A 28-year refrain: 'Didya see Feder today?'
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September 24, 2008
CAROL MARIN cmarin@suntimes.com
Robert Feder is leaving us. I hope he appreciates how this will screw up my morning newspaper routine.
Didya See Feder Today?
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- 2008 CAROL MARIN cmarin@suntimes.com Robert Feder is leaving us. I hope he appreciates how this will screw up my morning newspaper routine. When the Sun-Times,
- a constant destination of the Feder family for years now. In the coming months,
- a must-read for news executives and reporters across the country. Unlike Deeb,
- a place so precise and immaculate that if you needed emergency hernia surgery,
- a regular refrain -- or lament -- could be heard in the morning meeting: "Didya see Feder today?" When I first came to work in Chicago,
- a return to the news business.,
- Click here to find out more! Subscribe • EasyPay • e-paper Reader Rewards • Customer Service Chicago Sun-Times suntimes.com Member of the Sun-Times News Group 63°F Mostly Clear Traffic • Weather: FLAWED Search » Site STNG Become a Member! What's,
- conflicts of interest and a lack of transparency. Though I have been the beneficiary of a lot of Feder ink,
- Feder hid in a closet during a meeting of the teachers union. None of the participants ever knew how Feder was able to report so much of what had gone on at the closed-door meeting. When Deeb went off to do his commentaries on TV,
- Feder knew more about what was happening in the places I worked than I ever did. Who was going to be hired. Fired. Promoted. Demoted. For almost three decades in newsrooms across this city,
- Feder never went on television or did radio. I mean,
- Feder took over Deeb's column. And made it his own,
- Gary Deeb was the reigning king of media columnists. Feder was his legman. And enterprise was his middle name,
- Godfather,
- he has no peer. I still remember a cocky new Chicago Tribune reporter,
- he is the rarest of breeds on the multimedia,
- he refused to even be interviewed. Rob believed that if you cover something critically,
- hired from New York,
- I assure you,
- I hope,
- I imagine the Magic Kingdom will be calling. And sometime after that,
- in a profile of Lakers' coach Phil Jackson,
- in high school,
- it could be performed on his desk. On the walls hang only three framed pictures. Two are of Walter Cronkite,
- it is Feder I read first. Always first. » Click to enlarge image Sun-Times columnist Carol Marin RELATED STORIES Columnist's 'dream come true' nears the end In the world of television,
- let me take you into Rob's office at the Sun-Times,
- most of it good,
- multi-platform,
- radio and print journalism,
- Rob called me one day back when I worked for CBS' "60 Minutes II" to ask if I had disclosed on the air,
- something he demonstrated at the Skokie Life newspaper before being hired by the Sun-Times. There he worked alongside a young Bruce Wolf and Paul Saltzman. Bruce later moved on to television and sportscasting. Paul is now Sun-Times metro editor. Once,
- synergistic landscape. If you pull up Rob's Sun-Times biography,
- that he and I shared an agent? I hadn't. I should have. When it comes to sources and front-page exclusives,
- that Rob formed the Walter Cronkite fan club and became its president. Cronkite is pictured in a crisp white shirt and tie,
- the legendary CBS anchorman. It was in 1973,
- the medium he often assailed for its vapidness,
- to compete against Rob. The reporter asked me out for a drink to tell me that he was going to whip Feder's you-know-what. I laughed,
- top button always buttoned. Same with Rob. Call it an outward expression of an inward conviction that there is a proper way to do things. Integrity matters most. Rob Feder has called out a lot of journalists and media bosses on questions of conduct,
- Tribune and New York Times are hurled against the front door at dawn,
- Viva Zapata,
- while covering a teachers strike for the school paper at Niles East High School in 1973,
- wished him well and watched him leave town a year or so later. Now it's Rob who's leaving. The third photo on his wall is of Walt Disney World,
- you can't belong to it. It's a conflict of interest. In that regard,
- you will learn almost nothing. So I'll tell you some of what makes his story so interesting and his contribution to journalism so important. To do that
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Carol Marin
Carol Marin is the political columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times. In addition to her work at the paper, she is the political editor for NBC5 News and an interviewer/contributer to WTTW's Chicago Tonight program. Click here to read more about Carol.
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This page contains a single entry by Carol Marin published on September 24, 2008 7:12 AM.
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My perfect little paper is going South and my mornings won't be the same. Despite what some are saying about Jay, he was exciting, and Rob Feder is going to be missed too! Keep it up, Sun-Times and
all that will be left is bad news print on paper!