MacDonald

Reader media columnist Michael Miner reports that publisher Michael Crystal resigned from the paper yesterday. The interim publisher is Kirk MacDonald, who is chief operating officer of Creative Loafing, Inc. He expects to spend three days a week in Chicago, according to the Reader. Steve Timble, the founding publisher of Time Out Chicago, has been named the new associate publisher, and is "Crystal's heir apparent," according to Miner. Crystal, who had been publisher since 2004, will move back to Seattle. "[He] was an unruffled sort of executive whose manner recalled the good old days at the Reader, when there was nothing much to get ruffled about," Miner writes. "Those of us who remember those days remember them fondly." In other Reader news, this week the paper launches a pullout music section and additional design updates.