If you watch ESPN's daily round table sport talk show, Around the Horn, you know that Jay Mariotti is a columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times. Or I should say, he was a columnist. Right after the Beijing Olympics, Mariotti returned to the show and all the other reporters -- and host Tony Reali -- kept zinging Jay about not being with the Chicago Sun-Times anymore. At no point did they explain that Mariotti was not fired from his post, he quit.

Then I discovered that a fellow Sun-Times employee, and former TV star himself (At the Movies with Ebert & Roeper), film critic Roger Ebert, was ticked off with Mariotti. Specifically, Ebert reviewed the way Jay chose to walk away from his job. Ebert pointed out that Mariotti had screwed his editors at the Sun-Times by signing a new contract, going to China on their dime (which was actually thousands of dollars), then left the job with a cold e-mail that said simply, "I quit."

I guess Mariotti felt like the newspaper could dump him with an equally cold, "You're fired," but common courtesy suggests that he should have given two-week notice. Or maybe that kind of courtesy is as outmoded a concept as saying thank you for service or holding the door for someone else?

We've all been waiting a long time for Roger Ebert to come back to his seat on Ebert & Roeper, and now it looks like we might have to wait a while longer.

Ebert writes in a message on his web site that he has gone in for more surgery today. He doesn't go into details about the procedure, but he says that he hopes that this will "solve some problems I've been living with." He won't be in the hospital as long as he was before, but it's not day surgery either. He'll be in there long enough to have prepared some film reviews and other columns in advance so they can run while he's away.

Kiefer Sutherland thinks it's a possibility.

He told the Chicago Sun-Times' Doug Elfman he sometimes thinks that, at the end of 24's run, it might make sense to have the intrepid Jack Bauer character meet his maker.

Either that, or have Jack reunite with estranged daughter Kim Bauer and Bauer's former gal pal, Audrey Raines and, presumably, ride off into the sunset.

Sutherland also told Elfman that, when it comes to torture, he doesn't condone the methods his fictional alter-ego uses to interrogate people. "I very strongly disagree with the idea that we need Jack Bauers out there in the world doing that," Sutherland said.

Despite yesterday's report in the LA Times, Saturday Night Live actor Horatio Sanz says he's still a member of the cast. He tells the Chicago Sun-Times that he doesn't know "what the hell is going on" but he has no reason to believe he's out of a job. The LA Times says that Sanz, Kenan Thompson, and Chris Parnell are out. But, TMZ.com says it's Sanz and Will Forte who are cut from the show. (Will says he's staying, too) And the New York Post says Maya Rudolph is considering leaving the show.

Lorne Michaels had better speak up soon.

[Via Pop Candy and TV Tattle]

Film critic Roger Ebert was reported hospitalized in serious condition Sunday after emergency surgery was performed on him Saturday evening.

The operation was needed to correct damage that was caused by an earlier procedure that took place back on June 16th to remove a cancerous growth on his salivary gland. Repaired was a blood vessel that broke near the area where the June operation took place. Ebert has had a series of operations to remove cancers. Back in 2002 he underwent surgery for papillary thyroid cancer. One year later he went under the knife to remove an earlier growth on his salivary gland.

Richard Roeper, Ebert's current co-host on their nationally syndicated movie-review show, told the Chicago Sun-Times that Roger was stable after the emergency procedure and that he was expected to make a full recovery. Roeper replaced Ebert's former partner, Gene Siskel, back in 2000 after Siskel passed away a year earlier.

Film critic Roger Ebert is going to have his fourth cancer surgery on June 16th, two days before his 64th birthday.

Ebert has already had three surgeries. In 2002, he had a malignant tumor removed from his thyroid gland, and in 2003 he had two surgeries on his salivary glands. Ebert says that the cancer is not life-threatening, he won't need radiation therapy, and he'll continue as a film critic while all of this is going on.

On a personal note, I wish Ebert well. He has always been very generous and kind to me in my other life as a magazine publisher, contributing articles when he really didn't have to, so I hope that everything turns out OK and he's back battling with Richard Roeper about the summer movies.

Update: Ebert will tape several episodes of Ebert & Roeper so they will air during his recovery.

[via Romenesko]