Columnist, Kansas City

When this was first announced, there were three columnists whose names were being bantered about as possible hires.

One was Forde. The belief was they couldn't get him.
One was another Missouri guy who is a columnist at another large paper and would be a perfect pairing with Mellinger (IMO), but the columnist, who is believed to be making about $200K, was told KC couldn't or wouldn't be able to match that.
Another was another Missouri guy who is a major columnist, but was told the paper had no interest.

Keep in mind all of this came out within a week of the job being posted. I have no idea what's changed since then and there might have been several other writers mentioned as well.

 

So three Missouri grads. Assuming this job ever gets filled, let's hope the net is cast a little broader than that.

 

I'm sure it was... Those were the three I heard about.

 

I'm going to guess the third one is Dennis Dodd, without any inside knowledge to back up my guess.

 

This is going to sound really weird, but Sam needs to get rid of some of his empathy as he moves forward with the gig.

He's a good writer, a great guy, he works his butt off and he's versatile enough to write credibly about almost every sport (something Whitlock absolutely couldn't do). I like Sam's columns, but sometimes he comes across as seeing both sides of the story and not wanting to commit to either side. Because of that, he takes a lot of soft stands on things but never a hard stand. And he never nukes anyone like Whitlock used to.

Empathy is a reason I would never be a good sports columnist. If Sam starts forming strong opinions about things, he could be great.

 

Sam writes much closer to Joe Posnanski than Whitlock. And while some here in KC dinged Posnanski for the same thing, he managed to become pretty well respected while rarely taking a hard stance. That said, there are flashes of what you're talking about in Sam's writing. He's thrown out a few (although not many) columns with some bite to them.

He's not at Posnanski's level yet (who is?) but after losing those two columnists, he's done a tremendous job stepping into the role without many hiccups.

 

Dodd was not one of the three that I knew of.

 

Q1 McClatchy cash flow, as defined by the company, was down 15 million to 66 million. Interest costs are about 41 million quarterly. Pruitt said advertising was down nine percent in April. McClatchy is faced with declining revenues and 1.7 billion in debt they can not pay down. If operating cash flow continues to move towards the interest number cuts will get more frantic and McClatchy sports sections will all look like the Sacramento Bee's. No sports editor and a staff of five or six.

 

The Sacto Bee situation is hard to believe.

 

Last October when the SE hit the bricks the Sacramento Business Journal said the staff had declined from 35 to 6 or 7 (the paper printed two different numbers). There was a thread on the subject in this forum and contributors came up with six positions on the staff, a 49'er beat reporter, a Kings reporter, the columnist, a preps guy, a local college and minor league baseball guy and a recently vacated position that covered the Raiders and Bay area baseball. I don't know if the latter position was filled.

If anyone has more accurate or current information I stand corrected.

 

Sorry; that was a vague sentence on my part. I believe the Sacramento Bee numbers are accurate but the situation is so bad that it's hard to fathom.

 

I just about went into shock a few years back when the Bee got rid of Scott Howard-Cooper and Martin McNeal. Voisin, who is one of my favorite columnists, has some family tie to the Sacramento area. That was how they hired her (from the AJC I believe) in the first place. I have a friend there who wakes up every day expecting to be fired. It's a tough way to live and work.