Cuts coming to McClatchy papers

Dallas and Fort Worth worked out an arrangement about 10 years ago to share local pro sports beats for everything except Cowboys, but that only lasted a few years.

 

I'm still trying to understand why McClatchy, which has been in a death spiral ever since it tried to swallow Knight Ridder, makes this deal?

 

What makes no sense is anyone who hands McClatchy more money to make more purchases. They're getting crushed by the debt from the K-R purchase. What financial outfit is stupid enough to give a company who cannot pay the debts they already cannot pay more money?

 

I agree with this post. But apparently someone was going to give McClatchy 540 million dollars in equity. The article said McClatchy would deleverage.

 

Belo is consistently posting operating losses in Dallas. The market cap of the company is 83 million dollars even though they have no long term and 58 million in cash. I could see the Belo family pulling some cash out and then putting Dallas into a joint venture where McClatchy and Belo each own roughly half. Then pull some more money out from consolidating and reducing staffs.

 

Yes, the Herald-Sun (Durham) and The News & Observer (Raleigh) are technically separate papers.

But there's only one sports department for the two newspapers and it's led by The N&O's sports editor. It's been that way for more than a year. There are only two sports writers who used to be on the former Durham sports staff, and both work out of the Raleigh office. The staff consists of an SE, an ASE, a columnist, a recruiting/preps/colleges writer and beat writers for Duke, N.C. State, North Carolina and the Carolina Hurricanes (and the latter writes a good bit about colleges). All of the Carolina Panthers and Charlotte Hornets coverage comes from the Charlotte Observer. The print edition sports covers are almost always identical. The only difference in the print-edition sports sections is that Durham almost always has less space.

One executive editor (who works in Raleigh) oversees both papers. The person who used to be editor of The Herald-Sun now has the title of Western Triangle Editor.

 

Do you know why McClatchy still maintain a separate masthead? Durham circulation is down to about 10,000.

 

There is some customization on A1 and the news pages, so the whole paper isn't quite as similar as the sports sections.

 

How many staffers work for the Western Triangle editor. Typically how many Western Triangle stories? Or are the separate mastheads with a different layout of the same editorial material?

 

I'm not positive how many news staffers are still in Durham. Maybe three or four? There are no photographers remaining from the old Herald-Sun photo staff. Only minor masthead differences.

 

My recollection is it didn't even last that long.

 

McClatchy offers buyouts to 450 more. THe article does not say where the cuts will come from,


Vice Media, McClatchy Job Cuts Cap Two-Week Media Bloodbath

I read that editorial staff is down to 900 at 30 newspapers with 2017 daily circulation of a 1,300,000.