Berkshire cuts?

Twitter says sports columnists Jerry Sullivan in Buffalo and Jerry Ratcliffe in Charlottesville are both out.

I'm not too familiar with Sullivan, but it's hard too imagine very many individuals who will be as big a loss for a paper as Ratcliffe is for The Daily Progress. It's not a stretch to say he's the lone reason a significant number of subscribers still pay for that paper.

 

Will Buffalo still have a columnist in sports? When the Twitter says Sullivan was bad for business did management mean Sullivan personally or columnists in general?

 

It amazes me how the chains simply do not care about the bylines. Their business model has ZERO to do with the actual product. You could fill a newspaper Hall of Fame with name columnists and beat writers from NFL and NBA and MLB teams shown the door by the suits in the chains. The Athletic is existing SOLELY to put these type of people to work. The newspapers? Give us all 25-to-33 year olds at 40,000 to 50,000 per annum and we're set. So Sullivan probably made 200,000 a year right? Hell, that guy has been a day-to-day decision of the suits for years now probably. I don't know how old he is but he was on the chopping block every day of his career the past 10 years or so. My question to the suits on here (Denver excluded as the Denver suits are my heroes!!!!), I know you accept all decisions from the top as great ones. But how can you justify getting rid of POPULAR name columnists as being a positive thing for a newspaper?? Tell me please.

 

Great question Lancey. I wish we knew the answer. I think it's just another company that has eager suits seeing the salary figures of the veterans and simply chopping the salary. The suits have never valued the columnists, never valued the individual reporter. "Anybody can do that job," is what the suits say at the meetings. And "anybody" is paid maybe 1/3 of what these two esteemed gentlemen make. I am familiar with their work. I wish to extend my heartfelt sympathy to them for ILL-ADVISED DECISIONS of suits.

 

Maybe Moddy can push for The Athletic Charlottesville. Hootie and I are both available.

 

What the hell is Berkshire? Family owned? Or ?

 

Berkshire Hathaway/Warren Buffett's company, right?

 

Yes. Owns several papers in Virginia, Omaha and Buffalo.