Sun-Times Drops Book Section As Of Today

By Amy Cavanaugh in Arts & Entertainment on Jul 14, 2013 4:00PM

The hits just keep coming at the Chicago Sun-Times—the beleaguered newspaper has folded its book section, as of today.

Publisher's Weekly reports that "all entertainment coverage, in what is currently the Sunday Show section, will be folded into the newspaper’s Splash section. The Splash section currently focuses on lifestyle, health, and celebrities."

“It’s not surprising to me,” Teresa Budasi, the Sun-Times Sunday Show/Books Editor told PW. “It’s diminished quite a bit since I took over as books editor. I’m surprised this didn’t happen sooner, given the lesser the amount of ads we’ve gotten in recent years.” Budasi has served as books editor in addition to her other responsibilities at the Sun-Times since 2007, when the newspaper contained “five or six pages” of book coverage. In recent years, book coverage has “fluctuated depending on ad revenue,” she said, describing it as “very minimal” in the past year.

Chicago Magazine interviewed Henry Kisor, who was book editor of the Sun-Times until 2006, when he took a buyout and retired.

CF: Have you been a reader of the section in recent years? Your opinion of its virtues/defects?

HK: Yes. It just grew too small, its reviews and articles too short, but that wasn’t the editors’ fault. For the last 15 or 20 years in the industry, book editors in general have had to do more and more with less and less, and in the main their bosses have forced them to stress the shallow and popular over the literary and thoughtful. Long-form reviews and articles are almost dead.

The newspaper will run "sporadic" book coverage, but it'll focus on local authors and not book reviews.