SouthtownStar Office to Close as Sun-Times Targets 'Inefficiencies'

Editing staff would leave Tinley Park for downtown Chicago under a new plan to restructure news operations and consolidate suburban newsrooms.

The SouthtownStar newspaper office in Tinley Park will be closed under a new plan to "eliminate inefficiencies" in Sun-Times Media. The company has become "too small" to continue doing business as it has been, according to Jim Kirk, its editor-in-chief, who wants to move the newspaper's editors to the Chicago Sun-Times newsroom downtown and consolidate all editing and production there. Just last year, the SouthtownStar moved to a small leased office in a business park along 183rd Street after selling its large building at the corner of 159th Street and Harlem Avenue to Menards, which intends to expand into the space.  The company, as it downsized, sold all of its suburban newspaper buildings in Joliet, Aurora, Elgin, Glenview and …

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Southland Stories

SouthtownStar and Sun-Times to Require Payment for Online News

A meter system goes into effect starting Thursday, and users will have to pay $1.99 every four weeks to $77.87 for an entire year of access. What do you think? Take the Patch poll.

The SouthtownStar, Chicago Sun-Times and other Sun-Times Media websites will be requiring users to pay for access starting Thursday. The company announced its new "pay meter" system late Tuesday. This is how the pay meter will work, according to company officials. The Sun-Times is the first downtown daily to charge a fee to view online stories. The northwest suburban Daily Herald implemented a similar system last year. The free community weeklies published by 22nd Century Media in Orland Park, Tinley Park and the Lincoln-Way communities also charge for access to their websites. "We think the time is long overdue for us to begin charging for our content," reads a quote from Sun-Times Media Chairman Jeremy Halbreich in the announcement. "It …

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Southland Stories

Patient Care Has Been Gutted at Oak Forest Hospital. Now What?

Southtown columnist Phil Kadner asks the tough questions and introduces you to the people who rely on Oak Forest Hospital.

Cook County has been shutting down Oak Forest Hospital for months now, peeling away services as it prepares to turn the building at 159th Street and Cicero Avenue into an outpatient facility. All county officials needed was the approval of the Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board. June 1 would be the fateful day. Sick, needy people now being cared for at the hospital and their families were earnest in their opposition. A south suburban pastor even staged a hunger strike in front of the building. Last week, one man from downstate Urbana thwarted the county's plan — 63-year-old Ronald Eaker, founder of the Consumers’ Health Care Task Force in Champaign County, a former United Methodist minister, a former nursing home …

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Editor's Notebook

Week in Review: State Laws Passed, School Principal Announces Retirement and Da Bears' Blitz

A recap of this week's top stories

Lots of news happened on Evergreen Park Patch this week. We started off premiering a new column, A Good Read on the Southland, where Dennis Robaugh links you to the must-read stories in the Southland. This week's posts were "Are Some Students Too Hot for Teacher?," "Crime-N-Shame, the Region's Best Cop Blotter," "Will 2 of the Southland's Most Notorious Killers Escape Death Row?" and "Hot Topics: Patch Readers Have Their Say." Click through these interesting reads and catch up on the hot posts of the week. Did  you know that January was "Get Organized Month?" Lolita Cusic interviewed Evergreen Park professional organizer Colleen Klimczak, who shared with us a few tips on how we can get our house in order. Later on in the week, we learned …

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SouthtownStar Sees Another Management Change

Indiana publisher adds south suburban newspaper to her duties as Sun-Times Media announces management moves and cutbacks in publishing.

The SouthtownStar publisher is leaving in another reshuffling of management announced by Sun-Times Media. Jerry Alger, a South Side native who took on the role of SouthtownStar publisher in the fall of 2009, will be publisher of the Joliet Herald News, the Naperville Sun and the Aurora Beacon News, known collectively as Sun-Times Media West, headquartered in Aurora. Taking his place will be Lisa Tatina, of Dyer, Ind., publisher of the Post-Tribune in Northwest Indiana. She will split her attention between the two papers. For the third time in the last three years, the south suburban paper will be left without its own full-time, in-house publisher. SouthtownStar editor Michelle Holmes, of Chesterton, Ind., praised the change. “I’ve worked …

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