Piling On: Ebert Calls Mariotti 'A Rat' As 'Sun-Times' Stays On Attack

By: Mark Fitzgerald Reacting to sportswriter Jay Mariotti's sudden resignation three days ago, Chicago Sun-Times Editor in Chief Michael Cooke said the tabloid wouldn't miss him after a "few days."

Friday is apparently too soon, as the newspaper kept up its criticism of a columnist they had marketed for 17 years, and barely two months ago signed to a three-year contract extension.

Under a huge headline reading, "Jay The RAT," the newspaper published an open letter to Mariotti by its best-known personality, Roger Ebert.

"What an ugly way to the leave the Sun-Times," the letter starts.

Ebert castigated Mariotti for quitting a day after traveling and reporting from the Beijing Olympics on the struggling newspaper's dime. The columnist compounded the insult by refusing to give the paper any explanation of why he was quitting, Ebert said.

"As someone who was working here for 24 years before you arrived, I think you owed us more than that," Ebert wrote. "You owed us decency. The fact that you saved your attack for TV only completes our portrait of you as a rat."

Ebert stoutly defends the long-term health of the newspaper industry in general, and the Sun-Times in particular, reacting to Mariotti's contention that the tabloid and other dailies are doomed in an Internet era.

"Job-hunting tip: It is imprudent to go on TV and predict the collapse of a newspaper you might hope would hire you," Ebert wrote. "Times are hard in the newspaper business, and for the economy as a whole. Did you only sign on for the luxury cruise? There's an old saying that you might have come across once or twice on the sports beat: 'When the going gets tough, the tough get going.'"

And Ebert predicted Mariotti's print style won't translate in other media. "Good luck getting one of your 1,000-word rants on the air," he wrote.

Ebert's open letter ran in the sports pages. Up front, columnist Neil Steinberg wrote a column sarcastically headlined "Jay Mariotti: A tribute."

The bulk of the column was devoted to an admiring portrait of Rick Telander, who is the Sun-Times' other headliner sportswriter.

Steinberg said it is a "misconception" that Mariotti's former colleagues hated him.

"We do not hate him -- at least we struggle not to," Steinberg wrote. "I have helped friends work through their intense feelings of deep visceral dislike of Jay, assuring them that it puts them at his level, and is also unnecessary. 'The man is his own worst punishment,' I always say."