Big Doings in Dallas

Right on, Shot, but frighteningly that's how papers have tried to distinguish themselves. Some writers, too. See Albom, Mitch. See where his lack of evolution has hurt this industry. Notice none of the job ads ever say "complete our paper. Give us what our readers want." It's all about winning awards. Sad.

Frank, as usual, bullseye. When papers realize that one-stop shopping - that delicate balance of local, regional, national and international news - is the ticket, I think this industry will be much healthier.

Jake, forget Durham in all this. The fact that they're having to portray the N&O/Raleigh as the bad guys tells you how desperate they are. If they really cared about their local news and their readership, they wouldn't have been so hasty to run half the newsroom out before the ink was dry on the sale. The Herald-Sun can burn in hell. Hopefully, some of us will be there with the marshmallows and the hot dogs ... that is, after some good people in Durham get back on their feet with jobs at worthwhile papers run by more intelligent beings than the fools at Paxton.

 

Tell me about Sam. The situation in Durham would be laughable if it hadn't cost so many people their jobs. Now instead of hiring anybody back their spending the money on a bunch of radio, TV and billboard ads letting everyone know how they are the only paper that cares about Durham. It's sickening.

 

There are only a select few fan bases in all sports whose followers are as deliriously well-informed as a large sect of Cowboys fans. By that, I mean they can tell you who's on the taxi squad, why he sucks or why he should be the 53rd guy on the roster, who's the backup long snapper, who's vulnerable on punt coverage, who's shaded too far, which position coach has his head up his ass. They're not getting this stuff from the Dallas Morning News -- they already know it. They are as close to being subject experts as they'll ever be without actually doing the job.

To own that beat, to truly own it and to be it, you have to do a hell of a lot more than study the team's caponomics, overstate to fans in Q&As that "Bill Parcells can still coach" or that "Quincy Carter has a lot of pressure on him" and/or write glossy, superficial coffee table books about the Cowboys.

 

Perhaps it's worth noting here that when Quincy Carter was released two summers ago, he returned Jacques' calls. Not the S-T's.

 

Perhaps it's worth noting here that when Quincy Carter was released two summers ago, he returned Jacques' calls. Not the S-T's.
in a case like that one, it's based upon an individual player's relationship with a particular reporter. it's not necessarily a reflection of "owning" a beat. to "own" a beat, you must do more than suck up to one player. in dallas these days, it seems my old pal parcells has done a pretty good job of quieting the pipeline to the dmn.

 

This is probably an apropriate question for this thread -- we've heard rumors (far more fire than smoke) of a coming "restructuring" of our entire operation, including our newsroom because of rising costs, dipping ad revenue and the whole nine.

Does anyone have any idea what "restructuring" could entail and whether that is a gentle way of saying we should all start preparing resumes?

 

Why do I get the feeling you're one of those expert fans who could cover the beat better than Jacques? :

 

Maybe in most markets sports doesn't drive circulation, but in most major markets it most definitely does. I don't care what your surveys say.

In the NFL city where I grew up, the 1A centerpiece on Monday in the fall was the football game. Always.

Sports is the one section that will convince people to buy a paper on its own. You don't see people buy a newspaper and then throw out everything except the Living section.

But that's the way it works with sports.

If Sports is "Way Down" on your surveys, why the hell do tabloids devote the entire back cover to Sports?

 

greenie, whatever.

 

Whenever newsroom wags bag on sports, I challenge them. Next time they go through an airport and see newspapers sitting on a table at a gate, pick up that paper and tell me which section is missing. That's especially so if you're flying American through DFW. SportsDay is always missing, not features.

That said, as a former Texas resident and subscriber to the DMN I'm very curious to see what happens here. I know some people who would be out of jobs, which is sad.

 

I know someone, though, who takes the Sports sections for reference to PC blathering, etc.

Just thought I'd throw that out there ...

 

There are plenty of people who read only the comics, or the obits, or the movie listings, or the syndicated columnists. And people who read only features. And plenty of people who never look at sports. It has a passionate readership, but I don't think it necessarily has the biggest readership. Yeah, advancing on 1A something that's gonna draw 70,000 or have a million local viewers watching on TV is prudent. Betting the farm on interest in sports is not.