Greeley (Co.) Tribune lays off sports department

I think that is an interesting story idea. But I think that story would require someone with an encyclopedic knowledge of FCS football which no one on the Greeley (or in fairness, most other papers that actually have sportswriters) possesses or a lot of research. And if someone took the time how many page views would it receive? I believe in the mind of Gatehouse executives analytical pieces do not generate enough page views to be worthwhile.

 

Depends how you phrase things. You don't have to look at every coach who made the jump. Just find some examples. Sample 10-20 coaches that made the jump if you can find them. You might need to call a few knowledgeable SIDs or others who are familiar with FCS to pick their brains, but I bet you could put a list together without a ton of leg work. And if you started down the road and find it's going to take a lot more work, you drop it before you invest too much time.

 

Except we're talking Greeley here. The reporter assigned to that would no doubt have to cut it short so he/she could go take a photo of the Pet of the Week.

 

Sadly true

 

Well, now Greeley is someone else's problem.

Swift Communications sells Greeley Tribune to leading newspaper operator MediaNews Group | GreeleyTribune.com

 

And here come more layoffs.

 

Everything I’ve heard about Greeley since it was last in the news is that it is in a bad, bad place financially, so yeah, surely more layoffs, but I don’t think there’s much fat to be cut.

Guess we’ll see.

 

There surely isn’t any fat. They’re down to the bones.

 

Just like the meat-packing plant in town, the new owners will grind up the bones of that newspaper and hope the public keeps buying it.

 

MediaNews already owns papers for cities within 50 miles distance in Loveland, Longmont, Boulder and Denver. If the Greeley paper is not already printed at the Denver Post plant it soon will be. And operations will soon be consolidated with the other other small newspapers.

The owners, Swift Communciations, also owns several mountain town papers in Colorado. Are they also being sold to MediaNews? The story seems to imply that but does not actually say if the papers are sold.

I read that Yelp has crushed the revenues of resort town newspapers. In pre-internet days a resort town a tourist would buy a paper and look at the ads for restaurants, etc. Now a tourist simply looks at Yelp on his mobile phone. I wonder what is going to happen to those papers.

 

The resort papers were not included. It was just Greeley.

I think some of the mountain papers are healthier than others, but none were in as bad of shape as Greeley.

FWIW, the Swift resort papers are free. (Some other mountain papers do charge, but the resort communities don't.)

 

Where has Greeley been printed?