Chicago Free Press

Mondo Times editors    Boulder Colorado USA

Posted at 8:48am on Monday, December 28th, 2009

Despite Troubles, Chicago Free Press Plans To Stay In Business, The Chicago Reader reported on December 23, 2009:

"The future of the Free Press was in question Tuesday, with word that editor in chief Matt Simonette, art director Vincent Lane, and senior writer Amy Wooten had walked out, and several freelance contributors were leaving with them. But Publisher David Costanzo said he and general managers Jeff McBride and Bill Feld have been contacting those contributors, and everyone they've reached has agreed to stick with the paper.

It obviously helps matters that they're finally getting paid. Checks are either in the mail or they were handed out Tuesday night to anyone who dropped by the paper, said Costanzo. "Like everyone else, we've had cash flow problems," he told me, "and we've worked really really hard to manage expenses as well as revenues. We've done as good a job as anyone in the business. Throughout the entire 18 months [of the recession] we've never laid off a single employee. Other than me and a couple of other senior people still here, we never had to cut anybody's salaries. But over the last few months we had to delay some checks. We're not talking weeks or months — we're talking days."

The full story:
http://www.chicagoreader.com/TheBlog/archives/2009/12/23/the-free-press-still-in-business