Eric Zorn

Eric Zorn, born January 6, 1958, is a columnist and a blogger for the "Chicago Tribune". Zorn plays and is an advocate for folk music.

Zorn is a 1980 graduate of the University of Michigan, where he was an arts section editor at the Michigan Daily and a creative writing/English literature major. After he had served a four-month internship at the Miami Herald, he came to work at the Chicago Tribune from 1980 forward. After five years as a feature author and TV/radio columnist in the "Tempo" portion of the paper, he went to the metro news section. In 1986 he became a news-feature columnist. His column, "Hometowns", developed gradually into his eponymous news commentary column.

He is a co-author of the 1990 book, "Murder of Innocence", a study of the life and tragic rampage of Winnetka schoolhouse killer Laurie Dann.

Zorn and fellow Chicago Tribune metro columnist Mary Schmich occasionally write a week of columns that consist of a back-and-forth exchange of letters. Each December, Zorn and Schmich host the "Songs of Good Cheer" holiday caroling parties at the Old Town School of Folk Music to raise money for the Tribune Holiday Fund charities. They also appear most Wednesday afternoons at 1:30 p.m. on WGN-AM 7:20

Family

Eric Zorn's wife, Johanna Zorn, is founder and executive director of the Third Coast International Audio Festival on Chicago Public Radio. They have three children: Alex (1989) and twins Annalise and Ben (1997).

Zorn is the grandson of mathematician Max Zorn and of noted Indiana historian John D. Barnhart. [http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2005/12/in_memory_of_a_.html]

His parents teach at the University of Michigan—Jens C. Zorn in physics (retired in 2007), and Frances B. Zorn in medical careers.

Columns of note

In his column and later in his blog, Zorn has been an early advocate of a few ideas that later caught on and/or attracted notice:
* He may have been the first to advocate the "forever stamp" for U.S. postage in a column in December 1994. [citation
last=Zorn | first=Eric | author-link=Eric Zorn
date=1994-12-27 | newspaper=Chicago Tribune
title=To the post office, it's a lick of cents | url=http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2006/05/more_than_11_ye.html | accessdate=2008-07-10]

* He was an early promoter of the laser measuring system for first downs in football [citation
last=Zorn | first=Eric | author-link=Eric Zorn
date=2005-10-10 | newspaper=Chicago Tribune
title=Football: Cast off your chains!
url=http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2005/10/football_cast_o.html | accessdate=2008-07-10] and laser ball/strike detection in baseball. [citation
last=Zorn | first=Eric | author-link=Eric Zorn
date=1997-10-23 | newspaper=Chicago Tribune
title=Let machine make the call: 'UMP, YER OUT!'
url=http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2006/05/roping_in_the_c.html | accessdate=2008-07-10]

* In May 2006, he wrote a column coining "Zorn's Law", [citation
last=Zorn | first=Eric | author-link=Eric Zorn
date=2006-05-26 | newspaper=Chicago Tribune
title=Zorn's Law | url=http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2006/05/zorns_law.html | accessdate=2008-07-10] stating that, in any debate, the first person to hurl the insult, "get a life!" is the loser. In actions he later admitted to be "whims and stunts" [citation
last=Zorn | first=Eric | author-link=Eric Zorn
date=2006-06-05 | newspaper=Chicago Tribune
title=Land of Linkin' (fourth item) | url=http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2006/06/land_of_linkin.html | accessdate=2008-07-10] , he promoted the "law" on the online encyclopedia Wikipedia as if already well known; in a July 2006 followup article, he concluded that Wikipedia's editing process basically works. [citation
last=Zorn | first=Eric | author-link=Eric Zorn
date=2006-07-04 | newspaper=Chicago Tribune
title=I fought for the law, but the law lost | url=http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2006/07/i_fought_for_th.html | accessdate=2008-07-10]

References

External links

* [http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chicago/chi-ericzorn,0,2556258,bio.columnist Eric Zorn biography]
* [http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/ Change of Subject weblog] - includes Zorn's columns as published in the ink-on-paper Chicago Tribune