2007: “Never knew, didn’t care.”1986: “Never knew, didn’t care.”
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Any magazine worth its salt has someone on it like Chris Newman, someone who’s blunt, impolitic, and intolerant of frivolous excursions when there’s God’s work to be done. Chicago magazine began as a program guide for WFMT. It grew and grew, turned into a city monthly, and in 1976, the year WFMT renamed it Chicago, Newman came on staff. She’d gotten her master’s in English at the University of Chicago, she’d done a stretch at Playboy — and doing God’s work for Chicago went beyond turning straw into gold; as the magazine’s literary editor! she went out and found writing that was gold already. The Nelson Algren Award, which Chicago introduced in 1981, was her doing.
That’s why a few days ago the two magazines laid off five employees between them. The only one with an editorial job was Newman.
