When we conducted our reader survey earlier this year, it confirmed a sentiment we also had heard in focus groups: Many Sun-Times readers would prefer to get in-depth features, analyses and investigations on Sundays, when they have more time to reflect and look ahead, than on Saturdays.
On Saturdays, readers told us, they are busy and mostly are looking for information about what’s happening that weekend. Most readers want a bigger paper on Sundays, when they can indulge in longer reads. That’s when they’re more likely to be interested in deeper and more broad-ranging stories that help them make sense of the news and put it in context, understand how the Chicago region works, enjoy life and discover more people and places in our communities.
Meanwhile, Sports Saturday, our in-depth weekly sports section chock full of features and analyses, has been published on Saturdays since its launch in April 2019. Given what we’ve learned about what readers want, that no longer seems to make sense.
As a local news nonprofit, the Sun-Times aims to help you better participate in, and make the most of, our region. We’re local journalists — your neighbors — who pride ourselves on telling the Chicago area’s stories in a way that national news outlets can’t. We want to be part of your daily life, informing the decisions you make for yourself, your family, our communities and our democracy. And we can be relevant and useful to you only if we make our decisions based on what we hear from you.
So starting today our beloved Sports Saturday section is moving to Sunday. It’s now Sports Sunday. Don’t worry, there will still be sports in the Saturday paper, including high school sports. But now you’ll find the weekly special section of sports features, analyses and historical lookbacks in the paper every Sunday.
We’re also making it a pullout section inside the paper, in what sports columnist Steve Greenberg calls a throwback to the Sun-Times of the 1980s and 1990s. For sports fans, that means you can still flip straight to the back page to find sports on Saturdays but will find Sports Sunday in the middle of the paper.
That’s not all. Based on what readers like you told us, we’re also expanding the Sunday Sun-Times with more local features; money stories; arts, culture and entertainment stories; community profiles, opinions and perspectives; and more. Your Sunday paper will be 25% larger, on average.
You’ll find a new Community page aimed at helping Chicagoans better understand each other and a revolving back page featuring something different each week. And, of course, you’ll still find plenty of news, investigations, explainers, service stories and columns in our Sunday paper, too.
We hope the newly expanded — bigger and better — Sunday Sun-Times will become a resource to help you better understand and celebrate our region, navigate important life moments, understand what the news we cover means for you, stay relevant and connected and feel in control by better understanding what’s happening — and what’s coming down the pike.
Most of all, we hope you enjoy it! We envision the paper as something that can be passed around, shared among friends or family members, full of stories that can spark discussions and help build community.
We’re excited to hear what you think. You can let us know by sending editorial feedback, suggestions or questions about the new Sunday Sun-Times to me at jkho@suntimes.com; or Ari Soglin, the weekend and special projects editor, at asoglin@suntimes.com.
If you have other questions or need customer support, please email customerservice@suntimes.com.
As always, you can send story ideas to tips@suntimes.com or follow these instructions to submit opinion pieces and letters to our editorial board.
If you like what we’re doing, please also consider supporting us with a donation, joining Sun-Times membership or signing up for a newspaper or e-paper subscription, if you haven’t already.
Thanks for reading!
