Current, Former 'Sun-Times' Circ Execs Leave Jobs

By: Jennifer Saba Two weeks after news emerged that the Chicago Sun-Times had inflated its circulation numbers for several years, its current and former heads of circulation have left their jobs.

On Monday, Stephen Hastings resigned as the paper's vice president for circulation, according to Publisher John Cruickshank. Former circulation chief Mark Hornung, now president and publisher of the Daily Southtown, was placed on administrative leave by Hollinger International, which owns that paper and the Sun-Times.

Hollinger is continuing an inquiry into the circulation fraud. "There's been no finding yet," Cruickshank said in today's Sun-Times.

Michael Waters, the Daily Southtown's editor, will serve as interim publisher.

Hornung has been involved with controversy before, if for a very different reason. In 1995, he resigned as editorial page editor at the newspaper after he admitted to plagiarizing.

At that point, Hornung jumped to the business side of the Hollinger paper after working in the editorial department at the Sun-Times as columnist and editorial page editor. In the March 10, 1995 edition of the Sun-Times, Hornung wrote a letter of apology to his readers explaining the circumstances.

"The morning of February 23 I sat down to write a column I had been researching on the balanced budget amendment. Unfortunately, I had writer's block," he wrote. "A short time later, I came across an editorial on the very subject I researched in the morning's Washington Post. With deadline pressures mounting I began typing the editorial into my computer queue as notes. I then started to write over and around the notes. Determined to meet deadlines and to attend to other responsibilities, I was not mindful that I was breaking the rules of my craft. That realization came two weeks later. On Tuesday, my editor showed me copies of my column and the Washington Post editorial. After retracing my steps, I understood that I had plagiarized."

Shortly thereafter, Larry Perrotto, then CEO of the Sun-Times under the auspices of American Publishing Co., offered Hornung a position within the circulation department. "As I recall, Mark was a bright young man who made a horrible mistake. He ended his career in the editorial department and as a result we offered him a position in the circulation department," Perrotto, now CEO of Community Media Group in West Frankfort, Ill., told E&P recently. "My rationale was that he was a Chicago guy and he was very well connected. The feeling at the time was that would give him a head start."

Perrotto left the Sun-Times in 1996 when Hollinger International bought the paper.

When contacted by E&P earlier this month, Hornung would not comment on this matter or the present circulation probe. At that time, he referred phone calls to Sun-Times Publisher John Cruickshank. According to Cruickshank, Hornung left the Sun-Times at the end of 2001 and was replaced by Stephen Hastings.