Tribune's Crewdson, Fang, Hedges, Madhani Laid Off
…reports the Chicago Reader‘s Michael Miner:
The Nobel Prize in medicine was awarded last month to Luc Montagnier and Francoise Barre-Sinoussi of the Pasteur Institute in Paris for discovering the HIV virus in 1983 — but not to the American scientist Robert Gallo.
This result might be interpreted as the ultimate vindication of reporter John Crewdson, who in 1988, in a 50,000-word story in the Chicago Tribune, argued that Gallo — credited back then with codiscovering the virus — had merely rediscovered Montagnier’s virus, which had been sent to Gallo as a professional courtesy. …
But all this is prelude . . .
On Wednesday the Tribune’s editor, Gerould Kern, and associate managing editor for national news Joycelyn Winnecke dropped in on the Washington bureau and laid Crewdson off. They also laid off national correspondents Bay Fang and Stephen Hedges, national security correspondent Aamer Madhani, and, I’m told, a fifth Washington staffer who worked part-time.
What a great way to cover Chicago’s new president, heading to the White House…
