A former Chicago Tribune writer who took a buyout from the company has picked up 35,000 email subscribers since launching his own website, according to media columnist Robert Feder.
John Kass told Feder that he is excited about the energy coming from his website and that he may try to monetize the traffic that he is experiencing. Kass also said that he is contemplating a return to talk radio.
“I’m in meetings now with various broadcast entities to continue talking to people in Chicago,” he said. “I think they might want to hear what I have to say.”
Kass was one of 40 journalists to exit the Tribune in the current round of buyouts.
“I think what happened generally is that clearly I offered a dissenting voice,” Kass said. “I am conservative. I cannot speak to the minds of those who disparaged me and defamed me, but I think that they did not like the fact that I refused to join the union. They repeatedly asked me to join. So, they defamed me. I was not happy about it. But, you know, we move on. So I moved on.”
