Birmingham, Mobile and Huntsville to publish three days a week

After Sept. 30 there will be no sports staff in Huntsville. None.

A city with more than 30 high schools in its surroundings, two colleges, a Double-A baseball team and other minor sports will have no one specifically dedicated to chronicle the events. Birmingham lost most of its sports staff and has many more citizens, schools and events.

Advance claims to plan on emphasizing Sports and Entertainment. That is obvious considering the news writers, editorial boards and photography staffs were cut. But if there is no one to write about sporting events then how the fuck are they going to emphasize it adequately enough?

We all know about coaches who don't call when they lose and want to list 18 players when they win. Will they look at Advance's push to digital and say "If they don't care enough to have a sports staff why should we even bother?" I think that attitude will be prevalent.

 

Wait. They fired everyone in sports?

 

They did, but they have openings they will post. Be sure to check journalismjobs in the coming weeks and months!

 

I've been through several rounds of layoffs and am fortunate to have survived, but I've never been close to anything even close to what's happening in Alabama right now. I don't know anyone there, but I'm devastated to hear about all of this. It's bad enough when it's a few people in your newsroom, but to see entire departments being cleared out ... I can't even imagine.

I'm not familiar with the area. Are there any other smaller, community papers there that might try to scoop up some of these people and make a run at expanding, since the Huntsville paper sounds like it is simply giving up on local sports coverage?

 

So does anyone know who exactly IS left in sports between the three Bama papers?

 

Huntsville's entire newsroom has 15 people left. Mobile has 16.

http://weldbham.com/secondfront/2012/06/14/birmingham-news-cuts-were-bad-but-mobile-and-huntsville-were-worse/

 

You have to understand that every single copy editor and designer, most mid-level editors, and most managing editors at Huntsville and Mobile were not offered jobs. Then you add in a great number of reporters that weren't offered jobs, either. So that leaves very few people.

They will post some openings soon, and some of the laid off folk will get a chance to apply, but it would seem they've been given a fairly clear message about how much they're wanted.

 

If the hub's going to be in Birmingham, maybe the hiring for those positions will be made by whatever drinking bird they have running the place by that point. All I can think of.

 

If that's how they plan to do it, Mobile would be better off reporting to New Orleans.

 

This is the part I just cannot wrap my head around.
If Newhouse wants to transition to online, I can grasp that. There's a lot of problems with online that still need to be ironed out, but it'll probably happen to everyone sooner or later.
If the transition to online means cutting a few jobs, especially on the design side, I can understand that too. It's distasteful and sucks for all involved, but you don't need as many page designers if you don't have as many pages to fill. Reporters can always do more of their own filing and editing, too. It's not sound logic, but at least it's some sort of logic.

But this ... this makes no sense. You're essentially going to a 24-7 operation that ought to require MORE boots on the ground, not less. Even if you trim here and streamline there, you simply cannot put one person (or, apparently, no persons) in six places at once.
Within six months, they're going to go from being a trusted source of information to just another content farm and blog. Within a year, if they're still in business, whatever credibility they had built up from a century or more of existence is going to be shot.
And then there's no turning back, except to take one last look around at an empty office, turn out the lights and put the "For Lease" sign in the office window.
What is the endgame here?
If it's to "transition to a digital age," then no one short of a deranged lunatic can truly justify slashing two-thirds of your staff to accomplish that. Not only does it send the message that you won't be covering the same things the print edition did, which will drive customers and advertisters away, but it screams, "We can't possibly make money on this venture and therefore can't have the number of employees we once did!"
So if you're only making $100, the best plan of action is to cut the people who helped you make the $100 so you can start making $50?
I just don't understand any of this.

 

Is this the advent of "citizen sports journalism"?

Look, I could understand (although not agree with) the idea to make Huntsville a bureau and run things from a hub in Birmingham. But you just told us that the Birmingham staff was cut as well, so it stands to reason they will likely narrow their focus to closer to home.

I apologize for being such a damn vulture, but I'm just really interested to see what the product will look like come Labor Day.

 

What sense does that make?