Blood in the streets of Hartford and Baltimore

[Johnny Dangerously]

So, since McClatchy started the ball rolling on June 16, any SportsJournalists.com math majors care to figure up the total carnage in the biz over the last 10 days?

McClatchy: 1400
Boston and Hartford: 157
Daytona Beach: 99
Palm Beach: 300
Newport: 15

Total so far: 1,971 jobs axed in 10 days. Who knows how many more to come by the end of the week.

Don't forget 110 from the Detroit Media Partnership.

2,181

the 30 from the Oregon newspaper.

2,311. I hope thats the last of it for a while.

The Ledger-Enquirer in Columbus, Ga., had some buyouts recently. Christa Turner, for one, is leaving (with cash in hand) and going to work as ASE in Anniston, Ala., essentially her hometown. There were others who took the buyout, but she's the youngest.

I don't have exact numbers. Was gonna start a thread on that, but this seems like as good a place as any to mention it. Anyone with more info, feel free to expound.

And if this is a d_b, gimme a break: I spent most of the past 3 weeks ruining my back at the Sleep Inn in Omaha, a misnomer if there ever was one.

 

[Joe Williams]

Agree with the sentiment above: Newspapers and newspaper management sold out a while back, freeing all of us from the stigma of selling out when we look for the best places to land away from newspapers.

I do feel that those of us who stay, continuing to line the pockets (or at least service the debts) of those who are ruining this business, can be labeled professional "sellouts" a lot more readily than those of us who draw a line in the sand for journalism, the treatment of colleagues and the product we offer the audience . . . and leave. We all do what we have to do for house payments, kids' tuition, groceries, etc., but a lot of us wouldn't even have chosen this work if it had been run like any other stupid business, by the jackasses who dominate it now. We enable them now as they trample the values and standards that drew us to it, and try to convince ourselves we're still fighting the good fight. Yeah right, until that first time we zip our lips and don't challenge some latest idiot dictum from the barbarians above, at which point they own our asses.

 

[Mizzougrad96]

I don't know who is more screwed, those of us who leave or those of us who stay.

Do you really want to keep a job where you're going to be doing 3X the work to make up for all of those who have been let go?

 

[Omar_dont_scare]

I don't know who is more screwed, those of us who leave or those of us who stay.

Do you really want to keep a job where you're going to be doing 3X the work to make up for all of those who have been let go?

Nah, they'll just take all that stuff off AP.

 

[BTExpress]

Do you really want to keep a job where you're going to be doing 3X the work to make up for all of those who have been let go?

Only 2X the work. Space reductions take care of the rest.

It's not the work. It's the "Dead Man Walking" mentality I'm sick of. Even if you keep your job, it's only safe until the next quarterly report hits the bean counters' desk. Like working on a 3-month contract for the rest of our lives.

 

[zebracoy]

I don't know who is more screwed, those of us who leave or those of us who stay.

Do you really want to keep a job where you're going to be doing 3X the work to make up for all of those who have been let go?

Nah, they'll just take all that stuff off AP.

Not when it's "hyperlocal"!

 

[Mizzougrad96]

Do you really want to keep a job where you're going to be doing 3X the work to make up for all of those who have been let go?

Only 2X the work. Space reductions take care of the rest.

It's not the work. It's the "Dead Man Walking" mentality I'm sick of. Even if you keep your job, it's only safe until the next quarterly report hits the bean counters' desk. Like working on a 3-month contract for the rest of our lives.

The space issues are made up for by having to file everything three times for the web...

The running joke with the deskers at my place is....

"Talk to you tomorrow..."

"Not if HR talks to either one of us first..."

 

[Mizzougrad96]

I don't know who is more screwed, those of us who leave or those of us who stay.

Do you really want to keep a job where you're going to be doing 3X the work to make up for all of those who have been let go?

Nah, they'll just take all that stuff off AP.

Not when it's "hyperlocal"!

There are papers with local NHL teams that are openly talking about not covering them anymore.

Forget not traveling. No beat writer at all.

That's what it's come to.

Pretty soon most papers will be columnists, prep writers and a shirtload of AP copy.

 

[Joe Williams]

Do you really want to keep a job where you're going to be doing 3X the work to make up for all of those who have been let go?

Only 2X the work. Space reductions take care of the rest.

It's not the work. It's the "Dead Man Walking" mentality I'm sick of. Even if you keep your job, it's only safe until the next quarterly report hits the bean counters' desk. Like working on a 3-month contract for the rest of our lives.

And knowing, absolutely knowing, that all those skills and talents and sacrifices you have brought to the work are not appreciated one bit by the bean counters, who look at you as just another costly, ideally expendable line on a ledger.

If you stay and don't alter your behavior over that, you're a naive fool. If you stay and, in fact, change your behavior to that reality, then you've sold your ownself out. If you go, you'll soon be scrambling to cover your living expenses while dealing with a horrible job market.

It's a lose-lose-lose situation. Except for Singleton, Zell, their ilk and the bosses on the mastheads.

 

[BTExpress]

There are papers with local NHL teams that are openly talking about not covering them anymore.

Forget not traveling. No beat writer at all.

Philly Inquirer did not staff Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point game in Hershey, Pa. Neither did most NY papers. Photos only exist because an AP photographer went to the game with his son on his own time . . . and realized something special was happing. Went to his car, grabbed his camera. Voila, a picture of Wilt holding a hand-made sign with "100" scribbled on it.

This culture of traveling every step with every major team on the road is actually an 80s-90s thing, hardly indicative of the history of newspapers.

Expansion has turned 0- or 1-pro sport towns into 3- or 4-pro sport towns in the past 20 years.

It took a 90s economy and no internet to support that kind of wall-to-wall coverage we became spoiled by.

 

[Joe Williams]

There are papers with local NHL teams that are openly talking about not covering them anymore.

Forget not traveling. No beat writer at all.

Philly Inquirer did not staff Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point game in Hershey, Pa. Neither did most NY papers. Photos only exist because an AP photographer went to the game with his son on his own time . . . and realized something special was happing. Went to his car, grabbed his camera. Voila, a picture of Wilt holding a hand-made sign with "100" scribbled on it.

This culture of traveling every step with every major team on the road is actually an 80s-90s thing, hardly indicative of the history of newspapers.

Expansion has turned 0- or 1-pro sport towns into 3- or 4-pro sport towns in the past 20 years.

It took a 90s economy and no internet to support that kind of wall-to-wall coverage we became spoiled by.

Very interesting take, BT. Valid, too. Makes me wonder why more newspapers, feeling so strapped, don't skip more road games already. They could strategically skip 10-20 percent of them (OK, not the NFL but the others) and hardly hurt overall coverage. In the advance-gamer-follow model, only the gamer and that day's notes would be cranked out by a stringer or the AP, and it often might make for meatier second-day stories.

I guarantee you the rest of the newsroom would love to see Sports departments scale back a little on the travel budget.

 

[WaylonJennings]

There has not been a writing job posted on APSE since at least before May 1.