too. Lot of changes there.

 

Shannon Ryan has covered Illinois basketball for a bit of time, so that's not a new beat for her. She does a terrific job covering Illini. But Northwestern football might be a new assignment.

 

1. That travel schedule's gonna suck.

2. Do they only staff Illini games? Because that's the only way I could see him being able to do both -- and even then it's a stretch.

 

Sully did a funny send-off piece. He could really write a book about his years on the Cubs beat, not to mention his time as Royko's legman.

http://my.chicagotribune.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-76919653/

 

I had heard that McClure is headed to the Bulls beat along with K.C. Johnson - maybe they want to beef that up with Derrick Rose coming back and interest increasing.

 

Find it hard to believe the Tribune will use McClure for anything more than spot duty on the Bulls. Johnson is a heavy lifter in terms of work load and NBA interest in Chicago doesn't rank high enough to devote two people to the beat.

 

I could see them moving someone to what would amount to a one-year Derrick Rose beat, no?

 

When I was covering colleges, I frequently would cover the college game on Saturday and the NFL game on Sunday. Sometimes it wasn't too bad, but there were the occasional, cover a late college game on Saturday night and then fly out at 6 am the next morning to cover a NFL game. Nothing like landing at 11 and then racing to the stadium for a 1 p.m. start. If it was an early game, sometimes I would fly home that night.

 

That shouldn't happen at a major market outlet like the Chicago Tribune.

 

It happens all the time. Nothing like catching a 6 a.m. flight, landing at 11, getting to the stadium by 12 for a 1 p.m. start and then writing the follow from the college game as you watch the NFL game, then write a pair of sidebars and fly home... Columnists do it all the time, but obviously they don't have to worry about getting injury updates from Saturday's game as you're helping cover a game on Sunday.

I did it on a semi-regular basis for the first seven years of my career. The worst was covering a game at Washington on Saturday, taking a red eye to Chicago, landing at 5 or so and then catching a flight to Buffalo. It usually wasn't anything quite that crazy.