What your Monday newspaper had on Super Bowl LVIII

Did your Monday newspaper have the final score of Super Bowl LVIII in a story or column? Did it have anything staff-written on the game? Did your newspaper staff the game? Did it regularly staff the game in the past?

I'm asking to get one gauge of where the newspaper industry is at in 2024.

 

No Monday paper. Since I've been here, my shop has went from six days to five (cut out Monday) to now twice weekly.

Hopefully, I'll have a new job by the next Super Bowl. Or be unemployed. Either is preferable to working at a place under Hopsice care. The paper needs to die and be put out of its misery, and I need to move on with my life.

 

Oh hell no. Not with a 6 or 7 p.m. deadline, from what current reporters tell me. It was the 5th or 6th story on the website, though.

 

Only if the e-Edition counts as a “newspaper.” And even then, only because we’re in the Pacific time zone did we stick around for the AP gamer and sidebar (on guess who?).

Our shop switched to mailing the paper instead of using hard to find (and pay) carriers recently, moving our print editions from W-F-Sun to Tues-Thur-Sat. It’s basically killed any timely news or sports stories from being in print.

 

Not to me.

Perhaps I should have used a few extra words and written "print edition." The main reason I specified newspaper was that I was planning on writing another thread asking, "What in 2024 brings in more revenue for your newspaper -- the print edition or online?

(That question exempts the Big Three of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post because they have unique reasons to be able to generate a lot of revenue online.)

 

I would rephrase that as “Do either the print edition or the websites and E-editions bring in revenue for your newspaper?”

 

Guess I'm too lazy to look, but anyone know how the Kansas City Star handled the news?

 

Not sure about elsewhere, but when we switched to only three days a week of print two years ago, the e-Edtions only had advertising as a throw-in for print advertisers. So they bring in zero ad revenue.

As far as subscriptions (which never have been a huge source of revenue), the e-Editions are supposedly read by “a couple thousand” people each day, so at best they kept 1,000 to 2,000 people from canceling their subscription when we reduced print days. And of course the e-Editions allow our owner and publisher to still claim we’re a newspaper that publishes an edition every day.

Are they worth the effort and expense to produce? Hey, I’m not an accountant here (thank G*d!)

 

Doubt print had anything for Monday. The deadline was 8:30 ET when I was at McClatchy. It's printed in Des Moines, Iowa.

They're advertising their commemorative TUESDAY print covers.

https://www.kansascity.com/sports/nfl/kansas-city-chiefs/article285354177.html

 

At least online, the Star had a shitload of coverage. They have jumped into video with both feet, though, which I hate. I’ll read your story but not look at your lame-ass video.

Vahe is great, but McDowell — while fine — is for me a pretty big step down from Mellinger, who is now with the Royals.

 

The thing I remember about doing the Star during my McClatchy days is that their writers wrote as if they were getting paid by the word. My God, could they fill up a section quickly. News side AND sports side.

And typically only Vahe was worth the length he put out.

 

Vahe, to me, is the best sportswriter in America. Wish he had a national profile.