Benmaller.com: LA Times to drop hockey road coverage for Ducks and Kings

A major NY paper did not cover the Stanley Cup Finals, NBA Finals or Wimbledon.

 

It's not a hockey problem. The LA Times has slashed the shit out of their sports page.

Even the Saturday letters to the editor, a hallowed LA Times sports page tradition, has been hacked to shit. Roughly half the size it used to be. And the Times doesn't even have to pay those writers!

 

In the stands, the Panthers are lucky to break 10,000 a game

 

It's not bunk.  It's why more and more people are deciding they don't really need to subscribe to the newspaper.

On some nights during the season, more than 30,000 people in the Times coverage area were at NHL games.  That's not exactly an insignificant number.  The following isn't as rabid as it is in northeastern and Canadian markets, but it does exist.

It's really pretty simple - the less the newspaper covers, the less reason I have to subscribe.

I grew up in southern California reading the LA Times.  I'm in journalism largely because of people who write or wrote for the Times.  When I visit LA now it saddens me to see how bad that sports section has become, at least in comparison to how it was 15 or 20 years ago.

 

also not at Stanley Cup finals: New jersey, Lawn Guyland, Washington. Only one of two Boston papers. Only one of two Philly papers. No NY Post.

 

The LA Times has a Hall of Fame hockey writer and they cut back her work.

This is ridiculous.

As I have said before, the LA Times would be no better than the third-best sports section if it was in New York. Will the parent company Chicago Tribune cut back road coverage of the Chicago Black Hawks, who have been awful for quite a while? I don't think so.

 

Just about anywhere.

Why exactly does anyone do gamers any more? I mean, seriously, other than a few quotes (which you'll often get on the late night SportsCentre) there's no reason to read them. You've seen what happened a thousand times.

Newspapers are supposed to contain N-E-W-S. Last night's gamer is about as current as last month's.

Extended features and columns are the way to go, IMO.

As I said, this has less to do with hockey and more about the state of print media.

 

Agreed, to an extent. Straight gamers are AP's niche. If you're going to cover a game, write something other than a straight gamer (although don't go overboard with finding another angle, you still gotta report the story when it's there.)

 

I'm with PC. This is one more reason not to read what used to be an incredible section.

Not that this is Randy Harvey's fault, because a bigger writer's friend is hard to find and EE Dean Baquet???? Well, I'll leave it at that. But after the Times forced Hall of Fame baseball writer Ross Newhan into a buyout a couple of years ago, they're two for four in kneecapping HOF writers of the four major sports.

If I were recently inducted NBA writer Mark Heisler, I wouldn't spend any spare Marriott points.

 

I disagree.

The first thing gone should be stuff like sending reporters to cover the golf majors, tennis majors, the Kentucky Derby/big horse racing events, Indy 500, etc. Nobody at big events like that where there's plenty of wire copy available that will cover the same ground as your writer.

Maybe the L.A. Times has already done that. But that would be first to go if I were in charge.

Another question would be, has the Times taken obvious steps to control costs like finding lower airfares and not allowing writers to stay at $250/night hotels?