Packers writer, Journal Sentinel

You lost all credibility there. The Packers are far and away Appleton's most important sports content.

 

That may be true, but the powers that be don't see it that way. There's that huge push toward local shit, soccer tourney's, fishing contest, little league.
I believe that's what Billy was saying.

 

Then he didn't say it well. The Packers, only 35 miles down the road I should add, should not be a luxury item for Appleton, if you want to say budget cuts killed the beat that's a better way to put it. I mean, many NFL teams stay in Appleton for crying out loud. Christ, it's local by almost any definition you want to define it. And definitely "hyper local" in spades based on hyper local interest.

A real sad commentary on Gannett Wisconsin, but why am I not surprised?

Beat writers whose beat is not in the locality of their newspaper should look long and hard at this. Thank God my beat is the hometown beat, thank God my beat is "hyper local" and would be difficult to budget out of existence.

 

It's a luxury item because the Green Bay paper already throws three people at the Packers on a regular basis and Appleton picks up its content through Gannett. so the Appleton guy was really the fourth man on the beat and wasn't really adding a whole lot to the coverage.

 

That is what I was saying. There's no reason that Appleton shouldn't have one or two guys on the Packers beat considering the thirst for such coverage in that area. There's also no reason that Appleton or Gannett Wisconsin as a whole shouldn't have a Milwaukee/Madison-based writer to cover those teams as well.

But Gannett would rather see a photo gallery from a U-12 soccer tournament, a blog about men's amateur hockey and a message board about local fun runs than any thing resembling news coverage for major sports teams.

 

and let's face it, those green bay guys are never in appleton. they don't serve the appleton public.
at my last shop, it wasn't the big city by any means, but one of the things i felt the public enjoyed was seeing its media personalities around town. talking sports at the local bar. whatever.
Appleton won't get that when the "local Packers writers" are never in town. and the same can be said of most Gannett shops these days.

 

Chris Havel has been contacted by the JS and may now be the frontrunner to get this job.

 

Why would Havel be a front runner...that's a laugh. Here's a guy that got canned because wanted to take all of his vacation at once because his shoulder caused him to much heartache to type. The P-G had enough and let him go.

I can remember when he was working on a Favre column. The night that it was to run, he called the desk, put his tail between his legs and told them he didn't have it completed. The P-G had to change the budget.

He was on staff only because he was close with Favre. However, we all know the truth, because how many stories did he really break? And his columns weren't even close to thought provoking? Right after Havel was canned, Doughtery penned a great column from the Green Bay-San Francisco game which was light years beyond anything Havel could have cobbled together.

But, Havel needs the job. Getting lousy ratings for a pathetic radio gig isn't paying the bills, nor his never-ending debt.

 

Never said the guy wasn't a complete mess, just that the JS has contacted him largely because they want a recognizable name to replace Cliff Christl. I wonder if McGinn would quit if they hired Havel.

Personally, I'd hire Wilde.

 

Holy shit! I thought you were kidding with that post.

 

I don't think the JS would do anything so stupid that would lead to Bob leaving.

 

Bubbler,

I agree with you. But the problem is, when decisions come down the almighty dollar, Packer coverage is expendable. Which of course is sad.