AJC and Hartford Courant not covering Super Bowl

I've worked with two copy editors who had mail order brides. Both were very happy.

 

I think the "one of the worst big city papers" is overstating it with the AJC.

For a while there, every other post was about someone leaving that paper, which had a whole lot of talent. Someone more in the know than I can rattle off the departures but I know it includes some really good writers and editors.

And yet, I just went to their website and saw some pretty big names — Hummer, Stinson, Shultz, Bradley, Tim Tucker. I'd take that 5 against a lot of papers'. Maybe they don't have the bench they used to but those are 5 superior writers.

 

The AJC employs talented people. The question is, for what purpose? A newspaper, like any business, is defined by its goals as well as its personnel. The AJC's goal appears to be "whatever information we can provide without spending money."
That's not the goal of a big-city newspaper.

 

"The cost of doing business" is a phrase a former colleague of mine used to say all the time when discussing expenses at the paper. The cost of not doing business can ultimately be more steep in its own way, as many of you have correctly pointed out.

 

Many papers make extra money during Super Bowl week. Some papers even have enough extra ads to run a special sections.
And circulation may be a little higher on the Monday after tyhe game.
I would think Atlanta got enough extra ads and circulation to pay around $2,500 for a writer to cover the game.

 

This is nowhere near as bad as GateHouse's Boston area papers not sending someone to Phoenix last year.

 

One of the nice things about having a lineup of such strong veteran writers is that they might be traveled out after all these years and don't mind it when their newspaper doesn't cover something like, oh, the Super Bowl.

 

I guess I missed the memo that said that copy editors' marriages had to be arranged by a broker.

 

They gassed all travel (except probably for hockey, I guess) at our Canadian newspaper chain a couple of months back. At least officially.

It canceled one trip for me even though more than 80% of the cost of it, the airfare, was long bought and paid for. Would have cost another $5-600 bucks total for 2 1/2 weeks of chain-wide coverage, not to mention online and blogging and all the stuff that is "our future." But it got canned.

But we have a columnist at the Super Bowl. He's out of Vancouver, as far as it gets from Tampa (nice airfare there; I guess he could have used my credit), but supplies the chain.

Not sure I know what that means (besides, I guess, that "no travel" has a pecking order). But my point is that we don't even have an NFL team in the country, and allegedly no travel, and we still have someone there.

 

Just looked at the AJC website (12:50 a.m. ET), and you have to scroll down to find a Super Bowl reference. It's a poll on if this was the best SB ever. Chatter on the interest of Georgia players playing for Knight and college recruiting are above. Can't even find an AP gamer in the Super Bowl.

 

As of right now (1:25 a.m. ET), the lead story is about the halftime show, with a tiny link to the gamer underneath it.

Fucking pathetic.

 

There's also a front-page headline that misspells Knowshon Moreno's first name. Understandable, though. It's not as though he's one of the most recognizable athletic figures in the state or anything.