d/fw morning star-telegram news

Agreed. That's why it's important to have competition on those major beats. Sometimes competition brings out the best in people. It also gives a different perspective and opinion on important topics.

 

Newspapers are a joke. The people that should be busting ass to make it work are the ad sales reps. Oh wait, they only work 9 to 5 unlike the reporters who work, oh, 75 hours a week and get paid for 40.
Instead of kicking ass of the sales people, papers give up. What a joke of a business.

 

Pretty sure there aren't advertisers banging down the door to advertise in this economy in a dying industry, but hey, whatever you say chief.

 

Tell that to all the one-paper markets. I know a lot of beat people who enjoy the fact that, without a second writer around, they can sit on a story for a day or two until it's convenient for them to write it. "Save" stuff for their off-day coverage.

It's an entirely different beast, covering a major beat with two or more papers swarming over it and covering where you're the only real game in town. (Don't bother offering up local TV or bloggers.)

 

Hell, if one of the papers went with AP on the beat instead of the papers sharing copy, at least they would get something different (albeit very, very processed, like Spam).

 

Oh, OK. They can step on the throats of all the writers who are forunate enough to not be laid off to work 7 days a week 10 hours a day but not step on those who sell ads to do their jobs and sell fucking ads? This business has always shit on the sports writers who are the only people in the building who hustle. Too many people at the 10 a.m. meetings think sports writers are lazy who have it made going to games. The ad people are not doing their jobs. Period. If they were held to the same standard as a good sports writer, this business would not be dead.

 

I'm glad I don't work at your paper.

If all the sports writers are working 70 hour weeks, though, you must have a kick ass section.

Hell, I am the ASE and salary and I don't generally work more than 50 a week.

 

Most sports writers I know in the business work 60-75 hours a week and get paid for 40. News writers and ad reps? 40.

 

I understand your frustrations because I have them as well about what is going on in the business, but the hyperbole is a bit much.

 

Why is this hyperbole? Take a poll of all sportswriters on here. In this environment where they tell you you are lucky to have a job? No overtime. Produce every day. News writers? 40 hours a week. Ad people? 40 hours a week. Sports writers kick ass; news writers do not. Same for ad sales people who are lazy and simply tell their bosses the print product is dead and nobody will advertise compared to say 10 years ago.

 

Not really competitors anymore. The only real circulation overlap is in the Mid-Cities. The S-T largely pulled out of Denton County when Belo bought the Record-Chronicle. They still cover UNT and Justin Northwest and that's it. The DMN largely pulled out of Arlington when its community paper venture there failed.

The beat writers still compete against each other for scoops, though, and that's a good thing. How I wish I was here when the Times Herald was still around — with three dailies competing, it was a journalistic Gold Rush.

 

This is a travesty on so many levels. The Metroplex is such a great sports town with all the pro and college athletics, not to mention some of the most prep-mad communities you'd find in Texas or in the Southwest.

The DMN and the ST are two excellent papers. Ya, they ain't what they used to be in terms of overall sports content, but their sections by and large are still better than most. Watering down the product even further is going to result in more destruction.

Pro beats should be staffed by both papers. Granted, ST's Rangers coverage has been a bit shaky since Kat O'Brien departed for Newsday, but you still need it. And Evan Grant is one of the best in the biz.

I cry for our profession sometimes.