Asheville/Greenville, S.C.?

This provides more details on specific actions in Asheville.

http://www.ashvegas.com/asheville-citizen-times-newsroom-loses-7-employees-in-reorganization

 

Somebody else needs a copy editor.

 

After October, The News' executive editor and publisher will be based out of Asheville and it looks like the remains of the staff will vacate the current building by the end of the year due to it being sold and to be demolished. No word on where they move to, but it is highly conceivable staff becomes entirely work from home. All staff have reapplied for jobs, though, word is several are "retiring." Won't name names since i have only heard second hand who is on that block, but two are said to be long-time editors.

Rest of the rumor is this: Asheville and G-News will merge a Sunday paper at some point in an effort to save costs. Will get some hybrid-horror name. And at some point, the News "folds" and the Greenville folks become a large bureau of Asheville under the Citizen Times banner. I don't see the second part happening anytime soon or even at all....but this is Gannett.

As someone mentioned, merging Greenville and Spartanburg would make sense on paper as being "Upstate." But the reality is the people in Spartanburg hate Greenville with a passion. They would burn down the BMW plant before ever accepting a newspaper merger in Spartanburg....unless of course the new paper was called the Herald Journal with no mention of Greenville or News.

 

I don't know about this region or this particular situation. But there is precedent for that kind of change.

Back in 1998, Gannett consolidated the dozen or so separate mastheads (and, I believe, four offices) which covered three adjacent counties just north of New York City. The new name became The Journal News, which had been the freestanding paper in Rockland County, across the river from the main office in Westchester.

Sports went from maybe 10 separate zoned editions to... four? Readers revolted as far as calling and sending letters, but I'm not sure whether there was any significant circulation hit.

That wasn't long after Gannett purchased some of its New Jersey properties, and told the pro beat writers that they were being reassigned because all that content would continue to be produced by the New York paper(s).

 

I don't think the SoCon was in town at that point. The tournament final was at noon on a Saturday. The semifinals were on Thursday, so there was a day in between. Then again, Asheville doesn't put a whole lot of money into athletics, and I can't quite figure out where the university plays in the greater scheme of things sports wise in town. As has been said, Asheville is a big-time hippie/hipster mecca. Not sure how much sports moves the needle in that city.

 

From what I've been told about what's going on, Asheville's sports staff (all three of them) is safe (for now) ... however, been told that the sports editor will be made the assistant sports editor for both Greenville and Asheville, and will have to take on more writing duties ...

I still can't see how this is going to work, especially with a combined Sunday edition ... I can see the howling from the Asheville readers when a game like Furman-Wofford is the centerpiece story, and North Carolina-Duke or North Carolina-N.C. State is stuck inside on Page 6 (and the same from Greenville readers if UNC-Duke is the centerpiece and South Carolina-Clemson is inside) ...

 

Don't think anyone has to worry about that since I'm pretty sure the Spartanburg H-J isn't owned by Gannett. It was one of the NYTRNG papers bought by Halifax.

 

I realize that the papers have separate ownership. But I wonder if the incentive of increased profits from a merged paper will lead to deals being struck. And I use Greenville and Spartanburg as an example. But there are lots of places where papers could be merged. Off the top of my head Minneapolis and St. Paul and Greensboro and High Point.

I think that while readers might object newspapers increasingly rely on retail advertising inserts from large regional or national companies. I don't think these companies would object.

I think a lot of these deals did not happen because the combined publishing/local television companies were buying more local television stations or the chain was in Chapter 11. But now stand alone publishing companies are emerging and I wonder if that will lead to more deals.

 

I figure as far as colleges go, UNCA probably ranks below the four ACC schools, App State and Western Carolina.

 

This ganged-up sports department leadership thing has been in effect in Jackson/Hattiesburg for a while, ever since the guy who isn't Rusty Hampton became the Clarion-Ledger SE or thereabouts.

My sense is that it has led, at times, to a disproportionate amount of Hattiesburg copy winding up in the Jackson paper, at least in comparison to before that. Last fall, we're talking about what would wind up being a 1-11 team getting better pride of place in some weekdays than two bowl-bound teams. Kinda odd.

 

Here is Awtry's column about the changes:

http://www.citizen-times.com/story/news/local/2014/08/23/awtry-rebuilt-newsroom/14509865/

 

Same old buzzword crap.