Posted by chicagomedia.org on November 02, 2008 at 18:50:19:
In Reply to: Robert Feder: 28 years 'til tomorrow posted by chicagomedia.org on October 16, 2008 at 11:35:37:
A CLASS ACT CALLS IT QUITS: We didn't mourn when sports writer Jay Mariotti abruptly left the Chicago Sun-Times, but we'll sorely miss TV and radio critic Robert Feder, who spent the past 28 years doing a stellar job covering the ins and outs of radio and TV in Chicago.
Feder announced he was stepping down with a full year's pay and benefits and would explore other options. "Covering the minutiae of the broadcast business isn't as much fun as it used to be," he wrote in his column.
He was one of the most honest, straight-shooting reporters in America. Unlike others who cover media (myself included), he refused to go on TV or radio because it would be a conflict of interest. (Full disclosure: Feder has been a mentor of mine since 1992.)
We'll miss how he stood up for fairness and integrity - like this brief, well-placed jab in a recent piece about cutbacks at Metro Networks/Shadow Broadcast Services by parent Westwood One, which will result in the loss of 300 jobs, including at least five on-air Chicago staffers.
"What makes these job losses especially galling is that so many local stations rationalized the elimination of their own news operations in the first place by outsourcing those functions to bare bones Metro/Shadow," he wrote.
"Shame on all of them."
(Cara Jepsen, Illinois Entertainer)