John McCormick will replace Jill Zuckman in Washington for the Chicago Tribune. Zuckman left the Tribune in February for a job as the Department of Transportation's director of public affairs and assistant to Secretary Ray LaHood.

Playbook had this Chicago Tribune memo this morning:

I am pleased to announce that John D. McCormick is the Chicago Tribune's newest Washington reporter. He will cover the Obamas, the Illinois delegation and other Chicagoans making their mark in the nation's capital. McCormick started at the Chicago Tribune in May 2002 and has done general assignment, political, database and project reporting. His introduction to Illinois politics started shortly after his arrival here, when he covered Lisa Madigan's first campaign for attorney general in 2002. More recently, he reported on the race to replace Rahm Emanuel, a contest that elected Mike Quigley as the newest member of Congress from Illinois. He first reported on Obama in July 2003, while helping with coverage of the U.S. Senate primary. In January 2007, he was assigned to cover the then-junior senator from Illinois, eventually writing stories about Obama from nearly 40 states during the two-year campaign, transition, inauguration and first 150 days in office. It was the third presidential campaign McCormick had covered in his career. Before joining the Tribune, McCormick was the computer-assisted reporting coordinator at The Des Moines Register. Besides Illinois and Iowa, he also worked at newspapers in Minnesota, his native state. At least initially, John will split his time between the Tribune's Washington Bureau and Chicago. In this specialist role, he will report to the Metro desk and will team with Mike Dorning to cover this vast beat. Together, they will be Chicago's eyes and ears in Washington.